Cross Satchmo Summer Fest Off the Bucket List...

Satchmo Summer Fest a celebration of the great Louie Armstrong's birthday held in his home town of New Orleans is one of those things I always wanted to do but I was usually working that weekend. I retired and this weekend we booked a room at one of our favorite hotels, The Frenchman, which is right across the street from the New Orleans Jazz Museum where the fest is held and just steps away. 

Anything we wanted to do was close by from street music, clubs and dining and never required driving so the car stayed parked all weekend.   

The story goes that on New Years Eve 1912 an eleven year old Armstrong was sent to the Colored Waifs Home for firing a blank pistol in the air. He took up the cornet there and the world was never the same as he became one of the most influential figures in jazz. Louie often said that when he played he looked right into the heart of New Orleans.  

 New Orleans is a city that each person has a personal version of. I have been coming to soak up the music, food and culture since 1983. The oldest African American Parish in the country, St. Augustine dating back 180 years holds a jazz Mass each Sunday. You can hang with the drunk college boys from LSU on Bourbon St. when you visit or you can live like the people live by attending neighborhood functions. That's what I choose. There is a lot of history here from the tomb of the Unknown Slave to being the parish where Louie, Sidney Bechet and Homer Plessy attended. 

After Mass there followed a second line parade from the church to the fest led by social and pleasure clubs, brass bands and other costumed characters.   

Lots of good bands at the fest, brass bands, jazz singers, traditional and more modern stuff I would guess that with only two stages and inside venues for piano music and educational discussions and the museum exhibits I managed to see about a quarter of what was offered and even that was plenty to digest. 

It's hot in New Orleans. Like Deep Mardi Gras it's Deep Summer and one of the internet funny men I follow said all his friends were indoors with only crappy tourist from Biloxi walking the streets. I'll take being a crappy tourist in New Orleans because as playwright Tennessee Williams said, "everywhere else is Cleveland" and it is nice to know that if I can't take the heat there is a whole world of air conditioned fun to see.     

Preservation Hall Brass. 

The Onward brass band on stage

 Best I can tell I saw 17 different tuba players this past weekend. Find your own personal New Orleans.