On April 30, 2006, Bruce Springsteen stood on a stage at the Jazz Fest and introduced a song he had written about a city that had faced a disaster. Most in the crowd were still shocked about Hurricane Katrina that had broken the levees around New Orleans only seven months earlier. The crevasse left the once glorious city as a graveyard of dead trees, downed buildings; impassable roads and broken hopes all tinted with what seemed to be a screen of gray. Those in the crowd of thousands standing before the Acura stage like pilgrims drawn to a temple were not prepared for what was about to happen as Springsteen leaned toward the microphone.
“There’s a blood red circle
On the cold dark ground
And the rain is falling down”
Springsteen sang forlornly.
“The church door’s thrown open
I can hear the organ’s song
But the congregation’s gone”
And now came the line that would create its own title wave.:
“My city of ruins.
My city of ruins.”
That song that day was perfect for New Orleans. Springsteen must have been clairvoyant in 2000 when he wrote it for a benefit concert to support the city of Asbury Park, New Jersey which had succumbed to urban blight. A year later the song would take on global importance in the wake of the Twin Towers disaster in Manhattan. But for that moment on the Jazz Fest stage Springsteen, the audience, and the music belonged as one. He ended the song with an uplifting cry for resurrection:
“Come on, rise up!
Come on rise up!”
Keith Spera, a music reporter for The Times- Picayune would write of the performance: “I am not alone in ranking that show as quite likely the best, and certainly most emotional, musical experience of my life. And given my profession, I’ve seen a lot of concerts.”
Regarding the refrain about rising up, Spera reported, “Thousands lifted their hands to the sky. I wept, my wife wept. And we were not alone.”
This year a new force will carry the song’s message even further as viewers of a documentary produced to honor the Jazz Fest’s 50th anniversary, “Jazz Fest: A New Orleans Story,” will be seduced by the power of the moment.
Quint Davis, Jazz Fest’s executive director is a frequent presence in the film telling the event’s story and revealing such facts as Jimmy Buffett being the Fest’s all-time top drawing performer. Buffet, on film, recalls as a young man from Mississippi frequently coming to New Orleans to find himself. (That would apparently include eventually being in the movie business. He along with Davis are the film’s executive producers.)
Springsteen’s live performance was an emotional overload but for the film watcher there was another sensory wallop to come. By tradition the closing act for years had been the Nevilles with brother Aaron in the lead. In a world filled with music that can be steamy, playful and raw came spiritual words delivered to the hushed crowd:
“Amazing grace
How sweet the sound
That saved a wretch like me
I once was lost, but now I’m found
Was blind, but now I see”
At that moment Neville’s legendary falsetto could touch heaven:
“The Lord has promised good to me
His word my hope secures
He will my shield and portion be
As long as life endures
Once more music had offered solace. And all around a ruined city was indeed rising.
