the amazing street band that drew a bigger crowd than was seemingly in all of the clubs lining Frenchmen St. – they played a hard jazz, a punk jazz, or a free style jazz that was still incredibly listenable and danceable – was immeasurably more interesting to me than that old played out same-style jazz you hear all over New Orleans, but they told us that the clubs won’t hire them to play – maybe because they’re clearly from the poorer parts of New Orleans – it amused me that in New Orleans, it’s cool, even for street kids, to play band-geek instruments like the trumpet and trombone

you’d think this was exactly what we were just seeing (Linnza Zaorski), i.e., another retro girl with a backing band, but the sound was pretty different – this band had a lot more brass and wasn’t as easy breezy – this girl was older and harder – she was fine but didn’t particularly stand out to me – this was where we ran into scary people from the swing dancing convention that was meeting in New Orleans during the French Quarter Festival

Rockboy has had her music for a while and was Very eager to see her – it was clear why once we arrived – she’s a hottie – she was charming old men, young men, girls and even dogs passing by – she sings in that nasally sweetie girl voice from the 20s/40s – there is no doubt that she was entrancing – the whole band seemed a little stoned – outside of her voice, the vibe of the band was very smoky-coffee-shop – after Rockboy told me how she passed out in the bathroom midset during a show in Austin, I spent the show pondering the plights of being Linnzi Zaorski…

that big-sound bluesy rocking jazz – reminded me of the Sex and the City episode with the “I Can’t Get Next to You” song – it just bugs me

as the name would suggest, they mix zydeco with punk – Rockboy foresaw Pogues and I foresaw gypsy punk, and that’s about exactly what we got – they were terrific – very Gogol Bordello – lots of passion – they’d played a show until 3am the night before and were at this show by mid-morning – this was the best venue of the whole festival, just a field – no bureaucracy, tons of good food stands, and everybody mellow in their little fold out chairs – we started feeling like locals once we picked ourselves up some of those chairs and settled in with the middle aged folks – this band inspired some truly creative dancing from the audience – the kind of band you’d want to have at your wedding, even if you’re not Greek or Jewish

they were playing a Sunday brunch show at a warehouse type bar on Frenchmen St. – it was pretty straightforward traditional jazz – pleasant – suitable for a Sunday morning – not too tricky

Rockboy saw this band the day before and raved over their zydeco fantabulousness – I think zydeco is the ugliest music in creation but turns out it’s the danciest music in creation – they were just a bunch of fugly guys in the tackiest bar EVER but everybody wanted to be at their party – appears I’ll need to look into zydeco a little bit more

Irvin Mayfield is a good-looking slick guy in a suit who convinced the crowd that we need to visit his jazz club – the band was made up of a set of similarly slick brass players, a piano player, an all-grins banjo player, and three peacocked up females who inexplicably sat at the side of the stage for most of the set – there was also an adorable little boy with his own trombone that he would play every and now then when he wasn’t standing stoically – Michael Watson, also a trombone player, was a tall drink of water with a butter voice – he reminded me of Marvin Gaye – Sasha Mazakowski, daughter of some famous guitar player, was an exceedingly and obnoxiously hip girl with giant sunglasses who sang her admittedly pretty sad-mysterious jazz with more hand emoting than voice power – her voice wasn’t bad but I couldn’t get over her awareness of herself

a bunch of brown-clothed hobo-looking kids playing old time jazz blues – turned out they had a ‘showcase’ show for the Fest sometime later – lots of brass and a dancing girl but the kid on a washboard with a tilted cap was the best

I think this was the band’s name – there were about ten men on the stage – all older gents, each with a different instrument – the music was so markedly better than what we’d been hearing pouring out of Bourbon St clubs, that we knew we had arrived at our first official French Quarter Fest stage – traditional jazz – I don’t know the proper terms but it’s the happy go lucky kind that makes me think of full dresses and big rivers – it was great!