This was looking like the first time in several years that we would skip the New Orleans jazzfest. Then Diana suggested going in on the Tuesday between jazzfest weekends to catch some of the night time shows and attend the festival on Thursday (the quietest day of all seven). She checked the cost of flights (much less expensive than anticipated), called Denny to make sure the cottage was available, and we were all set.
New Orleans and Webster St welcomed us on Tuesday afternoon and we settled in Chez Ogan for drinks and an excellent dinner of crab salad and shrimp and goat cheese enchiladas from Chef Denny and Sous Chef Anne.
Wednesday got off to a slow start but quickly picked up speed in the early afternoon with a late lunch at Boucherie on Carrolton St. Look at this amazing soft shell crab – we all agreed it was one of the 
best we had ever tasted.
While enjoying lunch, Denny did his typical research work and found a unique show happening at 4pm at Bud Rip’s. This is a dive bar in the Marigny and the Morning 40 Federation was performing. The music was like a modern day Iron Maiden – very heavy and very loud with a lot of changing time signatures and keys. Diana enjoyed her Rose wine from a “backpack can”. I found the music sounded best from about a block away outside the bar.
While the rain storm held off we decided to check out Chazfest. This is a very small festival held in a couple of back yards and designed as an antidote to the large and expensive jazz festival. It’s named after Washboard Chaz who we did see performing there. The highlight was the Valparaiso Men’s Chorus doing their sea shanty sing along routine. This is always one of Denny’s favorites as you can tell. A completely unique and unexpected afternoon treat for sure.
Chazfest was followed by a quick stop at Kebab for falafels and sandwiches. Then home to regroup before the Piano Summit show at Snug Harbor.
The heavens opened on the drive to Snug Harbor and our Uber driver did a great job of navigating the flooding streets. Snug Harbor is a tiny jazz club on Frenchmen Street in the Marigny. It was one of the first venues on this street which used to be an out of the tourist area music area. Sadly it has recently become more and more of a known attraction for tourists. We got great seats in the upstairs balcony where we were able to see Joe Crown’s fingers floating across the keys as he presented a beautifully varied set of New Orleans piano classics. Tom McDermott followed him and while he was technically amazing I didn’t enjoy his set as much. Marcia Ball gave her usual excellent performance of boogie woogie piano with the highlight being her rendition of our favorite Delbert McClinton song, “Sending Me Angels”. The finale was all 6 hands on the piano at the same time as the three performers took turns sitting on the piano stool, playing the bass line, and playing the soprano part – very entertaining and fun.
Thursday was jazzfest day and we had agreed on a late start around 1pm. I had an interesting experience putting on my Crocs to head out to the muddy field – apparently they can shrink up to 2 sizes when left out wet in the sun – sure enough they had been rinsed off and left in the sun prior to packing. This meant a trip to the shoe store on the way to the festival and a lot of hilarity about “did you put them in the dryer?”. We rendezvoused with Alex, Tom, Gary and the crew at Liuza’s by the track and then headed in. Each year there is a guest country at the fest that shares their music, culture, and traditions. This year was Cuba.
The best days at the festival are those when you really have no agenda –
nobody you really must see and have to fight in early to box out a space. We saw the Iguanas at Fais Do Dos, New Orleans Nightcrawlers (my highlight) at the Heritage stage, Herb Alpert in the Jazz tent, 10 mins or so of Widespread Panic on the Acura stage, a couple of minutes of Tower of Power on the Congo Square stage and then finished up with Darius Rucker on the Gentilly Stage (Diana’s highlight as evidenced by her happy music face).
The girls 
managed to work in oysters at the paddock and trips into the CD/Vinyl tent for better champagne than was on sale at the normal booths.
The food tents are equally as impressive as the music. We like to go back to the “trio” of offerings that we had at our first jazzfest. It’s hard to choose the most delicious between the crawfish sack, beignet, or oyster pattie.
We finished the evening off at a new place called the Beer Garden on Freret street – delicious food all around.
On Friday we had our typical leaving day brunch with Denny and Anne. This time at a new restaurant for all of us called “Cavan”. This was inside an old house with antique fixtures and décor. Again the food and drinks were delicious. So many fantastic and unique restaurants in this town and so little time. Back to McKinney and the ongoing home repairs from the hail storm. We had hoped they would be mostly complete while we visited New Orleans but a storm on Wednesday slowed things down by a couple of days. I woke on Saturday to nail guns on the roof above my head and then a generator right outside the bedroom window.
There was a summer of love theme going with a VW bug and bus decorated with flowers and a flower power booth manned by “D”. It was a gorgeous day and we enjoyed a picnic on the lawn by White Rock lake and a nap in the sun.
excursions. This time to the Kessler to see 10,000 maniacs. We enjoyed dinner at Bolsa and then a great concert courtesy of the Wahbas. So many fun activities around downtown Dallas but a bit too long of a drive in traffic to go as often as we’d like.
Dan’s now serves food from Texas Tapas next door and we really enjoyed green curry meatballs, mushroom tacos, and truffle parmesan tater tots (which are becoming a common item on menus these days).
To recover from the exertion of the tour, we stopped into Pepper Smash for some of their delicious blistered shishito peppers, Calbrese flatbread (creamy basil puree, charred tomato jam, sausage, and arugula) and cocktails. They have some very creative drinks, including the Cotton Candy Martini – which sounds way too sweet fo
r either of us to try. We walked across the street to the Angelika movie theater and saw T2 Trainspotting. This is a very Scottish movie set in Edinburgh. The language and content are a bit harsh but certainly lighter than Danny Boyle’s original.
rinity Groves with Patty and Brent. This is a new area on the opposite side of the Margaret Hunt bridge from downtown Dallas. There is a walking path along the Trinity river levee which provides great views of downtown. We stopped into the Cake Bar where Patty picked up a slice of cake for later. It appears to very popular as 
most all of the cakes were sold out before 5pm. Kate Weiser chocolate next door had some of the most creative and colorful treats I’ve seen. The Easter eggs were especially impressive.
ncert that was the main reason for our trip. We saw the Southern Soul Assembly perform at the City Winery. This is a group of 4 singer songwriters – Anders Osborne, Marc Broussard, JJ Grey, and Luther Dickinson – who usually perform on their own but did this short acoustic tour where they each take turns singing with acoustic guitars. The music and the venue were both excellent – we appreciated the table seating with food and drink service and the sound was very precise. We had heard Anders and Marc perform separately before and both agreed that JJ Grey was the star of the show. Here are JJ Grey, Anders, and Marc – you can decide which you like best but the variety was really entertaining.
Friday started with coffee and the crossword followed by a workout on the elliptical machines. We had lunch at a restaurant called the Little Octopus near the hotel. We were disappointed they didn’t have ceviche at lunch but enjoyed the Caribbean style food very much.
had a pleasant couple of hours exploring the exhibits and learned quite a bit about the local Nashville session musicians who played on music by Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Johnny Cash and a host of others.
On the walk back to the hotel we stopped for a picture of Diana with her new angel wings – do you see the guitars in the wing design? We laughed as Diana jumped in between a group of silly young girls who were taking forever to take multiple typical teenage poses in front of the wings. There was another couple waiting patiently and Diana told them, “That’s how it’s done”.
Thursday night’s routine with a trip to the rooftop bar at the hotel – quite a bit colder this time though so we sat inside. Then it was a quick Uber ride over to the Butcher and Bee restaurant – excellent Mediterranean food. The night finished with a quick visit to the Sambuca music club across from the hotel where we enjoyed a good cover band.
er in
Record factory and store. This is run by Jack White of the White Stripes band. Have you heard of them? Diana hadn’t and didn’t recognize their song “Seven Nation Army” when I played it on my phone on the walk over.
That evening we tried the Searsucker restaurant in the gas lamp district to see if it lived up to the Yelp reviews. It did for the most part with creative food, a nice casual setting and great service.
did a much better job than Captain Molly who took over the wheel just when Diana was downstairs in the head and learned quickly that large movements of the wheel cause the boat to turn very quickly and the boom to swing over. The official captain was quite entertained by the exploits.
On Saturday evening Diana and I ventured out to the gas lamp district again and found a fantastic bar/restaurant called the Whiskey House. This place had over 1,000 whiskeys from all over the world around the walls and a very impressive menu of whiskey based cocktails. The ones we sampled were perfectly made and delicious. We had a snack of scotch eggs and were wishing we had an appetite to try more from the great looking menu.
After dinner Denny consulted the extensive listing of concerts happening in New Orleans that night and we decided on Marc Stone at the Columns hotel. He was playing in the front room and at one point there were just the four of us listening to him. Denny had a good chat with Marc and didn’t forget to slip in some “Wash Dat” marketing activity. I thoroughly enjoyed his show. So much fantastic music is happening all over New Orleans every night. We headed to Dos Jefes cigar bar next to listen to a Japanese trombone player with what appeared to be a band composed of local music students – a great finish to our first night in New Orleans. We’re always amazed at how much ground we cover in a day when there.
erage Museum). Toups meatery has a restaurant inside and I loved the goat tacos that I had for lunch. There were lots of interesting exhibits on food and cocktails over the years. Next we had a coffee at “Morning Call” – a 24 hour coffee and beignet shop close to City Park and also to the restaurant where Denny had last left his credit card. Next to the coffee shop was the outdoor sculpture garden and we had a pleasant wander through it while enjoying the beautiful weather. Here’s a picture of my favorite sculpture – it seems to represent the evolution of man but I can’t remember the official name.
The boys always enjoy torturing “Miss Diana” when she comes to town. She’s in the middle of some kind of protest here. I see the boys play about once a year and am amazed at how much they progress – the team played really well.
The big highlight this week was a trip to the Kessler in Oak Cliff for a concert by Eric Lindell on Thursday (my sister Elspeth’s birthday). Brent accompanied us while poor Patty missed due to work travel.
Campbell clearly enjoyed his “all about me” day. His friends left to right are Cody, Patrick, and Cameron (turtle). He’s known them all since elementary school and they’re a great bunch of friends. Will and Christine, Melanie, Laquita, Campbell’s girlfriend Molly, and Diana (meeting Melanie and Laquita for the first time) all participated. It was quite steamy as the evening wore on but the kids didn’t mind or even notice I don’t think.
