Jazz Fest Weekend 2: ‘Purple Rain’ and Other Tributes in Rainy New Orleans

(photo: Erika Goldring/Getty Images)

One of the 2016 New Orleans Jazz Festival’s most anticipated lineups of heavy-hitting headliners was knocked out of commission in its second weekend, when severe rain, lightning, and winds hit on Saturday.A majority of the fans waiting to see Stevie Wonder, Beck, Snoop Dogg, Buddy Guy, Arturo Sandoval, and others stayed put through the downpour that started around 4 p.m.; when the rain finally let up over an hour later, power had been knocked out and stage gear damaged (including Wonder’s grand piano for Stevie Wonder). The mammoth Fair Grounds Race Course where Jazz Fest is held wasn’t just waterlogged – flash flooding had changed its topography into a land of small lakes and new Mississippi River tributaries that were more than knee-deep in some areas.

Complaints from those who had come to see their favorite acts, now canceled, were inevitable, and concertgoers had a legitimate gripe after toughing it out through the mini-monsoon. But there were dozens – hundreds, actually – of options to still make for a great second weekend of music and mud at Jazz Fest.

Here are but 10 of many…

1. Stevie Wonder & Prince-ly Purple

With a full week to work out arrangements after Prince’s untimely passing, tributes to the Prince-ly one were abundant on the second weekend of Jazz Fest. But the best homage was possibly the unrehearsed (and probably least heard) nod by Stevie Wonder. Ninety minutes after Saturday’s Fest-finishing storm started, and a few minutes after it was officially shut down, Stevie Wonder was led out onto the Acura Stage, where the sound system was completely dead. Through a megaphone Wonder led sopping members of the remaining crowd who were within shouting distance in a short sing-along of “Purple Rain.”

There had been numerous celebrations Prince’s of music and life through the city, and one could almost expect that someone would seed the unremitting rainclouds so that they would pour purple. Topping off a set of soaring jams at Fest, My Morning Jacket was joined by the Preservation Hall Jazz Band for “Sign O’ the Times” and “Purple Rain.” And New Orleans bounce queen Big Freedia offered his own “Purple Rain” before Saturday’s deluge.

2. Tribute to Allen Toussaint

Last year at this point, we were talking about the longevity of Allen Toussaint’s influential career. This year, after Mr. New Orleans’s heart attack last November, a parade of music heavyweights gathered to celebrate Toussaint’s never-ending musical importance. “Thank you for coming to our house,” Toussaint’s son Clarence told the soaked Gentilly crowd, “because that’s what Jazz Fest was to [my father].“

Art Neville, Bonnie Raitt, Cyrille Neville, ELS, and Keith Claiborne sang their respects while Jon Batiste (on loan from David Letterman), Dr. John, Davell Crawford, and Joe Krown sat at Toussaint’s piano to dig into a nuggets from the songmaster’s extensive songbook. Together with a band that included many of Allen’s longtime band members, they underscored the slip-and-slide groove that was key in a roll call of Toussaint songs including “Working in a Coal Mine,” “Get Out of My Life Woman,” “Lady Marmalade,” and “Southern Nights” as well as Dr. John’s poignant salute to his old friend, “Life.”

3. Elvis Costello

Backed by an all-star big band and sporting an Allen Toussaint button on his Prince-purple beret, Elvis Costello, demonstrating why he’s one of our generation’s greatest songwriters, delivered a set peppered with slashes of his punk-era hits as well as samplings of his collaborations one of New Orleans’s great song men, Mr. Toussaint.

Costello performed songs from their collaborations, including the lofty "Ascension Day” (from 2006’s River in Reverse) and "Who’s Gonna Help Brother Get Further,” backed by the Crescent City Horns, mixed in with scissor-sharp and energized versions of his own “Radio Radio,” “I Don’t Want To Go To Chelsea,“ and “Every Day I Write the Book.” Costello also covered Toussaint’s “I Cried My Last Tear” and told stories of their tours together before closing out Thursday with a fierce “Pump It Up.”

4. Dr. John & the Night Trippers

Nothing says “New Orleans” better than a set of classic swamp-funk from the Doctor, even if it was shortened by the storms that would knock out the rest of Saturday’s lineup. For 35 minutes, players from the Dirty Dozen brass joined members of Dr. John’s regular Night Trippers to slither through his gris-gris collection of tunes including that ranged from “Iko Iko” to the menacing “I Walk on Gilded Splinters.” The set also included “Right Place, Wrong Time,” Earl King’s “Make a Better World,” and a guest shot on melodica by Jon Batiste on “Big Shot” (from Locked Down album, produced by Dan Auerbach) before “Good Night, Irene” – unexpectedly but appropriately – finished off the day.

5. Neil Young

Neil Young’s moody, whammy-bar set of guitar fireworks with nephew Lukas (son of Willie) Nelson and Promise of the Real was huge. At times, the sonic boom of their long, massive jamsresonated like ocean liners grinding against one another, creating a reverberating bang-and-clang that seemingly boomed in protest to the stormy skies.

The bigger protest, though, was happening onstage, where Young had staged an anti-GMO plant harvest to reinforce the title track of his recent album, The Monsanto Years. As Young and band reeled out faves like “Rockin’ the Free World,” “Country Home,” and “Powderfinger,” songs extended into jams that seemed like they’d never wind down. “The next song is exactly like the last one,” Young said at one point, “only not as long.”

6. Paul Simon

Speaking of songwriters, this critic is the first to admit that he sometimes forgets that Paul Simon is pretty great at penning catchy tunes, too. By including some Clifton Chenier zydeco flavorings, Simon showed that the gulf between accordion-flavored Graceland and bayou tunes really isn’t that wide.

A few minutes after a set of classic singalongs (including “50 Ways to Leave Your Lover,” “Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes,” “You Can Call Me Al”) and “encores” that were highlighted by the swaying lilt of a definitive “The Boxer,” Simon ambled back onstage to offer a solo lullaby of “Sound of Silence.”

7. Mavis Staples

In the Blues Tent, the rhythm & rock gospel of Mavis Staples was again an inspiration. Belting out songs from her stirring Living on the Edge CD, with songs by Ben Harper, Neko Case, Nick Cave, and Jon Batiste, Mavis proclaimed, “I won’t turn around, I’ve come too far, y’all.” The set peaked when Mavis led the march up “Freedom Highway,” an upbeat protest song written in the 1960s by her late dad Pops to honor the civil rights trek from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama. “I was there, and I’m still here… fighting for hope… love… and peace,” she declared before launching into Levon Helms’s “The Weight"

8. Irma Thomas

Even at 75 years of age, Irma Thomas’s reign as Soul Queen of New Orleans shows no signs of ending any time soon. Animatedly roaming the Acura Stage on Friday, Irma – who also performed a special “Gospel Soul of Irma Thomas” spotlight set Sunday in the Gospel Tent – invigorated the audience with “Ruler of My Heart,” “It’s Raining,” and other tracks from her early-1960s collaborations with Allen Toussaint. Before a moving rendition of “Forever Young,” she took time to “reclaim" “Time Is on My Side” from the Rolling Stones, who had a hit with the song after hearing Irma’s version. “I look a hell of a lot better than he does at 75,” she smirked.

9. Snarky Puppy

The last time Snarky Puppy played Jazz Fest, they rode a wave of frenetic overload ready to burst at the seams. This time, maturity and depth ruled the day, mirroring the incredible sense for adventure and crafty arrangements on the jazz-fusion collective’s brand-new album, Culcha Vulcha. Horns ricocheted off the bass-and-drums beat while syncopated keys and guitar percolations up the melodic ante. In other sections their nuanced textures sounded like a heady big-band reincarnation of Band X. Later, they played a surprise show at Republic joined by special guest Derek Smalls of Spinal Tap (aka Harry Shearer) for a rousing rendition of Tap’s bootlylicious classic, “Big Bottom.”

10. Trombone Shorty & Orleans Avenue

When Troy “Trombone Shorty” Andrews was given the chance a few years back to take over the duties of closing Jazz Fest from the Neville Brothers, some questioned his ability to do so. He himself was not one of those people. And now in 2016 we all look to Trombone Shorty to take Jazz Fest out on the highest of notes, this year ignoring the persistent rain.

With Ivan Neville on keys and the ever-young energy of his Orleans Avenue band to fuel the grand finale, Andrews was electric, a whirlwind of energy who dove into the mud-stained crowd with his horn to lead a second line parade of one. “We ain’t afraid of no rain,” he declared while directing the band, all wearing Prince-worthy purple, from “Do to Me" through "Hurricane Season.” For an encore, Andrews mashed “When the Saints Go Marching In" with “Everybody Needs Somebody,” a bright finish that almost let us forget what a sloggy wet mess Jazz Fest had been… and bright enough that we’ll be back next year for another hopefully sunny helping.