Paul Sanchez

French Quarter Fest has become a kind of monster, far outstripping its modest beginnings, and several prominent local musicians expressed outrage at the festival's insistence that performers generate their own sponsors in order to get paid. But once this year's event started it was hard to dwell on any negatives. Hundreds of thousands of music fans basked on the banks of the Mississippi in glorious weather and crowded around the more intimate stages on Bourbon and Royal streets to hear hundreds of local musicians play their hearts out in the 25th annual renewal of this festival. This massive free concert performed by Louisiana musicians was a joyous event that lived up to the festival's reputation as Jazzfest without the outside players. There were plenty of visitors, though, especially from Europe and Canada, attracted by the bargain prices for travel and entertainment provided by the weak dollar. 
Susan Cowsill joined Paul Sanchez and John Boutte for a windy bout at the Pavilion stage Sunday ready for the elements in khaki knee socks, jacket and close fitting hat to keep that hair in place. 
That particular set was a high point of the festival and a real tribute to Sanchez as an organizer and collaborator who is magnanimous with the stage time he offers his bandmates. Sanchez assembled an outstanding group for this performance, offering Boutte, Cowsill and trumpeter/vocalist Shamarr Allen equal time while subtly building the set around compositions he wrote on his own or with Boutte. Sanchez handed his guitar to Cowsill for a version of "Crescent City Snow" that was even more powerful than the one from her own set. She conveyed a complex mixture of emotions in quick, broad strokes, contrasting the sense of alienation summoned up in the image of being "like a kite without a string" with the elation of remembered moments in New Orleans. "I'll meet you down at Jackson Square, 12 o'clock, I'll be there," she sang, and the Steamboat Natchez blew its deep, booming whistle in greeting to the prodigal daughter who got herself back "to a place where I know who I am." The band backed Cowsill gracefully, with Allen turning in a beautiful trumpet solo, as she touched on Mardi Gras Indian chants and the "Saints" call and response. It was a moment of sheer transcendence. 
Among many other moments in this memorable set, which was all gesture and color and subtle rhythms, two guitars both playing well crafted parts in service of the song's contour rather than leads, Russ Broussard playing drums and percussion gracefully and gorgeous, gorgeous harmonies throughout. Boutte was in his top form, slyly noting "I always liked Sam Cooke" before channeling the maestro in his wonderful version of "Live in the Moment." Boutte also delivered a brilliant rendition of his first collaboration with Sanchez, "At the Foot of Canal Street" and really stirred the crowd with his flag waver "Break Down the Door (The Treme Song)." Allen sang his own anthem, "Meet Me On Frenchmen Street," which Sanchez embellished with a chorus of "won't you come home New Orleans" to the tune of "Bill Bailey," and the two of them performed their duet "If I Only Had a Brain" from the "Funky Kids" album. One of my favorite moments of the set, though, was "Sedation," a great song written by Sanchez with a vocal exchange between himself and Cowsill that recalled the classic 1960s vocal arrangements of groups like the Mamas and the Papas and -- naturally -- the Cowsills. 
--John Swenson