Before closing out the first weekend of the 2006 New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, Bruce Springsteen took a tour.
“I think I saw sights I never thought I'd see in an American city," he says Sunday, April 30, after visiting neighborhoods ravaged by Hurricane Katrina. “This is what happens when people play political games with people's lives."
It was a sobering comment, but Springsteen's performance was anything but. The Boss was in a party-throwing mood, cranking out two hours of such hands-in-the-air sing-alongs as “Pay Me My Money Down" and “Jacob's Ladder," culled from his newly released tribute to American folk hero Pete Seeger.
“Jacob's Ladder" crescendoed with tens of thousands of fans singing, “We are climbing higher and higher! We are brothers and sisters all!"
It was the emotional, spiritual and musical peak of an event filled with highlights. The crowd's fervor made it plain that New Orleans has been waiting for something to sing about.
This is a city where FEMA is the worst four-letter epithet one can utter, and where local chitchat is devoted almost exclusively to post-Katrina survival.
With great swaths of the metropolis still uninhabitable--including the sad, sagging neighborhoods surrounding the festival's home at the Fair Grounds Race Course--New Orleans is desperately craving love, attention and a big financial boost.
There was initial talk of canceling this year's Jazz Fest, a culture-rich tradition that started in 1970. Before the storm, the event had a $300-million impact on the city, with some 500,000 visitors joining the jam. After the storm, though, nothing was certain.
But then Wynton Marsalis and other beloved native sons and daughters embarked on a letter-writing campaign, asking pop-music heavy-hitters for help. Mixing genres didn't matter; musical solidarity did.
Continue...
“I think I saw sights I never thought I'd see in an American city," he says Sunday, April 30, after visiting neighborhoods ravaged by Hurricane Katrina. “This is what happens when people play political games with people's lives."
It was a sobering comment, but Springsteen's performance was anything but. The Boss was in a party-throwing mood, cranking out two hours of such hands-in-the-air sing-alongs as “Pay Me My Money Down" and “Jacob's Ladder," culled from his newly released tribute to American folk hero Pete Seeger.
“Jacob's Ladder" crescendoed with tens of thousands of fans singing, “We are climbing higher and higher! We are brothers and sisters all!"
It was the emotional, spiritual and musical peak of an event filled with highlights. The crowd's fervor made it plain that New Orleans has been waiting for something to sing about.
This is a city where FEMA is the worst four-letter epithet one can utter, and where local chitchat is devoted almost exclusively to post-Katrina survival.
With great swaths of the metropolis still uninhabitable--including the sad, sagging neighborhoods surrounding the festival's home at the Fair Grounds Race Course--New Orleans is desperately craving love, attention and a big financial boost.
There was initial talk of canceling this year's Jazz Fest, a culture-rich tradition that started in 1970. Before the storm, the event had a $300-million impact on the city, with some 500,000 visitors joining the jam. After the storm, though, nothing was certain.
But then Wynton Marsalis and other beloved native sons and daughters embarked on a letter-writing campaign, asking pop-music heavy-hitters for help. Mixing genres didn't matter; musical solidarity did.
Continue...
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