[AGL] Fwd: Springsteen @ N.O. Jazz Fest (L.A. Times)

[Harry Edwards]

Begin forwarded message:

> From: Stephanie Chernikowski <stephaniecher at EARTHLINK.NET>
> Date: May 2, 2006 3:58:02 PM CDT
> To: GHETTO2 at LISTS.WHATHELPS.COM
> Subject: Fwd: Springsteen @ N.O. Jazz Fest (L.A. Times)
> Reply-To: Remembrances of Austin Ghetto <GHETTO2 at LISTS.WHATHELPS.COM>
>
> a hopeful note
>>
>>
>>
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> ?
>>
>> From the Los Angeles Times
>>
>> POP MUSIC REVIEW
>>
>> Bruce leads the revival
>>
>>
>> Springsteen closes the New Orleans Jazz Fest's first weekend with an 
>> exhilarating performance.
>>
>> By Randy Lewis
>> Times Staff Writer
>>
>> April 30, 2006
>>
>> NEW ORLEANS ? Sometime, somewhere, a more dramatic and exhilarating 
>> confluence of music with moment may have existed than Bruce 
>> Springsteen's appearance tonight at the 37th annual Jazz & Heritage 
>> Festival here. But in nearly 40 years of concert-going, I haven't 
>> witnessed one.
>>
>> The first public presentation of material from his new album of 
>> folk-rooted songs, "We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions" had the 
>> feeling of no less than the turning of a tide, for the people of New 
>> Orleans and Louisiana, and perhaps well beyond.
>>
>> It was serendipity that Springsteen happened to finish the album just 
>> enough ahead of Jazz Fest to accept an invitation to premiere his new 
>> Seeger Sessions band and the material for the occasion. But the way 
>> this project uses American folk music tradition to express and 
>> transform people's pain, loss and anger dovetailed perfectly with the 
>> festival's role eight months after Hurricane Katrina as a salve on 
>> the wounds of the region's residents.
>>
>> The album had been out just nine days before today's show with this 
>> remarkably spirited 18-piece ensemble consisting of banjo, acoustic 
>> guitars, accordion, fiddles, mandolin, Dobro, steel guitar, bass, 
>> drums and a freewheeling horn section that fit right in here in the 
>> brass band capital of the nation. The massed forces, which included 
>> several backup singers, exuded an enlarged sense of the communal 
>> spirit that's long typified Springsteen shows.
>>
>> The audience at the closing set of the 10-day event's first weekend 
>> empathetically jumped in without so much as a cue on sing-along 
>> choruses that it cemented the feeling of a community coming together 
>> and rising above tragedy.
>>
>> This, however, was above and beyond even Springsteen's high 
>> performance standards. Moving from the rock context of the E Street 
>> Band to the shout-out jubilation of an unfettered hootenanny, the New 
>> Jersey rocker was transformed into a troubadour evangelist. One 
>> concert cannot even start to undo such monumental destruction as 
>> Katrina left, but Springsteen seemed to understand that even a moment 
>> of renewal can be a powerful thing.
>>
>> Springsteen began with the spiritual "O Mary Don't You Weep," so 
>> infused with religious fervor it would have worked beautifully in the 
>> festival's gospel tent as he sang, "Brothers and sisters don't you 
>> cry/There'll be good times by and by."
>>
>> Except for a few fittingly reworked numbers from his catalog, 
>> including "Johnny 99" redone as a New Orleans street parade workout, 
>> and a spare, deeply felt version of "My City of Ruins," the show 
>> stuck with the "Seeger Sessions" songs, supplemented by a couple that 
>> didn't make the final cut for the album.
>>
>> One of those was "How Can a Poor Man Stand Such Times and Live?" ? a 
>> song written in 1929 at the start of the Depression, to which 
>> Springsteen added three of his own verses with Katrina in mind.
>>
>> He spoke at one point of driving through mile upon mile of 
>> storm-devastated New Orleans neighborhoods, and sharing citizens' 
>> outrage at political incompetence and/or corruption that has 
>> compromised rebuilding efforts. But rather than giving in to despair, 
>> the songs he chose almost invariably sought ? and found ? redemption 
>> through faith and the resilience of the human spirit.
>>
>> Such was the restorative power Springsteen and the band channeled 
>> that midway through their treatment of Bill and Sis Cunningham's Dust 
>> Bowl chronicle "My Oklahoma Home," it didn't seem the least bit 
>> coincidental that the gray storm clouds above parted to reveal the 
>> blue sky and shining sun behind them.
>>
>> After Springsteen and his plentiful cohorts left the stage, an 
>> announcer said, "This concludes the first weekend of the resurrection 
>> of New Orleans." And for once such a comment didn't sound the least 
>> like hype.
>>
>>
>>
>> ?
>>
>>
>> -- 
>> Keith McCarthy
>> EleventyOne Group
>> 33 West 67th Street, PH 1
>> New York, NY 10023
>> keithmccarthy11 at gmail.com
>> p.??917.574.1953
>> f.?? 212.533.0880
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>
>
> Stephanie Chernikowski
> www.StepCherPhoto.com
>