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Jazzin' in the Big Easy
 It was when I was strutting my stuff up North
Rampart Street in sweltering heat on a bright Sunday morning, ‘second
lining’ behind some of the best jazz bands in town, that it came to me.
New Orleans is the most exciting city in the USA.
This gloriously chaotic jumble of European
and Caribbean cultures is a 24-hour party city that still manages to
live up to its local name - The Big Easy – with Mardi Gras all
year round, music emcompassing jazz, cajun, and zydeco, theatres,
festivals, and great food. Although Mardi Gras lasts only for a week,
the tradition of dressing up in gold jackets, silver-trimmed electric
blue suits, feather boas and shades (that’s just the men), continues all
year round.
The smell is deep south, pungent and heavy,
and the music wherever you go is live and loud. The sounds of growling
trombones and piercing clarinets pour out of bars, impromptu jazz
sessions take place in the magnolia-lined streets of the French Quarter
and in the green oasis of Jackson Square where crowds congregate to be
entertained by jugglers, dancers, tarot card readers and hawkers of hats
and beads.
It’s a city that lends itself to great
walking tours and as well as walking along the Mississippi banks,
visitors should make sure to include at least one walk involving voodoo
(15% of the population participate in voodoo ceremonies), and one
including the famed Cemeteries that featured in Easy Rider.
The Streetcar Named Desire may no longer be in operation, but you
can still ride the world’s oldest operating trolley-car down picturesque
St. Charles Avenue and through the Garden District for a satisfying 90
minutes.
Listening to the sounds of Cajun music as we
drifted through the moss-hung-swamps and wetlands while spotting
turtles, racoons, snakes, and alligators that swam alarmingly close to
our boat has to be high on the list of the good trips we made out of the
city. Or our trip out to the land of Gone With the Wind, to sit
on the verandah of an antebellum mansion and sip mint juleps – just like
a tourist!
And then there was the food! New Orleans is
gastronomic heaven, from the world’s most famous Cajun restaurant,
K-Paul’s at 416 Chartres Street, to exquisite French food at
Antoine’s and The Commanderia. Plus that New Orleans speciality,
coffee and beignets (doughnuts to die for, smothered in icing sugar) at
Café du Monde on Decatur – an obligatory stop during the day. Gumbo, a
sort of soup made with local Gulf shrimps, crabs and crawfish and served
with rice makes a perfect lunch, or a po’boy, a crusty baguette filled
with fried oysters, shrimp and softshell crabs. We’re talking BIG
sandwich here. N’awlins don’t do small.
The best time to experience the real spirit
of the city is after dark, when the nightbeat of Bourbon Street starts
up, kids perform tap-dancing routines on the pavements and venerable old
jazz musicians take the stand at Preservation Hall. Dedicated jazz fans
will head towards Vaughan’s on Dauphine, Funky Butts or
Donna’s on North Rampart, or the House of Blues on Decatur.
Or you can work off the fried catfish and rice by two-stepping to the
fast rhythms of Zydeco at Mulate’s on Julia.
Have a pre-emptive cocktail or two at
Hurricane O’Briens to cope with the astounding decibels that bounce out
of the dark bars that line Bourbon and Royal Streets, the bar’s motto a
guarantee of its potency. “One - you’re flying, two - you’ve crashed,
three - you sign a waiver, man!”.
 Nor will the hotels let you down. Apart from
the usual chain hotels, there are ones packed with history, like the
Fairmont off Canal Street, once the old Rooseveldt Hotel where Huey Long
of ill repute devised the cocktail Sazerac (which still tops the list of
their most popular cocktails) and whose list of celebs. who stayed there
is mind-boggling: the Bourbon Orleans, or my own two favourites, the
Monteleone on Royal Street and the Omni on St. Louis, both of them right
in the heart of the French Quarter.
If you want to experience southern
hospitality then New Orleans is the place to go. So get yourself some
strings of green and purple plastic beads, a silly hat, some Dame Edna
shades and you’ll blend in nicely.
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