In another city, a bill featuring Widespread Panic, Dave Matthews Band and Trey Anastasio would easily stir enough excitement to send the message boards into a frenzy. Yet, set amongst the sin-filled streets of New Orleans’ French Quarter, even three of jam nation’s biggest names are easily absorbed into a smorgasbord of non-musical evening activities. And, though Las Vegas gets the celebrity credit and South Beach earned its own diet, New Orleans is America’s true adult playground. A stroll down Bourbon street reveals any number of illicit activities ranging from “barely legal” clubs to bars with a “to go” plastic club option. Yet sprinkled between dirty dives and Girls Gone Wild approved dance joints are some of the jazz era’s most historic landmarks. For years jazz buffs have debated the birthplace of America’s most enduring art form. And, while it's impossible to pinpoint exactly when ragtime met jazz, Preservation Hall is as viable a candidate as any for the genre’s womb. Hosting a late-night/early-morning performance by Jacob Fred Jazz Odyssey, Preservation Hall nodded to jazz’s future before fully claiming its past. Helping to kick-off JazzFest’s second, more jam-oriented weekend, the free-jazz ensemble proved just how far JazzFest has grown since the mid-1990s. 

 Despite being one of the best acid-jazz combos circumventing the country, a decade ago JFJO’s futuristic sound would have been lost among more traditional New Orleans sounds. Yet, like Bonnaroo, JazzFest has taken to using its more mainstream offerings as structural nuts and bolts, luring fans into thirteen stages of jazz, blues, gospel and folk. Likewise, Superfly’s late-night series has grown into an equally prestigious bizzaro festival, expanding the traditional boundaries of jam-rock.    

Donavon Frankenreiter

At times it's easy to feel like a teenager skipping class on the festival grounds, always aware that there is somewhere else you could and should be. Indeed, sometimes it's easier to wander free between the festival’s thirteen stages, absorbing bits and pieces of each act one’s collective conscience. An early afternoon highlight, The subdudes’ mixture of rock and zydeco peaked with an accordion  reference to the “dirty mud people.” A pleasant blend of bluegrass and pop, Nickel Creek nodded to JazzFest’s sea of crowd flags, territorially marking veteran concertgoers ground. Headliner Jack Johnson invited his Brushfire-bandmate Donavon Frankenreiter onstage for an acoustic jam, also nodding to G. Love with a version of “Rodeo Clowns” (which Johnson initially included on Special Sauce’s Philadelphonic ). Clarence “Gatemouth” Brown offered a Mardi Gras history lesson along with his band Gate’s Express before BB King explored the blues’ Big Easy roots between versions of his “Rock Me Baby” and “The Thrill is Gone.” Perhaps Thursday’s most intriguing offering, trumpeter Irvin Mayfield and founding Headhunter percussionist Bill Summers fused Latin and groove as Los Hombres Calientes. 

Yet, for many fans making the annual pilgrimage, JazzFest doesn’t truly begin until Superfly’s after dark series. Perhaps the most prominent example of Superfly’s Bonnarooization of JazzFest is inclusion of The Mars Volta. Merging dark, aggressive prog-rock with heavily improvised psychedelia, The Mars Volta exists on a fringe plane connecting jam-rock and experimental metal. Born out of seminal emo act At the Drive-In, The Mars Volta are as far from hippie-dippie as Superfly has stretched. Yet, since being added to Bonnaroo’s lineup, The Mars Volta has joined the Flaming Lips and Wilco as

Irvin Mayfield

green-lighted indie-rock bands rapidly expanding the genre's borders. In certain respects, the group is the next evolutionary step in the jamband movement, combining jazz-approved improvisations with the industrial layering of Tool. At times the group also recalled the dark-jams of Oysterhead--only with more success. But, beneath their stylistic similarities, The Mars Volta adhere to a different esthetic--one rooted in jagged, aggressive punk instead of danceable hippie-rock.

 Celebrating the fifth anniversary of his own induction into jam nation, Les Claypool offered a set alongside his band Frog Brigade. Commencing shortly before 3AM, Claypool’s group included both saxophonist Skerik and percussionist Mike Dillon--a combo which has pushed Claypool in his most groove-driven direction to date. Adding an oddball edge to his jams, Claypool arrived onstage dressed in a pig mask. Fueling rumors of a possible Oysterhead reunion, Claypool also undusted a version of the supergroup’s “Shadow of a Man,” before inviting Warren Haynes and Gabby La La onstage for a series of dark jams.