Jazzfest day 3 and Lafayette

Day three at Jazzfest was another beautifully sunny one and the line up was fairly strong with emphasis on blues and New Orleans funk. First up was Little Freddie King who was his usual immaculate self in black and white jacket with matching hat and shoes. It's always a pleasure to see Freddie who is now fully recovered from a bicycle accident a couple of years back.

He was followed on the Blues Tent stage by piano player Davell Crawford, also looking great in a colourful outfit. I stayed for some of his very good N'Awlins funk and then moved off to catch a bit of another two acts who were also very much in the New Orleans music tradition.

Ivan Neville and Dumpsterfunk were playing on the main stage in front of a huge crowd so I moved on to watch a new band to me called Cha Wa. They are a Mardi Gras Indian influenced outfit with a couple of members in full Indian dress and sounded great on numbers including 'Iko Iko' and 'Elijah Rock'. I had a quick look at Little Nathan and the Zydeco Good Timers before moving back to the Blues Tent for the highlight of the day Kenny Neal.

Kenny's act was very much a family affair with brothers Raful and Freddie on guitar and keyboards. Sister Charlene sang 'Down Home Blues' while his daughter sang one number and his son took a turn on the drums. Overall it was an excellent set with Kenny providing vocals and superb guitar playing on numbers such as 'Blues Stop Chasing Me', the swamp flavoured 'I Know Someone Cares' including a great sax solo, 'Funny', Honest I Do' and the aptly titled 'New Orleans', a song he wrote recently. Finally we (Alan Lloyd, John Howard and myself) had a look at Los Lobos but weren't over impressed.

Next day the four of us (Lee Wilkinson being the fourth) rented a car and headed for Lafayette. We wanted to check out the Brass Room, an out of town venue where there is a Monday night Blues show aimed at older music lovers. The shows have been running weekly for four years and include a free bowl of spaghetti. The band changes each week and this time it was the Greg Gordon Project, a six piece band which includes Greg on drums and excellent sax and guitar players. Greg has been around and played in bands with Sherman Robertson and Lil Buck and backed the likes of Lazy Lester, Barbara Lynn and Irma Thomas. The band's set covered blues, funk and soul and included several numbers from his 2021 album 'Resurrection'. Also singing with them on several numbers was Shauna Sias Landry, who was impressive on several songs recorded by her idol Etta James and others by Prince and even Ed Sheeran. As an evening's entertainment on a Monday night it was perfect and I would love to go back to the Brass Room again.