City Park and Seminar News

“Coming Home” is a blog looking at life in New Orleans as we get ready to meet again in the Superdome July 5, 6 and 7 for the Essence Music Festival. Since Katrina, a particular effort was made to get the French Quarter and Central Business District ready for conventioneers and tourists so business can return. From there, efforts to improve the city have radiated outwards, and City Park is one of the new priorities. The golf courses remain glorified pastures, shaggy and overgrown as City Park officials and various funding agencies try to agree on a vision for that property. The gateway to City Park – the road leading from Wisner Avenue to the New Orleans Museum of Art – is undergoing a facelift as it will be transformed into a tree-lined alley bordered by live oaks and crepe myrtle trees. The federal government announced last week that it was committed to spending at least $8.6 million rebuilding City Park, and more money could be available if necessary. In addition to the beautification of the entrance to the park, renovations are underway on the park’s antique wooden carousel and Storyland, its playground for kids, is open.

In Essence Music Festival business, Mary J. Blige headlines Saturday night. It was recently announced that Blige is also going to be one of the featured performers when MTV re-launches Unplugged, its concert show that presents artists with acoustic or semi-acoustic instrumentation. It’s hard to imagine an artist better served by a show that focuses on singers and their voices.

Finally, I’m starting to get the word on the empowerment seminars. The plans aren’t finalized yet, but the focus of Thursday’s presentations at the Morial Convention Center is Restoration. New Orleans Mayor C. Ray Nagin and National Urban League President Marc Morial are among the speakers, and a session titled “Into the Light: Putting an End to Black Pain” is moderated by Terrie Williams and Dr. Denese Shervington. It includes interviews with New Orleans residents who have started their lives over in New Orleans since Katrina.

In the next few entries, I’ll pass along more about the seminar schedule.

Writer Alex Rawls edits OffBeat, Louisiana's music and culture magazine.

Where's the Beef?

“Coming Home” is a blog looking at life in New Orleans as we get ready to meet again in the Superdome July 5, 6 and 7 for the Essence Music Festival. It’s now less than a month away, and I look forward to the announcement of the speakers at the empowerment seminars taking place at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center. Those sessions help give “the party with a purpose” its purpose.

One of the “Coming Home” readers asked about places to eat, and I’m certainly interested in where you eat when you’re in New Orleans. One restaurant that opened a block from the Convention Center worth checking out is La Boca. This Argentinian steak house just celebrated its one-year anniversary, and it’s excellent. Like traditional steakhouses, La Boca serves the usual New York strips, filet mignons and rib-eyes, but unlike them, it specializes in less common cuts. It features hanger steak, flank steak and outside skirt steaks, all of which have distinctly different tastes and textures. The sides are similarly wonderful—french fries rolled in garlic before serving and a sweet corn pudding being particularly good.

For those who want a more classic steakhouse experience, Crescent City Steaks reopened earlier this year on Broad Street near the Zulu Social Aid and Pleasure Club den. To walk into Crescent City Steaks is to walk back in time in menu, furnishings and prices. The steaks are good, but you can get better. What you can’t improve on is the feeling that you’re having your steak the way people did 50-plus years ago, which nice in a time when so much is changing so quickly.

In other news, Worldwide ERC and Primacy Relocations, two companies that help professionals relocate, recently ranked New Orleans the 25th best place to move to. It’s rare to cheer about being number 25, but all things considered, that speaks well for how people see the city’s future. Evidently the city’s diversity, its arts, its recreation possibilities and the post-Katrina cost of homes all work in New Orleans' favor.

Writer Alex Rawls edits OffBeat, Louisiana’s music and culture magazine.

Best in the South

"Coming Home" is a blog looking at life in New Orleans as we get ready to meet again in the Superdome July 5, 6 and 7 for the Essence Music Festival. As much as New Orleans is a music city, it's a food city, too, and its status as an eating destination was enhanced recently when Chef Donald Link received a James Beard Award for Best Chef in the South. Beard Awards are given out annually to recognize excellence in cooking, and Link received the recognition for his work at Cochon, a Beard runner-up for Best New Restaurant.

Cochon features the fine dining version of south Louisiana cooking - it's often simple, home cooking, treated elegantly. It's also a pork lover's paradise. Almost every part of the pig turns up in one dish or another, and as one local writer put it, a really hungry diner could almost reassemble the pig at the table. That's a bit of an exaggeration, but Cochon's andouille and spicy ribs are excellent, and the non-pork dishes - the oyster roast, the fried chicken livers with pepper jelly being the highlights - more than hold their own.

Link and partner Stephen Stryjewski set out to create a restaurant that was casual fine dining and succeeded. Cochon is reasonably priced, and the atmosphere is fun and easy without being too casual - jeans are cool, but not the jeans you wore when you last changed the oil. Link is the second New Orleans chef to receive a Beard award in the last two years. Last year, Chef John Besh was honored as Best Chef in the Southeast for the more formal Restaurant August.

New Orleans has always been known for its food, and it's nice to see it getting its recognition, particularly now.

Writer Alex Rawls edits OffBeat, Louisiana’s music and culture magazine.

Saying Goodbye

"Coming Home" is a blog looking at life in New Orleans as we get ready to meet again in the Superdome July 5, 6 and 7 for the Essence Music Festival. Southwest Airlines expects there to be enough people heading to New Orleans for the event that they're planning to temporarily add flights to the Crescent City. According to Stuart Thomas, senior capacity planner for Southwest Airlines, "The feeling we're getting is that the community is back on its feet."

The city did, however, suffer a sad loss the second week of Jazz Fest when jazz clarinet player and educator Alvin Batiste died the night before he was scheduled to play. Batiste taught many of the country's great jazz musicians at Southern University in Baton Rouge, and to honor him, Branford Marsalis had released Marsalis Music Honors Alvin Batiste, presenting his music to a national audience on Marsalis' label. He and Harry Connick, Jr. were scheduled to play Sunday, May 6 with Batiste, but the show became an emotional tribute to him instead.

The city said goodbye to Batiste the following Saturday with a jazz funeral, but perhaps the finest tribute to him came on Friday, May 11 when friends organized a musical tribute to Batiste. It wasn't an event full of national stars, but a lot of the city's important musicians were there playing his music, or music in his honor, and what became clear was how much music he touched. In a collection of brass band players, the Dirty Dozen's Big Sammy Williams and Rebirth Brass Band's Shamarr Allen led a hymn with broad, emotional smears and runs. Batiste's more recent students, the NOCCA Jazz Ensemble, played the most dynamic set of contemporary jazz of the night though no one was even 18 yet.

Lady BJ Crosby brought down the house with a hymn, then vocalist Topsy Chapman and her daughters delivered and exquisitely harmonized "Dream Your Troubles Away," and a string quartet arranged one of Batiste's compositions for their instruments.

The show ended with an African ritual by percussionist Bill Summers, who was once a member of Herbie Hancock's Headhunters. Summers' ritual engaged the audience in a call-and-response that paid tribute to the musicians that influenced Batiste, then asked for a blessing for Batiste and those who survived him. He then performed four rhythms in tribute to Batiste, ending the evening. It was the natural ending for a ceremony honoring one of the city's greats, and it was another "only in New Orleans' occasion" a night when classical music, R&B, gospel and virtually the history of jazz all appeared on the same stage at one point or another. Since Essence Music Festival similarly brings all those styles of music together, it's appropriate that it's back in New Orleans.

Writer Alex Rawls edits OffBeat, Louisiana's music and culture magazine.

It's All About Tradition

“Coming Home” is a blog looking at life in New Orleans as we get ready to meet again in the Superdome July 5, 6 and 7 for the Essence Music Festival. Dawna, a reader of the blog, recently wrote, “How can our children know how to act in a respectable way if they are not given the opportunity to come to the Essence Festival and see how wonderful we can be? This could also be a lesson for the artists that appeal to our children. I’m bringing my children ages 15-18-20 for the first time this year. The incentive was the inclusion of acts such as Ciara and Chris Brown.”

Dawna’s comments made me think of Mardi Gras, and why an event so sprawling and in many ways out of control goes off with barely a hitch in New Orleans, but when other cities try it, it turns into a drunken brawl. I think a big part of it has to do with people being raised with the traditions, just as Dawna is talking about. Here, attending Mardi Gras parades is a multi-generational event, and kids, teenagers, parents and grandparents attend parades together. Younger paradegoers learn how to do it from the elders, and they learn boundaries and how to act right as they parade with their moms, dads, aunts and uncles around nearby.

Many parents dress their kids in costumes and take them to the French Quarter – usually earlier in the day – and show their children the creativity of the costumes, and in some cases, help them understand things that might be a little mature for them.

Just as Dawna says, one way to keep traditions alive and positive is to include our children in them, and to let them learn by sharing them with us.

Writer Alex Rawls is editor for OffBeat, Lousiana's music and culture magazine.

“Coming Home” is a blog looking at life in New Orleans as we get ready to meet again in the Superdome July 5, 6 and 7 for the Essence Music Festival. One-time Essence Fest performer John Legend played the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival this past weekend and killed, with one of the largest crowds of the weekend in the palm of his hand from the first notes. His dark pinstriped jacket proved to be a little hot for the late afternoon, so he shed it and finished the show in white trousers and a white T-shirt that clung to his chest. Few women complained.

This year’s festival wasn’t a return to the 1990s when Jazz Fest seemed to experience automatic yearly attendance growth, but it was a step in the right direction. More than 375,000 people came to the Fair Grounds over the festival’s two weekends to see Legend, Harry Connick, Jr., Jill Scott, Bonnie Raitt, Pharoah Sanders and John Mayer among others—the highest total since 2003.

Last year’s festival was more dramatic, being the first Jazz Fest after Katrina. It was also an unusual festival in that evidence suggests the crowd for it was made up primarily of New Orleanians, whether they lived here or not. The Fair Grounds were full, but the restaurants and night shows weren’t full a year ago, and tourists account for sell-outs. This year, everybody was doing good business, and two blocks Frenchmen Stree - from Decatur to Royal, from Ray's Room to Snug Harbor - had the feeling of street party each night. On the Monday after Jazz Fest ended, Louis Armstrong International Airport experienced its busiest day since Katrina. Almost 16,000 passengers passed through on their way out of the city, and three of the busiest post-Katrina days at the airport have taken place this spring.

In other business, Ruben asked what the scene is like during Essence Music Festival, and if it was like Mardi Gras. Another "Coming Home" reader, Hollie was right. There's none of the chaos and the bawdiness of Mardi Gras during the festival. Essence Fest's reputation as "the party with a purpose" is really in the hearts and minds of those who come for it, so people keep their heads, whether in the Dome during the shows or in the French Quarter afterwards.

"Coming Home" writer Alex Rawls edits OffBeat, Louisiana's music and culture magazine.

Homecomings

“Coming Home” is a blog looking at life in New Orleans as we get ready to meet again in the Superdome July 5, 6 and 7 for the Essence Music Festival. This year, McDonald’s is making it possible for you to win tickets to the Essence Festival, but you have to enter by May 7. So what are you waiting for?

The name of this blog is “Coming Home,” and last week New Orleans got the news that residents are doing just that. One measure of the city’s recovery is how many people return to it, and demographers have projected that in 10 years, New Orleans’ population will by 90 percent of what it was pre-Katrina. That’s not the sort of news we love, but part of living here means adjusting to the New Normal, which means that it will grow back as something slightly different, and the task residents and visitors alike are faced with is making sure it’s the place we loved, only better.

A recent study showed that since last July, the population of Orleans Parish is up 14 percent, up to 255,000 people – more than half the parish’s pre-Katrina population of 454,000 people. Since last July, an additional 30,000 people have moved back.

The New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival just concluded, and it brought back memories of last year when Fats Domino was too ill to perform in his Sunday evening slot to conclude the festival. People from all over the world were there, and festival organizers turned to Lionel Richie, who plays the Essence Festival Saturday, July 7. Richie was scheduled to perform on another stage but, when asked, agreed to take Domino’s place in front of an audience primed for the Louisiana legend. When he opened with “Running with the Night,” though, the crowd was his, and by the time he got to “Brick House,” people in the parking lot were dancing on their cars. Only in New Orleans.

Writer Alex Rawls edits OffBeat, New Orleans' music and culture magazine.

The Volunteer Army

“Coming Home” is a blog looking at life in New Orleans as we get ready to meet again in the Superdome July 5, 6 and 7 for the Essence Music Festival. Not surprisingly, we’ve received a number of emails from people asking what they can do. A lot has changed in the last year, but one thing that hasn’t is people’s desire to help New Orleans. A year ago, the Katrina Krewe took volunteers in town for Jazz Fest and put them to work cleaning up trash and debris. Volunteers helped the Arabi Wrecking Krewe gut houses in St. Bernard Parish and the Lower Ninth Ward so homeowners could start rebuilding. Since then, the Katrina Krewe has disbanded, its work done, and the Arabi Wrecking Krewe is moving to rebuilding projects rather than demolitions. Right now, their biggest project is trying to raise money to help Al “Carnival Time” Johnson pay for a home in Habitat for Humanity’s Musicians’ Village (pictured).

There are still agencies that need help, the Musicians' Village being one. The housing development in the Upper Ninth Ward plans to provide housing for musicians and other community members with an eye to preserving the city's most important cultural resource. People who would like to put in a day's work can register by visiting www.habitat-nola.org/volunteer.

The Common Ground collective emerged in the wake of Katrina as neighbors came together to help each other when it wasn't clear when or if help would be coming. Because the need to gut houses in New Orleans has largely been met, Common Ground is turning its attention downriver to help gut outlying houses and to work to restore our coastal wetlands, a natural hurricane barrier that was seriously affected by Katrina. People interested in working with Common Ground can find out more by emailing commongroundvolunteers@gmail.com.

Relief agencies dealing with housing have received a lot of attention, and rightfully so, but other long-standing organizations need help, just as they always have. One is the Second Harvest Food Bank; to find out more about what you can do to help, go to www.no-hunger.org/you_can_help/volunteers.htm.

Recently, www.fixnola.com was launched as a one-stop for people looking to see how they can help New Orleans rebuild. The Web site lists volunteer opportunities with not only the larger organizations but with smaller and faith-based organizations as well. The projects are also listed, so prospective volunteers can also pick the projects that suit their skills and temperaments best.

The Essence Music Festival has set the tone of giving simply by returning to New Orleans, and it takes it a step further by donating a portion of the proceeds from the 2007 festival to the Children’s Defense Fund’s Freedom Schools program. It's talking the talk and walking the walk, helping the next generation of New Orleanians be ready for the part of the rebuilding task they'll inherit 10 years from now.

By coming to New Orleans and spending money, you'll be helping, too. When you eat, drink or shop in New Orleans, you're doing your part in the most painless way possible. If you want to give more, though, now you know how.

Writer Alex Rawls edits OffBeat, New Orleans’ music and culture magazine.

Quarter Time

“Coming Home” is the new blog leading up to Essence Music Festival’s return to New Orleans July 5, 6 and 7. It’s a look at life in the Crescent City since we last met at the Louisiana Superdome two years ago, and Essence finally unveiled the Superlounge lineup. Performing are Angie Stone, Chuck D, Common, Kenny Latimore and Chante Moore, Jen Jen Reeves, Jermaine Paul, Kindred, Lyfe, Nagee, Nuttin But Strings, Pieces of a Dream, Rachelle Ferrell, Rahsaan Patterson, Ruben Studdard, Slum Village, Sunshine Anderson, Will Downing and from New Orleans, the Rebirth Brass Band - the first brass band to play in New Orleans after the hurricane and they were so excited to be home, they played three times in one day. For me, the Superlounges are the soul of the festival, a chance to see that calibre of talent in a more intimate environment. The weather has been so beautiful that it’s a shame the festival doesn’t start tomorrow; then again, it has been too nice to be inside. Festival season is upon New Orleans. Last weekend was the French Quarter Festival and on Friday afternoon, people who should be working were wandering the Quarter with a beer in hand. With stages all over the Quarter, the Vieux Carre was rocking—a funky brass band on one stage, traditional jazz on another, a big band in Jackson Square and a steel drum band by the French Market. It was good to see people in the French Quarter because it suffered from the decline in tourism last year. Having locals return to it was good, but seeing tourists in it was better. Friday, they were out in force, many wearing Mardi Gras beads with logos of their favorite college teams—I saw Clemson and Georgetown among others. On Saturday, the weather wasn’t as nice with intermittent rain all day long. That didn’t stop New Orleanians and visitors alike from showing up to see the wedding of New Orleans’ jazz trumpeter Kermit Ruffins - twice an Essence Festival Superlounge performer - and his fiancée Karen James. Ruffins has become one of the city’s most beloved musicians, mixing jazz, Louis Armstrong and classic R&B at his regular Thursday night party at Vaughan’s in the Bywater. He played his set at 3 in the afternoon and, as he was ending, he called out a judge wearing shorts and a “Gentilly” T-shirt and the wedding party including his bride-to-be. After they exchanged vows and jumped the broom, he sang “World on a String,” taking his first dance with his bride part way through. Only in New Orleans.

Same As it Ever Was

“Coming Home” is the new blog leading up to Essence Music Festival’s return to New Orleans July 5, 6 and 7. It’s a look at life in the Crescent City since we last met at the Louisiana Superdome two years ago. This year, a portion of the proceeds from Essence Music Festival supports the Children’s Defense Fund Freedom Schools, schools that provide summer and after-school academic enrichment programs designed to improve students’ attitudes toward learning and boost their motivation to read. The Essence Festival’s fundraising efforts will help bring the Freedom Schools program to the Gulf Coast.

Education is on everyone’s mind in New Orleans, and the city’s music education just received a major shot in the arm. The Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz relocated from Los Angeles to New Orleans last week. With it come jazz greats such as Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter and Terence Blanchard, who instruct the institute’s students. The students pass on what they’re taught, teaching and conducting workshops in the schools and community. The institute is housed at Loyola, but it will be working with the other universities in town including Southern, Xavier, Dillard, Tulane, University of New Orleans. Loyola and the Monk Institute have made a major commitment to the city’s culture and its rebuilding. As Hancock said, “When jazz flourishes in New Orleans, New Orleans will flourish again.”

Life in New Orleans is a place where opposites co-exist these days. We get good news like that, then we learn that our power bills—often hundreds of dollars a month in uninhabited houses—are going to be larger as Entergy tries to accumulate a $75 million fund in the event of future storms. The city is a safe place and a risky place, a sad place and an exhilarating place. There are a lot of people struggling here, but people are also having a lot of fun. Actually, as the old song goes, “Same as it ever was.”

But against that background, the city has successfully hosted the Essence Music Festival for years, just as it has hosted Mardi Gras, Jazz Fests, French Quarter Festivals, Super Bowls, Sugar Bowls and countless conferences and other special events. No matter the circumstances, New Orleans embraces the joy of life. On Ash Wednesday, the day after Mardi Gras, the headline for The Times-Picayune read, “The Usual Madness: With the crowds, costumes, beads and beer, it felt like old times.” And it did. Emotions were so heightened last year that every event felt important and remarkable, as if we came together to show that nothing could wash our way of life away. This year, there was less of a sense of significance to Mardi Gras, but it also felt more normal. No statements; just a good time. It was a return to form.

Some restaurants are struggling and some are closing, but many are opening, too. A few months ago, New Orleans institution Commander’s Palace finally reopened and hosted a business breakfast with Tim Zagat announcing the publication of this year’s Zagat’s Best to New Orleans and recognized Restaurant August as Top Restaurant. Some of the city’s top chefs including Restaurant August’s John Besh have not only reopened their restaurants but have new restaurants in the planning stages.

Unfortunately, not everybody back is actively engaged in rebuilding. There is still a lot of poverty and hopelessness, and not even a hurricane can blow away some neighborhood rivalries. Still, visitors enjoyed a drama-free Carnival Season this year, just as they have for years. Conventioneers and festivalgoers have enjoyed the city recently, just as they have for years. And just as they will in the future.

Essence Music Festival helps to make sure it’s a future we recognize and want. It is an exciting part of the rebuilding effort because he festival has had more than a $100 million economic impact on the city per year, accounting for almost 80 percent of the hotel bookings that weekend and another $6 million in state and local taxes. Also, the festival’s partnership with the Children’s Defense Fund and the Freedom Schools program means that New Orleans’ future will be in literate, more culturally aware hands. At a time when our school system is taking its first shaky steps at rebuilding itself, a program like the CDF’s couldn’t be more welcome.

Finally, Debra, Jack is right—Essence Music Festival is a multi-generational event. At Chris Brown, your children won’t be out of place, and I’ll bet they won’t be alone, either.

Writer Alex Rawls edits OffBeat, New Orleans' Music and Culture Magazine.