Jazz Fest: A New Orleans Story (2022)

This documentary is an infectiously exuberant overview of the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, the Big Easy’s unique and enormous celebration of its music, cuisine and multiculturalism, by combining their own footage of performances and interviews at the 50th iteration of the star-studded annual event — the last before COVID-19 forced cancelation of the 2020 and 2021 editions — and archival footage dating back to the festival’s earliest days. It is a love letter, a testimonial, a history lesson, and a musical revue. The one thing that I learned, through an interview with Jazz Fexst co-founder George Wein during an interview conducted before his 2021 passing, is that if he had accepted a 1962 invitation by locals to establish the New Orleans equivalent of his Newport Jazz Festival. But he just couldn’t see how a Jazz Festival could be conducted in New Orleans during a period of Jim Crow laws, segregation, and racial discrimination. It took nearly a decade before Wein was ready to partner with Allan Jaffe of the Crescent City’s Preservation Hall and get the party started. After chronicling the bad old days, almost everything that follows is footage that emphasizes at every opportunity the inclusiveness of New Orleans in general and the festival in particular. Aptly described by one interviewee as “the world’s greatest backyard barbecue” where just about everyone is invited, the event evolved by 2019 into a sprawling social gathering at the city’s Fair Grounds with 7,000 musicians performing on 14 stages over eight days. Peak attendance: an estimated 100,000 people on a single day, a number that would make it the sixth largest city in Louisiana. If you haven't experienced it, this will give you a taste of whether or not it is for you.