43nd Annual New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival presented by Shell

Weekend II, May 3-7, 2012

Fair Grounds Race Course, New Orleans

I'm not even half way through Jazz Fest 2012 -- seven days of the sensory overload of music simultaneously pouring from 11 stages for eight hours a day, along with the food, art, and people watching that have become part of this annual pilgrimage. By 7 p.m. on Sunday, I will have seen at least some of the performances by over 150 of the 400-plus acts that will have appeared.

I know the routine, I've done it over two dozen years in a row. And by the Thursday that starts the second weekend, I've shaken off any aching footsies and lack of conditioning for the daily marathon of zigging from stage to stage. Usually. This year seems, well, different for no good reason that I can tell.

Owing to a dream I had last night, I briefly toy with setting up this blog review as a Facebook style timeline with location tags. Thankfully, I nix the idea when I decide that

If you missed our live stream, check out some of our favorite moments from John Fullbright's performance, plus the entire show!

It's hard to believe when listening to his debut album that singer-songwriter John Fullbright is only 24 years old. The native Oklahoman's body of work rings with both a sense of self-assurance and an emotional depth that's not generally found from such a young source.

However, Fullbright's been honing his craft since he was really a kid. Growing up in Okemah--the birthplace of Woody Guthrie--Fullbright was drawn to music early on, getting his hands into his mother's record collection and taking up piano in elementary school. By his teen years, his songwriting was nuanced enough for indoctrination into legendary local club the Blue Door. The owner of the venue, who'd seen everyone from Jimmy Webb to Arlo Guthrie on his stage, was so impressed by Fullbright's work that he decided to become his manager.

"John's songs remind me of people like Kris Kristofferson and John Prine--just really great songwriters," he told the Los Angeles Times.

Popular in-store appearances at the Louisiana Music Factory fill the gap between Jazz Fest weekends
April 26 - May 7

Barry Smith is fairly calm for a man nailing down the last-minute details for a special DVD-release event with the members of the HBO hit series "Treme," organizing a still-shifting line-up of presentations and appearances, handing out music advice, and dealing with the fact that the Rebirth Brass Band has just called in to report that a car accident will prevent them from performing a set that was scheduled to start five minutes ago.

Oh, did I mention that Smith's record store, the Louisiana Music Factory, where all this taking place, has been overrun by a hundred or two customers? Some are grasping to-go cups of draft beer from a bar down the street, others clutching an armful of hard-to-find albums grabbed from the store's formidable selection, still others just leaning on a rack in one of the couple rows that run the length of the slender store.

43nd Annual New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival presented by Shell

April 27-29, 2012

Fair Grounds Race Course, New Orleans

There are lots of worthwhile music festivals out there these days. Coachella, Bumbershoot, Bonnaroo, Rhythm and Roots, and Lollapalooza are annual destinations for many, just to name a few. They all have one thing in common: they all studied, and to varying degrees mimicked, the multi-stage model of the New Orleans Jazz Fest.

But Jazz Fest has one thing that one thing that can't be copied: the Gulf region's built-in talent pool. Even though Hurricane Katrina scattered the city's cultural base, and some of the fertile urban funk has been gentrified, there still ain't nothin' like New Orleans. Or Jazz Fest.

If looked at purely on a genetic basis, how in the world could Dedicated be anything but a very fun listen?

The latest album by Wilson Phillips--the well-known pop trio who swiftly rose to fame with their 1990 debut album--could not come with a better pedigree.

The singers? Carnie and Wendy Wilson, daughters of Beach Boys' founding legend Brian Wilson, and Chynna Phillips, daughter of the Mamas & Papas' celebrated John & Michelle Phillips. The songs? Some of the most famous in pop history--which just happened to be penned or made famous by the singers' celebrated parents. Among the highlights are memorable versions of "California Dreamin'," "Don't Worry Baby," "Monday, Monday," "Fun, Fun, Fun" and the thematically relevant "Dedicated To The One I Love."

The trio brought their warmth and good humor to the Y! Music studios recently and offered up several memorable live renditions of those tracks and an enormously entertaining interview--spilling the details on the new album, their

Snoop Dogg [Photo: Debi Del Grande]

The massive music cram session that was the Coachella Music Festival 2012 is officially over and we've survived! Seeing the festival out, headliners Snoop Dogg and Dr. Dre gave a phenomenal performance, despite it being identical to the one they did the weekend prior, superstar guests and all. While it's completely normal to repeat sets and even on-stage chatter for the multiple shows on a tour, there was something about the new fangled-ness of a two-weekend Coachella that had fans expecting something different the second time around. Nevertheless, watching Snoop and Dre perform their classics like "Nuthin' but a G Thang," "Gin and Juice" and "California Love," (which one would expect the Tupac hologram to appear for) was an unmatchable experience. But an unexpected disappointment occurred when the tilted glass contraption lowered and the much-awaited Tupac hologram rose up on stage. For some odd reason, the crowd seemed underwhelmed by the appearance, cheering surprisingly little considering the hype surrounding the resurrection last weekend. In fact, after hologram Tupac dissipated into the afterlife, Dre had some difficulty getting the crowd to give it up for Tupac, having to call out three times for the audience to make some noise with little success.

"Hologram" Biggie Smalls [Photo: Debi Del Grande]

Congratulations, we've survived another day at the 104-degree Coachella Music Festival! The spirit of one-upsmanship was more apparent on Saturday as acts flexed their rolodexes to bring out some more surprise guests. But it seems the best guest stars have been the ones who are not really there. The Black Lips, in a very successful attempt to top their last set when lead singer Cole Alexander dropped trou and played his guitar with his wing wang, made a bid that even Snoop and Dre will have to work to top: A "hologram" Biggie Smalls. Well, not so much a hologram as a life-sized cardboard cutout of the deceased rapper. But hey, hologram Tupac was 2D as well, and as the band pointed out, their "hologram" you can actually touch! The cutout danced around to Smalls' "Hypnotize" as the crowd sang along and the rowdy Atlanta-based band shotgunned some more beers. Not bad for the achingly early 2:15pm slot, and not as painful to watch as junk hitting guitar strings.

For the first time in Coachella history, the sprawling, heat stroke-inducing festival based in the Southern California desert made the initially insane-sounding decision to make the event even bigger: Clone itself to add a second, identically lined-up weekend. Giving the artists a chance to improve upon their first weekend performances, some took the opportunity to make tributes to the great loss of legendary rock drummer and vocalist Levon Helm of The Band. Most notably was a surprise appearance by John Fogerty during the Black Keys' set!

The Black Keys [Photo: Debi Del Grande]