Words by

Elmo Keep
Images by
Norman Wong

New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, one of the biggest parties in the
country, has been proudly sponsored by Acura for 16 years. We head
south through the backwaters and bayous of Louisiana in a 2016 MDX,
soaking up the music, food and heritage, while the brass bands beat
called us back to the town we could see in our dreams.

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Take Me
Back To
New Orleans:
The Road To
Jazz Fest

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been preprogrammed with hundreds

of radio stations to dial into your mood
and suit your surroundings. We could
probably sit and pass a test on the
entirety of Elvis Presleys career now,
should anyone ask.
We come into the bayou in the heat
of the afternoon, ready to be taken out
on Gregs airboat. Greg has lived here
on a houseboat his whole long life. He
has eyes like a hawk. For two hours
he steers us through magisterial bald
cypress trees, their ghostly willows
brushing against us now and again.
Greg can spot an unmoving alligator
from 20 paces away, and points them
out to us. You see after a while just
how many there are everywhere.
There are turtles perched on crumbling
logs, wild birds swooping overhead,
eagles tending their young in nests far
from harms way atop giant trees.
Returning eventually to the pier is
like emerging into another world, one
where beers are offered, souvenirs are
bought. A tiny preserved alligators
head becomes our dashboard mascot.
We christen him Reggie Ledoux. With
the windows down we glide along the
nighttime streets, the warm air pocked
with sounds of insects and frogs singing, past old gas stations and crawfish
joints doing brisk evening trade.

he next day we set off from

Baton Rouge and come across
a lush open field of cotton,
where workers are pulling up the crop.
The land is dotted with abandoned
farmhouses. The doors swing open on
hinges. No one has lived here for many
decades and flowers on vines creep
around the side of one of the buildings,
taking over the porch where a chair
still sits. We walk between the rows of
crops, history inescapable, lost in our
own thoughts. The workers wave to us
in the distance, we wave back. When
we get back on the road, no one talks for
quite some time. We switch the radio
to WWOZ, broadcasting to the world
from New Orleans, where weve come
to the outskirts after the last stretch of
smoothly looping freeway interchanges.
A homing signal, weve nearly arrived.

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d been on the road for

months already. Id
put in tons of miles
to get here, from
the California coast
through the Valley
of Fires to Zion, Oklahoma, clear across
old Route 66 into Texas. But nothing in
the great American West crackled with
quite the same life force and history as
the place where we were headed: New
Orleans. Birthplace of Louis Armstrong.
Of jazz. Where immigrants, over centuries, built the unique, heady foundations
of the most resilient city in America.
But my own rustbucket was hardly
the ideal mode of transport for a journey
through the delta. For a start, its tanklike sound was hardly the best backing
for a bayou soundtrack. Talk about an
upgrade: would I like, I was asked, to
take the 2016 MDX from Dallas to New
Orleans at a leisurely pace, to come to
a triumphant end at Jazz Fest and feast
upon the delights of the city by the river?
I pinch myself for a moment. Yes.
Leaving Texas and its enormous skies
behind, our small band of travellers
myself, our photographer Norman, and
his assistant Erikhave nothing before
us but the open road, our whims, and
a commitment to hunt down as many
James Beard Award-winning eating
establishments as we can on the way.
This is the South, and we are going to
get every last scrap of meat off the bone.
Soon we cruise in air-conditioned,
seat-cooled comfort through idyllic
stretches of farmland, past lush green
paddocks dotted with horses, a long
way from anywhere, like being lulled in
a dream. The scenery changes abruptly
from state to state, as if big lines were
drawn wherever new kinds of tree begin
to grow. One freeway overpass presents
us with our first glimpse of bayou country, where cypress trees stand tall in the
water like a forest growing from the sea.
Now and then we open the windows to
let the evening breeze and the insects
song fill the car.
The car is so quiet and smooth its
hard to believe it houses a powerful
V6 engine, all the better for overtaking
those who find the speed limit too fast
for their liking. The MDX can do almost
everything for you. It alerts you when
someone is in your blind spot. Switch it
to cruise control and it will slow itself
down if the car in front of you comes
too close. When youre low on gas,
it will shut itself down at a stop and
restart itself when you hit the gas pedal.
Even the automatic shift lever has been
replaced by sleek selector buttons. It has

Greg has lived here

on a houseboat
his whole long life.
He has eyes like
a hawk.
T H E H I S TO RY
LINGERS
Just out of Baton
Rouge, Elmo and
the gang come
across a landscape
full of abandoned
farmhouses.

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R E A L S LO W, R E A L E A SY
A young Louis Armstrong,
and some slow, slow cooked
ribs. If youre looking for
legends, youll fi nd them in
New Orleans.

FI X I N S

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Smoked
Sips & Strolls

Cochon deserves its reputation.

The boudin and suckling pig is
worth the wait.
930 TCHOU PI TOU L A S ST

The Joint for almost-always

busy BBQ, pit smoked very, very
slow. Pulled pork and ribs as good
as anything youll find in Texas.
701 M A Z A N T ST

Willie Maes Scotch House

is home to the James Beard Awardwinning best fried chicken in
America. Juicy white meat stays
piping hot inside its crispy batter.

The party here is also on

the street, more a Sazerac
than a Hurricane.

2 401 ST A NN ST

Illustration by Eili-Kaija Kuusniemi

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leet Week and Jazz Fest convene

as a carnival on Bourbon Street.
By the time we roll in its a hot
New Orleans evening and we cant resist
a quick fly-by, just up the road, catching
beads from balconies and watching the
uniforms pound hand grenades.
We see one gentleman we crown
The Bead King; he stands unmoving in
the middle of the street like hes waiting for someone to cast his image as a
statue, like a football forward chomping
strenuously without humor on a cigar.
He wears only one string of beads
around his neck, the largest of which is
resting on his stomach and is the size of
a bowling ball.
But if you want to hear real music,
this isnt the place. Thats at Snug
Harbor, on Frenchmen Street. At festival
time there is almost no hope of getting
a spot actually inside a bar, so the party
here is also on the street, more a Sazerac
than a Hurricane.
Later in the week, when the festival
crowd has cleared out, Frenchmen is
closer to its regular self. A seat in the
afternoon provides an unobstructed
view of New Orleans finest plying their
trade just as they do every day of the
year. You wont be fighting for elbow
room until well into the evening, when
brass bands make their way into the
street and cars have no hope of getting
through. Winding in and out of the Spotted Cat, The Three Muses, The Blue Nile,
and d.b.a makes me never want to leave.

LI BAT I O N S

The Sazerac, New Orleans

unofficial official drink, is made
with absinthe, sugar, rye whiskey
and bitters. Sip one at Sylvain,
a converted carriage house built
in the 1790s. Stay for oysters.
625 CH A RT R ES ST

The Brandy Crusta is made

with Cognac, Grand Marnier, syrup,
lemon and bitters. Chris Hannahs
is famed at French 75.
81 1 BIEN V IL L E ST

The Ramos Gin Fizz is made

with gin, cream, lemon & lime, egg
white, orange flower water and
soda water. Enjoy the milkshake
result at Bar Tonique.
820 NORT H R A M PA RT ST

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Blues Cruise
In the heart of New Orleans,
music beats on Frenchmen Street,
where over a dozen venues stretch
across three blocks.

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Snug Harbor, The

Spotted Cat and Three
Muses host sets nightly and
cater to a different crowd,
from plastic cups (The Spotted
Cat) to fine mixology and very
stiff drinks (Three Muses).
Weekends see all three small
spaces fill up quick to capacity
so book ahead.
COR NER OF F R ENCH M EN
AT ROYA L

Le Bon Temps Roul, just

off the drag, is world renowned
for its low-key vibe. Shoot
some pool of an evening while
taking in everything from
brass bands to bluegrass.
4801 M AGA ZINE ST

Mimi's dive bar is known for

Spanish tapas and its upstairs
danceteria, and live music
downstairs with a focus on soul.
2601 ROYA L ST

Candlelight Lounge is
home to the Treme Brass Band
on Wednesday nights, a nofrills venue that has stood the
test of time.
925 NORT H ROBERTSON ST

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azz Fests first weekend, as

sometimes happens, caught
a case of April showers. In the
morning, clouds blackened the skies
turning the day into evening and the
grounds to mud, though the faithful
were undeterred. Ryan Adams received
the most raucous cheer of the day as
the sun broke through during his set,
heavy on deep cuts from his early
country-tinged records. All the sweetest
winds they blow across the South.
The night before wed been to a
recording studio built in a repurposed
church to see Amos Lee play a low-key
Acura showcase, the magnificent pipe
organ reaching to the ceiling behind
him. His voice is mighty and comes
from such a polite and unassuming
fellow that it stops the bar staff in their
tracks to listen. Were so close that you
can see that his socks are printed with
tiny snooker balls. His songs are mournful, heavy on heartbreak, but Lee himself is personable and warm. Its hard to
stay sad in this place. The studio itself
is an in-demand placeWillie Nelson,
Eric Clapton and Brian Wilson have
all passed through in the last year to
make a record.
Back at the Fair Grounds, several
thousand people file out at the end of the
day, where a man has commandeered
a hose to wash the feet of passersby.
We split and follow a street band of
very young men as they play to a crowd
gathered a little way down the road.
They call themselves the Young and
Talented Brass Band and they arent kidding: the oldest of their number is only
17, the youngest 14. We make a plan to
come to their place in the 7th Ward the
next day to photograph them and they
are excited as hell at the prospect.
Next afternoon we find them out in
the yard in the dizzying heat, messing
with each other about posing for photos

while trying to figure out the notations

of a new song theyre learning to play.
One of the boys mothers, a high school
music teacher, says out of their earshot
that if they are really serious, theyll
have to get a lot better. The saxophonist,
17 and son of a famous local player, has
a scholarship at the prestigious performing arts high school in town. While
he is clearly driven, the others seem
content just to hang out and play as the
childhood friends they are. The boys
go out on the street every night of Jazz
Fest and make not indecent money,
marching in step with the history of the
town where theyve lived their whole
lives, before and after the hurricane,
steeped in music.

The boys go out on the

street every night of Jazz
Fest and make not indecent
money, marching in step
with the history of the town
where theyve lived their
whole lives.

he festivals second weekend

was gorgeous sunshine and
temperatures not too hot.
A record crowd turned out for a headliner the festival had for years been
trying to land, Elton John. Taking the
stage straight after Jerry Lee Lewis,
Captain Fantastic thundered out over
two hours of hits from those 70s records
packed with more number one singles
than any other artist in history, apart
from the Beatles.
Elton John is kind of the perfect Jazz
Fest artist; his gospel chord changes and
honky-tonk improvs tip their hat to the
music that influenced his work more
than any other. And nowhere is that
more joyously clear than in Bennie and
the Jets, the first instantly recognizable
chord of which blares out over the audience, who catch it immediately. The song
that made Elton John one of the first
white artists to appear on Soul Train
has the whole place buzzed on a legend,
and that energy stays aloft the whole
set, until the sun starts to go down, the
encores are done and everyone knows
they were just a part of something
history-making, something that could
only ever happen in this place.
Someone come pick me up, Im a
blissed-out puddle of whiskey and tears
on the muddy grass of New Orleans.

Illustration by Eili-Kaija Kuusniemi

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