Tuesday, September 28, 2010

Jazz Mass and Satchmofest

Where else in the world does a city celebrate a jazz legend's birthday with jazz mass and a parade? I'd wager that no other city does it like New Orleans. I went to St. Augustine's for their annual jazz mass to honor Louis Armstrong back in early August. I got there 15 minutes before mass and it was PACKED! Treme Brass Band was the featured guest, how do you love that? The priest sang "What a Wonderful World." It was pretty incredible. Unfortunately, it was about 4000 degrees inside and while I don't quibble with anyone's right to wear or not wear deodorant, I am still kinda pissed at the girl standing next to me who chose NOT to and also chose to fan out her armpits right in my face throughout the service.

After mass, there was s second line out front and all the way down to the Mint where, of course, the music played on and on all day. We sampled an organic daiquiri...

...watching DancingMan 504 work his jelly... ...and ended up at Mona's on Frenchman. I've never been to that location but it was just as good as the Banks Street location. Word to the wise; their iced tea is awful, it tasted like slightly minted water, which isn't awful sounding actually but it sho ain't iced tea. Hummus is hands down my all-time favorite, baba ganoush also wonderful. I thought their grape leaves and kibbeh were sadly lacking but the spreads and dips selection more than made up for it.

1 comment:

HLP said...

certainly sounds a lot less repressed than our jazz fest out here! :)