Crescent City Blues and BBQ Fest
Crescent City Blues and BBQ Fest 2011 at night.
Countless musicians were among the hundreds of thousands displaced from their homes, jobs and communities during and after Hurricane Katrina. Rebuilding has been an expectedly arduous process, but many unique and even visionary actions have been taken to not only bring New Orleans back, but to make the city better than it has ever been before.
Since Hurricane Katrina, food and music festivals, especially when combined, have proven extremely lucrative for local businesses and have become the bread and butter for many artists—culinary, musical, visual and technical alike. These festivals have been a chief focus for the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Foundation, who produces several notable festivals in the area, including Jazz Fest—their flagship—Congo Square Rhythms Festival and the Crescent City Blues and BBQ Fest.
Scott Aiges, Director of Programs, Marketing and Communications, joined the Foundation's efforts in fall 2006, just as the festival expansion plan was first being implemented.
"The primary goal in the immediate aftermath of Katrina was to create employment opportunities for our musicians," he says. "The secondary goal is to try to grow new events that could add to the tourism economy of New Orleans."
Now in its sixth year, the Blues & BBQ Fest has accomplished both of these goals and still continues to grow and improve in overall quality. This year the fest has expanded to include a Friday evening show in addition to two full days of music, food and crafts from October 14-16—yet still remains completely free of admission and open to the public.
Festival organizers have high hopes to surpass last year's attendance, which was already an impressive 16,000 attendees—60 percent of whom were from out of state, and 5 percent of them were from outside the U.S.
The basic festival model remains the same:
food and craft vendors are set up in and along Lafayette Square Park, and live musical acts alternate between two stages constructed at St. Charles and Camp Streets respectively. This year, the Camp Street stage has expanded in size and quality with speaker towers and a more elevated platform to ensure a better overall presentation.
The musical element itself has expanded to host more national acts onstage with our local talent. Headliners for 2011 include Shreveport guitarsmith Kenny Wayne Shepherd, soul-singing superstar Bettye LaVette, and the steel pedal guitar wizards of the Campbell Brothers, among others.
"We're definitely mindful of our mission and doing our best not to lose sight of the fact that our primary responsibility is to employ our local musicians," says Aiges. "But if these events are to grow, then we have to change things up from year to year, and we have to have more, better and more exciting talent."
Keeping with that dedication to fresh musical offerings, the 2011 lineup features exciting new talents like Mississippi bluesman Super Chikan and the South Memphis String Band in addition to local blues and fest veterans like Little Freddie King, Luther Kent, Tab Benoit, Washboard Chaz and Walter "Wolfman" Washington. The full lineup and their timeslots are available on the festival's web site.
The festival's other prized component— the grilled and smoked delicacies of Southern barbeque—has also been stepped up in quantity and quality over the years, overseen by Jazz Fest's deputy food coordinator Renee Tervalon.
"She's really terrific and understands all of the festival aspects—not just great food, but also mundane things like food safety and preparation and things like that," says Aiges. "So we're grateful to have her keeping a watchful eye over all of the vendors and making sure everyone is up to the highest standards."
And the high standards of New Orleans' culinary enthusiasts are sure to be met by beloved favorites like grilled lamb ribs from Lucy's Retired Surfer Bar, succulent brisket platters and sandwiches from The Joint, to-die-for ribs and sides from Oak Street's Squeal BBQ, and the cochon du lait po-boy from Walker's—the very cochon du lait poboy gobbled annually by Jazz Festers—among numerous other new and revisiting food vendors. A full list of participating restaurants can be found on the festival's web site.
The Foundation turns yet again to the expertise of seasoned Jazz Fest organizers to ensure top quality among the festival's art and crafts offerings—another inseparable component of the traditionally multi-faceted New Orleans festival experience. Crafts coordinator Sally Schur will use her extensive experience and ties to the crafter community to provide a diverse lineup of local and regional artisans set up in numerous booths throughout Lafayette Square.
Crowd and interest increases have also prompted the addition of new amenities to the festival over the years, such as last year's introduction of the Oral History Stage, which will be set up in the Nord Theatre in Gallier Hall across St. Charles Avenue from the Square.
"It gives people a little change of pace," says Aiges. "And it also gives us an opportunity to videotape a lot of our performers talking about what New Orleans means to them and what the influences of New Orleans and Louisiana as a whole have been on their music."
Question-and-answer sessions follow more structured interviews and allow music and history buffs alike a chance to start in-depth conversations with these artists, who themselves are a wealth of knowledge, history and experience. These conversations are recorded and documented for the Foundations archive housed in the French Quarter, which is a repository for all the records, artifacts and history of all the things the Foundation does.
Another amenity new to the fest last year, the Abita Sports Bar—also one of the fest's major sponsors and beer-suppliers—is an area stocked with beer and big screen TVs so sports fans don't have to miss the Saints and LSU games when they come out to enjoy the festival.
The T-shirt Design Contest, also in its second year, decides the official design for Blues & BBQ Fest's T-shirts and grants the winner a $400 cash prize, managed by Creative Allies.
This year, to promote and encourage commissions-free transportation to the fest, BikeNOLA has organized free bicycle valet parking for cyclists. This is in addition to the St. Charles streetcar line, which stops within steps of the festival, and numerous paid parking lots in the surrounding CBD blocks.
VIP passes were also introduced this year—a limited number (50) sold at $250 a piece. They are nontransferable, good for the entire weekend, and include exclusive access to the backstage hospitality area with a complimentary bar and space to enjoy the music away from the bustling crowds. As the festival itself is completely free to the public, Aiges says that this has been an experiment to gauge interest and generate additional revenue to keep the fest going and growing.
"We like to remind people that when you buy a ticket to Jazz Fest, and when you buy a beverage or a T-shirt or a poster, you're not just paying to enjoy a festival," says Aiges. "You're actually supporting a nonprofit foundation that does all these other things all year long—education, economic development, as well as these free cultural events."
So why is it that the blues-and-barbeque combination has fared so well, both here in New Orleans and for countless other similar festivals across the country? Aiges points to Southern soul, a delicate balance of Southern food and music, which he says are integral to the identity of American music and American culture generally.
"We think that providing a showcase for those local vendors who specialize in grilled food and smoked food helps raise awareness about that aspect of our culinary traditions," says Aiges. "Also, you'll find that a lot of New Orleanians are so bombarded with great music all the time that sometimes they tend to take it for granted."
He concludes, "But New Orleanians are also extremely passionate about their food, so when you put the two together in a combination the way that we have—and I think the way a lot of other events have as well—I think you find out that people get a whole lot more excited about it, because it just gives them that much more to feast on, as it were."
Be sure to come out—and support a great community-engaging cause—as you feast your eyes and ears on the plentiful offerings of this year's Crescent City Blues & BBQ Festival in Lafayette Square, October 14-16. More information about the festival—and the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Foundation—can be found on their website: http://www.jazzandheritage.org/blues-fest/.
Barbara Lynn performing in 2011.
