by Mick Rhodes | editor@claremont-courier.com

Recently I took to the road and joined some 475,000 other music fans for the 56^th New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival.

In my previous life as a bulletproof traveler with bottomless enthusiasm and unlimited stamina,  my only advance thought would have been how to cram in as much music and fun as possible into the five days I had in the Crescent City.

But that was then, and this is 62.

I hadn’t spent any real time in New Orleans since driving (!) to Mardis Gras way back in 1989. Back then I thought nothing of road-tripping 1,850 miles over 36 hours and partying for a week straight in front of Fat Tuesday’s noisy, decadent crescendo. But that, as I recently realized, was 37 years ago, and much has changed in the interim, most all of it on my end.

First, there’s hot and there’s New Orleans hot. Though temps were only in the mid-80s during my recent stay, the humidity was up around, I dunno, 400% or something. It was swampy. I was swampy. And the radiant mid-day sun, welcomed in days of yore, felt like a convection oven.

Now, I’ve been in some hot, sticky spots — Bali, Thailand, Hong Kong, Houston in July — but decades have passed since I sweated it out in Southeast Asia or southeast Houston. On my first day back in New Orleans I realized I was trekking through the spongy air in a body that’s decidedly less efficient and capable than it was back then.

I thought a lot about how wife Lisa would love everything about New Orleans in the spring except for the heat and humidity. She’s also not a fan of big crowds, so Jazz Fest was off the table. Large crowds never bothered me, so off I went on my own.

I’m pretty sure the first massive, messy, all-day-and-night deal I attended was the US Festival in 1983, where I saw The Clash again along with 150,000 others. But I was 19. I could have slept in the dirt next to the hot dog stand for two hours and been good to go when the sun came up. That one doesn’t count. I got to Coachella in 2007, with 186,000 fellow dusty travelers. No problem. I was among 200,000 who took in the return of my favorite band the Replacements at Riot Fest in Chicago in 2013. But by the time Lisa and I got to the Arroyo Seco Weekend festival in Pasadena in 2017 it was clear something had shifted, as we abandoned ship mid-afternoon, hot, cranky, and ready for some air conditioning. It was the first time I realized standing in the direct sun all day wasn’t a thing I wanted to do anymore, no matter how great the music was.

I might have remembered that before heading out to New Orleans.

I got dizzy a few times at Jazz Fest and needed to rest in the shade. Apparently I’m not too old to rock, just too old to rock in the direct sun for more than an hour. Still, I managed to see who I came for — David Byrne, who was spectacular — and several other acts. But it certainly wasn’t an all-day thing for me.

Thankfully, my friends and I were staying just two blocks from the Fair Grounds Race Course, home to Jazz Fest, guests of our friend Rod Hodges, he of the The Iguanas, a great band and a New Orleans institution. If it weren’t for Rod’s generosity and New Orleans hospitality, finding an air conditioned spot to cool out in before I melted might have reached crisis proportions.

Yes, New Orleans in the spring (and summer, fall, and some of winter) is hot and humid. But the city is its own brand of beautiful. The history, the music, the food, the architecture, the people … it’s just one of one. New Orleanians make time to celebrate, not just for Jazz Fest or Mardis Gras, but year-round and in every way possible, always with great music, dancing, and food. Being among them is a great antidote to the Southern California workaday grind.

And the musicians, man, they are just unbelievable. I’ve been hacking away at music and songwriting for more than 40 years, and I’ve come to know some great musicians. But every performer I saw in New Orleans, from the street to the main stage at Jazz Fest, was absolutely terrifying. There’s something going on down there, and it’s not just the natives. English pianist/singer/songwriter Jon Cleary, who’s been in New Orleans for decades, blew my mind. New Orleans seems to just be the place you go when you want to see if you can really play. If you can make it there, well, you know …

Mornings and evenings were usually spent at Rod’s place, steps from Le Ponce, a great place to pick up red eyes and breakfast sandwiches New Orleans style — toasted baguette with fried egg, brie, andouille, cornichons, red onion, and tomato. We hit Euclid Records, with its incredible selection of jazz, blues, rock, country,  zydeco, Cajun, African, and even comedy and spoken world vinyl. The ornate and pristine 1927 Saenger Theater took my breath away, as did Gilian Welch and David Rawlings, who did nearly three hours of Grateful Dead tunes. And we got to see The Iguanas absolutely kill it at Chickie Wah Wah. So good!

On Saturday I was startled awake about 5:30 a.m. by what my ears tracked as a powerful explosion, and rose to see what tragedy had befallen New Orleans. It turned out to be house-shaking thunder. A storm was rolling through, and I mean rolling. Lightning was snapping every few seconds for a couple hours, and the thunder rocked Rod’s house over and over again. Then the rain came in hard. Torrents filled the driveway, then the street. After more than an hour of what looked to me to be a Biblical event, it occurred to me that Jazz Fest — just steps away from us — would surely be canceled. This had to be a major storm and flooding event, I thought. I began wondering about ticket refunds and how that would happen.

By 9 the storm was done with us and the sun was out. We walked over to Le Ponce for some breakfast. The streets were clear. What had looked to me to be a gathering flood an hour earlier had become a benign series of standing puddles. Jazz Fest people, with their loud, vibrant clothes, decorated hats, and big smiles, were making their way to the Fair Grounds. It turned out all that water had only delayed the Jazz Fest start times by 30 minutes.

In Southern California that storm would have dominated news coverage for hours or even days. Schools would have closed. TV reporters in oversized ponchos would be filing dramatic “storm coverage” segments from rain soaked intersections.

In New Orleans it was just Saturday.

My two days at Jazz Fest were primarily spent wandering around taking in the immensity of the whole thing, and eating fantastic food. We caught a few acts in the Blues Tent and Jazz Tent, and on Sunday saw David Byrne’s joyous set, which put me in a state of sweaty, overheated bliss.

New Orleans left me sweaty but smitten. A week removed I am now jonesing for its world-class music, great food, swampy weather, and cool, soulful people. We can all use more of that in our lives, right?