Drunken Monkey Ice Cream… and the Wisdom of Thornton Wilder

This week I spoke at an investment conference in New Orleans that fell smack in the middle of the Jazz & Heritage Festival.

This was not exactly a coincidence.

My colleagues and I, along with a few hundred thousand other music fanatics, showed up four days early to soak up the sun and the sounds.

The festival – and New Orleans itself, of course – is best known for jazz. But that’s just a starting point, really.

We heard pop (James Taylor), gospel (Mavis Staples), blues (Johnny Winter), reggae (Third World), zydeco (Thomas Fields “The Big Hat Man”), rock (Sonny Landreth), bluegrass (Del McCoury), funk (Galactic), R&B (Erykah Badu), alt-country (Wilco), swamp (Tab Benoit), soul (Booker T), folk (Pete Seeger), and Cajun (Bruce Daigrepont), not to mention a few unclassifiables like The Creole Wild West Mardi Gras Indians, The Ebony Hillbillies and Big Chief Monk Boudreaux.

We also heard every kind of jazz, from swing, bebop and fusion to brass bands, ragtime and Dixie.

There was only one kind of music we didn’t hear this week: bad. Most of it, in fact, was astonishingly good.

If you had a butt, it was moving.

The concert performances were only part of the attraction, however. My personal Jazz Fest motto is “Come for the music.  Stay for the food.”

Generally, at outdoor events with over 50,000 spectators, the concession stands offer the usual fare: hot dogs, hamburgers, French fries and maybe polish sausages with peppers and onions.

Not Jazz Fest. Your fast food choices include sautéed trout smothered with blue crab, alligator pie, quail-pheasant-andouille gumbo, Cajun duck po-boy, or grilled chicken livers with pepper jelly.

Walking around the Fairgrounds wearing polka-dotted shorts and suspenders is tolerated. Ordering a corn dog is not.

At the end of each day, of course, we found ourselves back in the city… where there is still more music.

It rises up from lone musicians on street corners. Second line bands parade around the French Quarter. Jazz and blues spill out of clubs, saloons and restaurants all over town.

It’s as if the whole city breathes in a minor key. Perhaps especially after Katrina.

New Orleans appears to be bouncing back, however. Locals tell me business is picking up again. And the visitors, of course, are in heaven.

One festival-goer’s T-shirt summed it up nicely:

I Like New Orleans Broken
Better Than Any Other City Fixed

There is a lot to like here, even if you’re not a music lover. You can gallery hop the Arts District, ride the Canal Street ferry, take a streetcar tour of the Garden District, relax at the Sculpture Garden in City Park, people watch on Bourbon Street, visit Saint Louis Cathedral in Jackson Square or just sit on the shore and watch the mighty Mississippi roll past. (Total cost: approximately zero.)

Then there are all those terrific restaurants: Commander’s Palace, Bayona, Brennan’s, Herbsaint, Stella or NOLA – just to name a few.

And if you visit NOLA, for instance, do you order the shellfish stew made with seared mahi mahi, jumbo gulf shrimp, homemade chorizo sausage and garlic black mussels? Or should you plunk for the hickory-roasted duck with whiskey caramel sauce, saving room, of course, for the white chocolate bananas foster bread pudding with drunken monkey ice cream?

It’s a tough call.

After dinner, it’s worth visiting the newly refurbished Rock n’ Bowl on Carrollton Avenue, a favorite place to eat, drink, dance, bowl, or just hang out and hear great musicians. (Trust me. There isn’t a jukebox in the whole town.)

On Wednesday night, we stopped in to bowl a few frames and hear Nathan and the Zydeco Cha-Cha’s.

The band was exceptional that night.  And so was the bowling performance of my friend Steven King.

I’m not suggesting his skills are finely honed. (Indeed, his game score rarely rises above the low double-digits.) Still, I’ve never seen gutter balls thrown with such remarkable power and consistency. The ball appears to be seeking the gutter even before leaving his hand. It was, in its own way, impressive to watch.

Later, we stopped to listen to a brass band at the corner of Bourbon and Canal where my colleague Maura Taylor danced with a homeless man in the street for 20 minutes.

“Except for the smell,” she said, “it was lovely.”

What does all this have to do with Spiritual Wealth, you might be wondering?

Not much, I suppose. I took the week off.

Still, as Thornton Wilder said:

“My advice to you is not to inquire why or whither, but just enjoy your ice cream while it’s on your plate.”

Especially if it’s Drunken Monkey.

Carpe Diem,

Alex

P.S. The New Orleans Jazz Fest continues through the weekend. If you can’t make it, feel free to catch it live online tomorrow and Sunday at http://music.att.net.