et je parle pas du pain -- rather, the Crescent City. today is the fifth annual Louisiana Cajun-Zydeco festival, which is grossly entertaining to me for more than one reason. hailing from Southwest Louisiana and growing up Cajun, zydeco was that mawkishly irritating music Dad would put on the radio on trips down to see family in Cameron parish. yet with the passing of the years and a progressive eastward migration down I-10 to Baton Rouge and then New Orleans, one grows fonder of childhood things, most especially in their absence.
years ago, a good friend from New Orleans once said as a music conversation turned to zydeco: "What, that crap they play in the tourist shops in the Quarter?" With the long-suffering patience of one who half agreed with the statement at the time, I let her in on the secret that some were born having to listen to the music that gets played for the tourists in a contextually incongruous setting; New Orleans, despite being ubiquitously emblematic of Louisiana, shares superficially few musical links to the equally humid world of the fais do-dos from the Calcasieu to the Atchafalaya, and bon Dieu sait (the good Lord knows) they've forgotten their French as well if not better than we have.
And naturally, people from Lake Charles to Lossiemouth and elsewhere savor the spices flowing in all the music on the air of this city, with ample reason (it just tastes so good), but I'm excited to hear zydeco coming from a stage instead of a shop-- allons, let's check it out.
Cajun-Zydeco festival page <<
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