NEW ORLEANS — Apparently nothing can bring down the party at Jazz Fest, a point that Irma Thomas made clear Saturday while talking to a crowd as large as one of the barges floating up the nearby Mississippi River.
"We celebrate everything in New Orleans," the homegrown soul legend claimed, ticking off a list that included death, frogs, insects, divorce and "when the pregnancy test comes back negative."
Death indeed came up a lot again on the second weekend of the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage festival, now in its 48th year and still a regular pilgrimage for many music-loving Minnesotans.
Several performers again covered songs by Prince (who died a day before last year's fest started), while a parade and all-star tributes were held in honor of Louisiana's accordion king Buckwheat Zydeco (lost in September). Those were some of the weekend's most joyous moments, too.
Like Hurricane Katrina — which Jazz Fest quite miraculously survived and rallied around — last week's hotly topical American Health Care Act and divisive presidential politics were frequently brought up during the event, as if they were yet more reasons to celebrate America's most culturally diverse and musically replete city.
"Wilco is a preexisting condition," singer/songwriter Jeff Tweedy of Chicago cracked about his band during their truly celebratory performance Friday, a makeup date for a rained-out 2015 set.
With the weekend's constant mid-70s temperatures and blue skies enhancing the fest's good vibes, Tweedy actually apologized before launching into one of Wilco's more grim and downbeat songs, "Via Chicago." Fans were nonetheless happy to sing along to it, and they similarly welcomed the more low-frills tunes from the band's last record, "Wilco Schmilco."
Detroit icon Stevie Wonder spent much of his headlining set Saturday — arguably too much of it — talking about love and unity, which was also frequently preached in the festival's surprisingly hard-rocking gospel tent.