Jazzfest. It brings smiles to the faces of those of us who have been. Yes, every city has its music festivals. Chicago’s Blues Festival or Detroit’s Montreux Jazz Festival are focused on one kind of music. Jazzfest is wonderful because you can walk for 10 minutes and hear a funky brass band playing a traditional second line beat or some intense jazz with Herbie Hancock or one of the Marsalis Brothers or you can hear someone like Bruce Springsteen or Dave Matthews or Juvenile or Ludacris or Macy Gray or Lionel Ritchie, or Fats Domino, and then move on to see traditional Mardi Gras Indians parading past.
As you watch, suddenly you too find yourself in the parade – dancing, clapping, chanting. Jazzfest brings a smile because people like people here in New Orleans. Inevitably you’ll stand next to someone for whom, 30 minutes later, you are buying a beer and talking with like you’ve been friends for life. People approach you and ask you at which food booth you purchased that gumbo or alligator sauce or catfish po-boy because it looks better than the one they just had and New Orleanians have bottomless stomachs. You sit down in front of a 50 person Gospel Choir in the Gospel Tent and suddenly you’re clapping alongside a 70 year old black woman who has her arms outstretched and you’re flowing with the crowd – moving to the backbeat that the drummer is laying down as 50 black faces, young and old, from places like the now infamous Lower 9th Ward, are singing at the top of their lungs and hearts about how they have been saved by Jesus. I’m personally not a church-goer, but if I grew up with that kind of joy and inspiration every Sunday, I probably would be. The Greater Antioch Full Gospel Choir was there in force…many had relocated to Houston, but were back in town to sing out. Didn’t matter if you were white, black, latino, or from New Orleans, Germany, Japan….whatever – at that moment we were all part of a huge Baptist church under a tent, feeling every bit of what the people on stage felt.






This year’s Jazzfest, for obvious reasons, was special. Held in a very hard hit part of New Orleans, there are still piles of debris from hurricane Katrina’s wrath in front of most of the houses that surround the fairgrounds where the fest is held. People needed healing. As a Music Therapist for 8 years in Chicago, I saw first hand and made a living believing in and being a practitioner of the healing power of music.

The Soul Rebels Brass Band, with whom I’ve become friends and have photographed many times, had an especially powerful performance. Doing a call and response with the audience, we all chanted “no place like home” over and over. Along with the band, the audience used their hands to signal 5-0-4, the New Orleans phone area code. A strong sense of pride for having survived a disaster permeated the air.



And then there’s the Boss. Now, in the past, I’ve never been a huge Bruce Springsteen fan. I don’t know his music as well as I probably should. But Bruce has been standing for things that I believe in for a long time. He played Jazzfest on Sunday, April 30, with the Seeger Sessions Band – there must have been 20 people on stage including a full brass band with tuba, a steel guitar, 2 fiddles, a banjo and backup singers. This was their first live gig. Springsteen’s intent was obviously to help us heal. He changed the words of "How Can a Poor Man Stand Such Times and Live” (dedicating it to "President Bystander") to include
“There’s bodies fioatin’ on Canal and the levees gone to Hell” and
“Them who’s got got out of town
And them who ain’t got left to drown” and “I got family scattered from Texas all the way to Baltimore
And I ain’t got no home in this world no more”










He sang a song called “My City of Ruins”. The crowd was near silent and as I looked around, I saw the emotions that this music was drawing from people. Most around me had tears streaming down their faces. I found it hard to shoot photos because my eyes were welling up as well.

As he sang:


And the rain is falling down
The church door's thrown open
I can hear the organ's song
But the congregation's gone
My city of ruins
My city of ruins

The boarded up windows,
The empty streets
While my brother's down on his knees
My city of ruins
My city of ruins

people moved slowly in pace with the music. He sang of rebuilding “with these hands” and as he did, spontaneously, thousands of people raised their hands – this sea of hands seemed endless.




He ended his show with a second line parade off of the stage that included ALL of the band members except the drummer, leaving only the backbeat and the tuba player. As an encor, he sang a hymn-like version of “When the Saints Go Marching In” and again, the tears flowed. A moving experience and perfect way to watch the sun set over New Orleans.

Come on, rise up! Come on, rise up!