Since a decade-long run ended in 2015, there have been only a couple of ChazFests. The last one was in 2017 in Bywater. But the festival returns April 19 at The Broadside with 11 bands on two stages.
Fans also can expect the return of some ChazFest traditions. Festival namesake “Washboard” Chaz Leary will perform with every band.
“I got one with Malevitus; that’s a Captain Beefheart song,” Leary says. “The other guys, I’ll just jump up there.”
Leary likes all sorts of music, and he’s got four bands. The two most active are his traditional jazz band, The Palmetto Bug Stompers, and The Tin Men, an only-in-New Orleans trio of himself, guitarist Alex McMurray and sousaphonist Matt Perrine. He also leads his namesake blues trio.
At ChazFest, he’s performing with his Western swing band, Washboard Rodeo. The group has only played a couple of shows since the pandemic, and he’s looking to get it back in regular rotation. But he’s bringing the group to ChazFest in line with festival tradition. The event has always highlighted local bands that didn’t get a slot at Jazz Fest.
The festival “started the first Jazz Fest after the storm, and a lot of people didn’t get in,” Leary says. “So we were like, let’s put on a festival ourselves, like a Mickey Rooney-Judy Garland kind of thing. We were going to do it outside the (Jazz Fest) grounds, but then we did it where (organizers) lived — at the Truck Farm. They named it after me because it rhymed with Jazz Fest.”
The Truck farm was a field hidden behind houses lining the streets on a big block of St. Claude Avenue in Bywater. The space was bounded by the homes of several people in the music industry, including Dave Pirner of Soul Asylum. Two of the primary original organizers, Alex McMurray and spouse Kourtney Keller also lived there. Some of the property was sold in 2017, which effectively made that year’s revival the last edition of the festival.
Organizers tried to keep things simple in the early years, like asking for a suggested donation rather than ticketing to avoid more onerous permitting processes. Tom Thayer, formerly the owner of bar and music venue d.b.a., helped them with beer and other things early on, he says.
Since selling d.b.a., Thayer has started a production company, New Suit Entertainment. He is producing a couple of concerts during Jazz Fest, and he is presenting the return of ChazFest after approaching the former organizers.
“I’ll do all the heavy lifting, I just need your blessing,” Thayer says he told them.
He moved it to the Broadside, where there will be an outdoor stage and an indoor stage. There are concessions from the Broadside’s Bodega, and the Cochon King Barbecue truck will be set up.
The festival poster celebrates the event’s unexpected return. Leary reclines under a beach umbrella as pigs fly above and hell freezes over.
The festival also is a special show for Washboard Rodeo. Fiddler Neti Vaan left the band when she moved to St. Lucia. She’s returning for this show. The rest of the lineup remains much the same since the recording of its self-titled 2010 album. Matt Rhody plays fiddle and mandolin, Matt Johnson plays guitar and Jimbo Walsh plays bass.
Leary and The Tin Men also are at the heart of the Valparaiso Men’s Chorus. Led by McMurray, the rowdy group of polished and unpolished musicians and singers revels in sea shanties and bawdy call-and-response sailor songs. They return for another ChazFest appearance.
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Aurora Nealand will perform at Jazz Fest, but not with the Rory Danger and the Danger Dangers band. The group originally premiered at ChazFest in 2010, with a lineup including the late Spencer Bohren and Andre Bohren and Marc Paradis of Johnny Sketch and the Dirty Notes. The band is based in rockabilly and stretches into other genres. In November, it released the album “The Age of Invention,” which featured a couple of tracks written by Spencer Bohren.
The festival lineup also includes a few other Bywater favorites. ChazFest is among the gigs the longtime barroom band Morning 40 Federation is playing this spring. And guitarist and singer Luke Spurr Allen’s Happy Talk Band is on the lineup.
Also on the lineup are Helen Gillet and the ReBelle Band, Schatzy, Narcissy, keyboardist BC Coogan and The Remaining Geraniums.
David Kunian, the New Orleans Jazz Museum curator and WWOZ host who’s emceed all the events, returns as well. The festival runs from 2 p.m. Friday to 2 a.m. Saturday.
With the empty weekend between French Quarter Festival and the beginning of Jazz Fest, Thayer saw a good date. If it goes well, he hopes to keep the festival going.
“It holds a special place in all of our hearts,” he says.
Tickets are $40 via broadsidenola.com.
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