1st Annual Whatever

I guess you could say this is #468 in my long list of reasons why you gotta love New Orleans.

Whenever we in New Orleans start something new -- an event or happening, holiday or festival, celebration of anything -- it's never a try or a stab or an experiment. It's the "1st Annual" Whatever. I've done it myself, inaugurating at the church what I hope will become a yearly tradition of the Jazz Funeral Service for the Old Year for the last Sunday of December or the first Sunday of January.

It is an impulse that's endemic to this city, both pre- and post-Katrina. I can remember in years past, attending some festive event, and having someone announce that it was the 1st Annual. But it does seem more pervasive now. Last year, we happily attended the 1st Annual Congo Square Festival. Also last year, on Oak Street, a new festival called "S.O.S." ("Save Our Sandwich") was advertised as the First Annual Po-Boy Festival.

Yesterday afternoon, Big Man and I headed over to the edge of the Tulane University campus for something I thought I had heard about on WWOZ, but I was not able to verify. I had tuned in late to hear Irvin Mayfield talking about the release of the latest CD from the New Orleans Jazz Orchestra (NOJO), and saying something about a "Porch Party" at the NOJO office "at the corner of Broadway and Freret" on Thursday from 4 to 6 om. Irvin was saying that there would be free barbeque and free music by Kermit Ruffins, and then he talked a lot of trash about how he'd have to "teach Kermit some trumpet" and give Kermit "another beat-down." After I heard this -- it must've been Monday when I was making the bank deposit -- I tried and tried, but failed, to find about any more information about it, on the 'OZ website, on NOLA.com, on the NOJO website, anywhere.

So Big Man and I were a little leery as we drove over to Freret and Broadway -- maybe it was happening, maybe not; maybe I misheard *which* Thursday it would be. When we got to that corner, there was nothing going on, and I shrugged it off. "Maybe it's next week," I said, and Big Man turned the van onto Freret, in order to return me to the church early for a meeting at 6 pm.

And then, we saw it -- a giant barbeque rig in the yard in front of an old house that was now part of the Tulane campus, right next to the Chabad House. (I think it used to be used as Tulane's payroll department.) On the front porch, a band was setting up, and there was a big banner that said, "New Orleans Jazz Orchestra Porch Party! Free BBQ! Free music! Kermit Ruffins! Thursday, April 3, 4-6 pm." Ah-ha!

We found a parking place and hurried over. A small crowd of diverse ages was gathering. A young black man from V.I.P. -- Voting Is Power -- asked if we were registered voters and I said I was. Big Man admitted he wasn't yet, and filled out the papers right then and there. Well! Something off our To-Do List easy as pie (wish somebody would come running up to us out of the blue to register our cars and switch our driver's licenses!).

The smoky smell of the meats in the big rig was wonderful, and I wondered about the Jewish folk next door in the Chabad House, with all that trayf smoke drifting over their yard. Pans of grilled smoked sausage were laid out, with wheat bread and mustard, and folks lined up to eat. There was an ice chest filled with free soft drinks and ice water too (although the musicians were drinking beers obtained from inside the NOJO offices). We found a shady spot and wolfed down the sandwiches.

As we were eating, a young man came on the porch and tested the microphone, and then said, "I want to welcome everybody to the 1st Annual NOJO Porch Party and Barbeque. Thanks for being here and the music will start soon." Well, of course. The 1st Annual. We're doing it now, and we're gonna do it again every year, forever. Yeah you right.

Irvin Mayfield sat on the porch steps with family members (including 2 little boys who looked like Irvin-clones) as Kermit Ruffins -- nattily dressed in a quintessential New Orleans outfit of white guayabera shirt over red and white seersucker pants and a SHARP dazzlingly white straw hat over a white bandanna -- came on and blew pretty, playing several standards ("Strutting with Some Barbeque," "Marie," "Someone Like You") and then into his signature "The Side of The Street That's Sunny." The crowd broke up when Kermit ended "Sunny Side" with the wicked line "and if I ever-ever had a cent, I'd be rich as Irvin Mayfield!" Irvin turned and grinned and shook his fist playfully at Kermit.

The good folks over at the bbq rig then set out trays of -- unbelievable! -- barbequed quail and the crowd once again converged like locusts on the food table. Big Man snagged one and I sucked on a tiny drum stick and he went at the rest of little bird. Wow! Free burgers or dogs and sausage is one thing, but quail?? When they do this next year, for the *2nd* Annual Porch Party, there will surely be a bigger crowd!