Jon Batiste delivered big show at 2026 New Orleans Jazz Fest | Louisiana Festivals

During a Thursday afternoon interview for an overflow crowd at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival’s Allison Miner Music Heritage Stage, Jon Batiste discussed his bonkers travel schedule over the last couple weeks.

After bouncing from Japan to London to Marrakesh to Paris to Las Vegas to Los Angeles to New York, he arrived in New Orleans this week to rehearse — and, from the way it sounded, end planning — his Jazz Fest show.

Would it really feel like a show thrown collectively at the final minute by a jet-lagged performer?

It wouldn’t, even when it teetered on the point of dropping the thread a pair instances.

Just as he did in 2023, Batiste orchestrated one of many fest’s largest performances. Big when it comes to the variety of individuals. Big when it comes to musical selection. Big when it comes to that means.

He didn’t squander the uncommon alternative for a hometown artist to headline the largest stage at Jazz Fest. And he elevated numerous different individuals within the course of.

Loose Cattle corralled

Michael Cerveris is a Tony Award-winning Broadway star with an extended resume in TV and flicks who splits his time between New York and New Orleans.

In New Orleans, he and singer Kimberly Kaye cultivated a hybrid nation/rock/Americana band referred to as Loose Cattle.

At the Fais Do-Do Stage on Friday, Loose Cattle demonstrated simply how far the band’s stage presence and sound have come. Cerveris’ electrical guitar shared house with Alex McMurray’s and with Rurik Nunan’s violin. Ominous guitars swooped and raged in “The Shoals” as Kaye wailed in a metallic gold gown. Just as rapidly, the storm handed because the band quieted down for a brand new music referred to as “Quiet Town.”

Kaye invested herself in each quantity, her voice clear and robust. She additionally did a reputable impression of the titular character in “Sidewalk Chicken.”

The band totally inhabited Lucinda Williams’ New Orleans tribute “Crescent City,” with Kaye, Cerveris and Nunan harmonizing out entrance over a supple basis by bassist Rene Coman and drummer Doug Garrison.

Cerveris described the eclectic viewers as “looking like I grew up believing the country should look like.” He then inspired random kindness, equivalent to letting the shorter individual behind you stand in entrance of you. Or shopping for a rosemint tea for another person in line.

Such small gestures gained’t change the world, Cerveris acknowledged. But on a micro stage, they may make it a bit of nicer.

Cyril Neville reps his brothers

Cyril Neville spent a few years closing down Jazz Fest’s fundamental stage on the ultimate Sunday with the Neville Brothers. He’s now the final of the 4 Brothers nonetheless performing. Art and Charles are deceased, and Aaron is retired and residing on a farm in upstate New York.

Cyril fronted his personal band at Jazz Fest’s Festival Stage on Friday (and was slated to perform Friday night at the Fillmore for a Meters reunion). The purple, yellow, orange and white boas adorning the microphone stands matched his shirt, bandanna and hat, in addition to the stage décor.

Now 77 and as lean as ever, Neville got here out dancing and spinning like a a lot youthful man. From behind his percussion rig, he led his band via Steve Miller’s “Fly Like An Eagle,” which the Neville Brothers coated on their 1992 album “Family Groove.”

Neville, like Cerveris earlier, commented on the group’s make-up: “Look at that rainbow — a rainbow of humanity.”

In another Neville Brothers nod, he said “we used to do this with some friends of ours known as the Dead.” With Cyril’s son Omari Neville working the drum equipment and Shamarr Allen enjoying pocket trumpet with the horn part, they conjured a model of the Grateful Dead’s “Fire On the Mountain” that ran Mississippi River deep and gradual.

The groove rolled into the Brothers’ “Brother Jake,” from 1990’s “Brother’s Keeper” album. The Neville Brothers could also be no extra, however Cyril represented their legacy at the fest.

Batiste’s many pals

I meant to interrupt away from Jon Batiste’s closing set at some level to see a little bit of Lorde — who performed to a big crowd at the Gentilly Stage — and Sean Paul at the Congo Square Stage. I actually did.

But Jon Batiste obtained began 20 minutes late. And as soon as he obtained rolling, I felt compelled to stay round simply to see what occurred subsequent.

The Blind Boys of Alabama opened his show with an invocation of “Amazing Grace.” Batiste, in a plain black T-shirt tucked right into a pair of Levi’s, joined in by thumping on a tambourine.

He constructed a musical and cultural show with many elements. A choir of 20 or so souls. A brass (band) part. Three feminine dancers in denim. A brace of male dancers.

He reached again to his “Social Music” album for a percussive “Let God Lead,” with its “love will never quit” chorus, as a part of the show’s opening salvo. He teased his means right into a full-on “Freedom,” from his career-changing, a number of Grammy-winning “We Are” album. The stage was alive with dancers and musicians in ecstatic movement.

He stopped the music to remind the viewers, “You only have one life … one soul … one body … one voice. In this performance, we intend to use the full extent of it all. It’s not a performance — it’s a spiritual practice. Live in the moment and shake what your mama gave you.”

The viewers obliged.

The set turned laborious into DJ Jubilee’s “Get It Ready Ready,” then turned once more into Batiste’s personal “Big Money.” He opened the piano showcase that adopted with a little bit of “You Are My Sunshine,” then Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah,” which in flip led to Bruce Hornsby’s “The Way It Is,” overlaid with a Batiste spoken-word meditation on the challenges dealing with Black youth.

Guitarist Brandon “Taz” Niederauer obtained a showcase in “Cry,” then later tapped out an “Eruption” on the neck of his guitar.

“Chim Chim Cher-ee” from “Mary Poppins” gave solution to Batiste’s “I Need You” – why not?

Flagboy Giz, in full Black Masking Indian regalia, showcased his personal “We Outside.” The younger New Orleans rapper La Reezy navigated his “Hardhead.”

Finally, the show swung again to Batiste as he broke out his melodica for the primary time. The crowd clapped on cue throughout his “If You’re Happy And You Know It.”

To shut out his musical journey, he launched into a literal one: enjoying “When the Saints Go Marching In” on melodica whereas main all the collective off the stage, via the VIP sections, then down the chute towards the sound board and off into the group.

Jon Batiste, as soon as once more, didn’t go small at Jazz Fest.