Follow the Music

Hump Day: there’s not often a lot about it that is celebratory but it’s a progression in the week nonetheless. During the Autumn and Spring months in New Orleans’ CBD, hump day has a loud and flavourful ray of light at the end of a nine to fivers tunnel. Grind is not a word that comes to mind as the bleating of a constantly ringing phone and frenetic tapping on a keyboard is pierced by sound testing and pounding drums. Follow the music to the green space in the middle of court buildings where the corrupt are facing their demons and ivory office towers where the corrupt are being cultivated. Lafayette Square: more than just a convenient, open air joy ride for our office K-9s; it is an oasis and an organic vessel of good times that hosts festivals Harvest the Music from September-October and Wednesday at the Square from March-May. Both involve a wonderful array of local music acts that give their time and local vendors that sell their wares. While the mood and colour of the sky changes you can sit on the grass amongst an infantry of collapsible chairs and close your eyes to the buzz of people enjoying music and each other that echoes over rooftops and down car-jammed streets. And as is marvelously common in these parts, entry to both festivals is free.  Proceeds from food and beverage sales go to local not for profit organizations so justify and enjoy that pulled pork sandwich and beer without guilt…I know I do! Music is everywhere in this city, so accessible, so nurtured, so essential. Laugh, dance, be joyful and watch the world go by simply because it’s Wednesday and there is so much to be grateful for.

Cut to the following night, to another green space and another free extravaganza revolving around music and food; Jazz in the Park.  Jazz in the Park assembles in Armstrong Park, aptly named after New Orleans’ favourite son, the great Satchmo; Louis Armstrong. Armstrong Park was the artist formerly known as Congo Square, a place where African slaves congregated on Sundays as this was their only “day off” and danced, drummed and sang. Modern day Armstrong Park is on the edge of Tremé, America’s oldest black neighbourhood and it is from here that Jazz was born. It’s fitting that Jazz in the Park takes place on this spiritual site, and the last of the season, in the murky shadows of Halloween night. It’s not hard to convince the slightly loopy amongst us (my hand is raised) that you can feel voodoo in the misty night air. Your eyes dart in every direction attempting to take in the fluid movement of the ghouls, the Cleopatras, the Smurfs and the cross dressers.  White puffs escape from smokers adding to the eeriness. The colourful and the risqué laugh, drink, eat and dance and there is a definite paganistic ambience to this sensory overload. So much activity and so little inhibition, this is a bright and shiny star in Tremé. Drum enthusiasts still gather on Sundays, conjuring/channeling the ghosts of Congo Square and the undeniable rhythm and beat that I like to attribute to a love of life and a celebration of culture and ritual.

According to last year’s statistics from the Census Bureau, the New Orleans metro area has a population of approximately 370,000 people with 25% of those souls living below the poverty line. Yet somehow there is always dancing. In a place that is sadly, through no fault of its own and despite its vibrant beauty, now synonymous with neglect and abandonment, there is always dancing.  And it always seems to be those that have the least that celebrate life the most. These sedative breaks in the working week mentioned above are a necessary reprieve from despair and hopelessness.  And for those of us who are not in the 25%, it’s a reprieve from the flat screen fear monger pushing medication that has a list of side effects longer than War and Peace and is constantly trying to convince John or Jane Q. Citizen they should put their names to any number of questionable tort cases. School night, schmool night, we’re stepping out!