New Orleans II: „Baby“ and Jazz, Jazz, Jazz

On my last day in New Orleans, a friday, I walked again through the French quarter and treated my hangover with a Pimm's Cup at Napoleon House, a cool, old furnitured restaurant/bar with a beautiful backyard and fair prices for beverages. The treatment worked well making me up for walking around in the French Quarter. There is a lot more stuff going on at daytime on the weekend with many bands playing live music on the street. I headed to the fancy Louis Armstrong park which reopened the day before. The entrance gate there make you feel like entering a fun park. For sure, the only reason to go there is the huge statue of Louis Armstrong on whose leg I was hanging like a small boy on the daddy. Generally, I felt pretty much home in New Orleans because of its locals warmth and friendliness and the woman calling me „baby“ with a warm, maternal voice when speaking to me. People in the South seem to be nicer and more curious and I had many nice small talks with random local people. 

In the late afternoon I headed to Frenchmen Street New Orlean's best place for live music. I checked all bars and clubs asking for tonight's program. Incidently, I made it to a free jazz concert of a young band playing sweat cool standards like Blue in Green of Bill Evans. I enjoyed the music a lot and got absorbed by the mellow but piercing sounds creating a feeling of sweat, intense loneliness that makes Jazz so special. This show was the perfect introduction for the live show at Snugg Harbour. Eli's Marsalis Quartet played there featuring his sons. Eli played a tender but decent piano part. Jason Marsalis is a biest on the drums playing bouncing, powerful rhythms with the sublime motionlessness of a general. And then there was even Wynton Marsalis who showed up surprisingly. Though I more had love to see him playing the trumpet, his trombone play was so sweat like I have never heard it before, particularly when he played the first bars of John Coltrane's Nancy together with his father altering between mutual and call-and-response playing. 

It is a pity that I had to leave New Orleans as I have the orientation now to really explore the city. But I have to move on. There is no need to remember the blues because its calling me intensively from Memphis. And then there is also Elvis!