Another pre-Jazz Fest note, this one on Aretha Franklin. Mike Seely at the Seattle Weekly wrote this week protesting the choice of Aretha Franklin to sing at the Obama Inaugural Ball. His complaint? She’s too fat.

Aretha Franklin is not full-figured, nor is she even fat. She’s not even obese — she’s a whole ‘nother classification of obese: Arethabese. The degree to which the Arethabeast let herself go is sad and disgraceful, and to prop her gargantuan ass in front of tens of millions of viewers sends a very loud message that it’s a-okay to keep wolfing down dollar-menu items with impunity.

He tries to weasel out with the oldest dodge in the book – I’m one too:

I have no problems with full-figured people. I’m a full-figured person, and I’d be doing myself a big favor if I managed to drop 20 lbs. Recently, I won a prize at a couples baby shower wherein each guest was to try and guess the size of the eight-months-pregnant mom-to-be’s stomach. I simply measured my own, and it was an exact match.

But that doesn’t excuse his premise – fat people shouldn’t be seen or given a public platform because it will make others think it’s okay to be fat. But what’s worse is that even the complaint seems dishonest. Does he think he should be barred from public speech because it might give people license to eat until obese as well? Or is this just a ruse to give him an excuse to fire off some cheap, easy fat jokes?

               

 

[Updated 9:55. See the end of the post.]

After today’s story in the Times-Picayune about the Mid-City bonfire, it’s time to let the bonfire go. Not because of anything the story said, but because the event’s danger will go up. Until now, it’s an event that has spread by word of mouth to people who would get it, people who share values. As such, it has been safer than in it sounds on paper. But with word of the event now jumping that selective process, curiosity seekers, amateur drinkers out on a New Year’s Eve binge, rowdies and the like will all be there to see what big deal is. And that doesn’t bode well for the bonfire event as those of us who have regularly attended know it. For many of us, it’s a huge leap from fireworks to handguns, but not for others, and they add a level of danger that fire and fireworks don’t.

We’ve all known this day would come. Open fires and unregulated fireworks in a residential neighborhood aren’t permitted, and sooner or later, the city would step in. And a regulated, authorized version just isn’t the same thing. Part of the beauty of the event was how civil an unpoliced event could be, even with the presence of a lot of alcohol. It confirms what I’ve always believed: Police and coersive laws provoke a lot of misbehavior, and if people see a good reason not to misbehave – like having fun – they don’t.

For those who are interested, an online petition to save the bonfire has been posted here.   

               

 

A Tony Bennett review in the New York Times, in long-distance advance of his show at Jazz Fest. According to Ben Ratliff:

When Tony Bennett, now 82, enacts that kind of poise onstage, what’s impressive isn’t that he’s doing it at all but how he does it, his consummate and subtle technique. You don’t look at his face for clues of what the song’s about, you look at his hands and gauge the timbre of his voice.

               

 

The Mid-City New Year’s Eve bonfire has been a partially kept secret for quite some time, likely because everybody knew if it became too big, it would be shut down. Certainly among writers I knew, writing about it was verboten. That has become a moot point because the city is now taking steps to stop the bonfire from happening. There will be an “informational session” hosted by the NOPD, NOFD and Parks and Parkways Monday at 6:30 p.m. at Grace Episcopal Church (3700 Canal St.). Based on the efforts of people to challenge the decision, it sounds like the occasion will be used to inform people why playing with fire is dangerous, and that the decision has been made.

If it’s really done, that will be truly sad because for a decade or so, it has been the most remarkably odd and alive way to ring in the new year. Still, the interesting thing is how the event’s history likely undercuts the city’s fears. Year after year, people have built a bonfire with their Christmas trees on the neutral grounds, and year after year the fire stays put until it has burned down significantly, when the fire truck on hand puts it out. Year after year, people drink beer and champagne and run around the fire without falling in. Year after year, people shoot off fireworks without putting eyes out right, left and center. In short, for all the presumption of danger that we will likely be informed of, little has happened. 

               

 

Last night, Keith Olbermann did a piece on shoe-throwing, the sort of piece that could only happen on a slow news day. He tried half-heartedly to turn it into a trend story but his guest wasn’t biting and I wasn’t either. Then I remembered the words I saw typed on a Blackberry beside me when C. Ray approached the microphone at the Jazz Fest lineup announcement: “I’m working to keep my shoes on.” If the texter knew he had two city cars in his driveway, at least one shoe would have flown.

               

 

UPDATE: Dec. 17 – A reader says Erykah Badu did play Jazz Fest 8 or so years ago. I thought so, but wasn’t sure.]

The New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival just concluded its lineup announcment press conference. Some highlights, then the Jazz Fest info:

First cliche: Quint Davis announcing that “It takes a village” to raise a jazz festival to 40, this being the festival’s 40th anniversary.

Channeling Farrakhan: Mayor Ray Nagin launched into a numerology riff on the significance of the number 4 – “a balanced number” – then 40, then 4 was the number of times that Jazz Fest has been declared the Best Festival in the World.

Talent Check: Jazz Fest always gets good talent for these events. In this case, they put together George Wein, Dr. Michael White, Nicholas Payton, Trombone Shorty, Roland Guerin and Shannon Powell.

Theme No. 1: Everybody stressed “Jazz” from the microphone, and Davis used the phrase “the heritage of jazz” as his implied explanation of what the phrase “Jazz and Heritage Festival” means. I’ve heard him use that phrase before in this context – once in an interview with me – though it’s an odd way to interpret the word “and”. And perhaps at some point before the festival, I’ll figure out the jazz-heritage of Spoon and the Kings of Leon.

Questions from the Gallery: While Davis, Jackie Clarkson and George Wein spoke with great positivity about the festival being the greatest in the world, I had time to look at the art by Roy Ferdinand, Jr. on the Jazz and Heritage Gallery walls. Davis said the festival “is New Orleans,” and I wondered if the people in Ferdinand’s paintings are part of the festival, or if they benefit from Jazz Fest – African Americans who are underweight, perhaps addicted, with the body language of the defeated or the defiant with faces of barely suppressed anger. I wonder if those people love the festival.

Theme No. 2: I didn’t catch Davis’ exact language, but he touched on the “greatest hits” theme, which reminded me of the festival’s 35th anniversary theme, “the family of Jazz Fest,” or something along those lines. Like the 35th anniversary, the 40th anniversary features a lot of acts that you’ve seen before at Jazz Fest, some many times: Wynton Marsalis, Dave Matthews Band, James Taylor, Joe Cocker, Earth Wind & Fire, Robert Cray, Etta James & the Roots Band, Mavis Staples, Johnny Winter, Pete Seeger, Hugh Masekela, Roy Haynes, Del McCoury Band, Aretha Franklin, Ben Harper and The Relentless 7, Bonnie Raitt, Emmylou Harris, Buddy Guy, Los Lobos, The O’Jays, Toots & the Maytals, Solomon Burke, Doc Watson, and Maze featuring Frankie Beverly. That’s not a huge surprise, and there are a fair number of notable first time acts, but it lays the festival’s priorities out pretty clearly when they present the new fest, same as the old fest.

First Time Acts of Note: Spoon, Third World, Drive-By Truckers feat. Booker T. Jones, Sharon Jones & the Dap Kings, Avett Brothers, Kinky, Locos por Juana, Yacub Addy and Odadaa of Ghana, Sugarland, Tony Bennett, Kings of Leon, Jakob Dylan, and Chuck Brown. I assume Guy Clark and Erykah Badu have played here before, but maybe not.

A Little Voodoo?: It’s tempting to notice how many touring acts playing the festival played Voodoo first in recent years – Spoon, Drive-By Truckers, Kings of Leon, Common, and maybe Erykah Badu – but that’s more likely a sign of who’s who in the post-jam touring world, and Voodoo picked up on what was going on in festivals just as Jazz Fest did, more than Jazz Fest watched to see how these acts did at Voodoo.

Valuable Territory: In addition to the Big Chief package (with viewing off to one side) and the Grand Marshall package (with access to the front of the stage in front of fans actually lined up or got their early to see their favorites), now there will be a Krewe of Jazz Fest package which will entitle buyers to special covered seating on the track side of Jazz Fest. And really – it’s about time the wealthy were properly taken care of at Jazz Fest. In a world where the game is rigged on behalf of the working man, it’s about time someone thought to bump those privileged middle class people and their lawn chairs and blankets and cardboard boxes full of beer and ice out of the way so that the poor, hard-done-by wealthy few could get a nice, covered seat to watch Tony Bennett and a number of other band their kids tell them are good.

A Sop to the Regulars: As ticket prices have gone up in recent years, so have complaints from the faithful who go daily. This year, ticket prices remain the same, but there are a limited number of ticket packages available that will allow those who buy a whole weekend’s worth of tickets to get them for $35 per day instead of $40.

For the full lineup and ticket details, go to NOJazzFest.com.

               

 

Wednesday night, One Eyed Jacks will present a Christmas double feature with a screening of the Flaming Lips’ Christmas on Mars and Miss Pussycat’s brilliant North Pole Nutrias. Doors open at 8 p.m.

               

 

Wilson Savoy reflects on the overlooked band in this year’s Grammy consideration for Best Cajun/Zydeco Album here.  Along the way, he touches on why the omission and what “Cajun music” means in 2008.

 

               

Reid Wick from NARAS sent me his personal list of Louisianans who were involved with Grammy-nominated recordings, and I’ve learned a few through other means. David Egan, for example, wrote songs for two of the Best Contemporary Blues Album – the title track for Marcia Ball’s Peace, Love & BBQ and “Underground Stream” for Irma Thomas’ Simply Grand. For an updated list, click here.

               

 

It’s snowing this morning. It’s too warm for it to stick on the ground, but it’s covering parked cars. Naturally, the city’s in a state of freak-out, and a guy just walked under my office window at 9:03 and shouted to no one in particular, “IT’S FUCKIN’ SNOWING IN NEW ORLEANS!”