Posters FUN FOUNDATION: A Portrait of The Meters By Francis X. Pavy
A master of South Louisiana iconography, Pavy leverages stage lighting in this imagined portrayal of America’s pioneering funk band performing at the old Municipal Auditorium. Musicologists know The Meters as one of the founding fathers of funk. They were the house band for Allen Toussaint and his record label. They released “Sophisticated Cissy” and “Cissy Strut,” which became Top 10 R&B chart hits, and Fire on the Bayou, an album that included the Top 40 hit “Hey Pocky A-Way.” The band opened for the Rolling Stones’ 1975 and 1976 tours. In 1977, after eight studio albums, The Meters disbanded. It took until 2000 for the band to reunite in San Francisco, an event that was repeated at Jazz Fest in 2006 and 2015. This rare appearance will close out the 2017 Festival. Don’t even think of missing it.
TAKING IT TO THE STREET: A Portrait of Jon Batiste By Brandan “Bmike” Odums
Congo Square at the Jazz Festival is an expanse without artistic bounds. Jon Batiste is a virtuoso pianist, harmonaboard maestro and crooner who balances roles as bandleader on the Late Show with Stephen Colbert, Artistic Director At Large of the National Jazz Museum in Harlem with teaching and acting (“Treme” and Spike Lee’s “Red Hook Summer”). Brandan “Bmike” Odums works on an equally grand scale and likewise makes new use of old media, having organized ExhibitBe, which became the South’s largest street art gathering. Bmike conceived and created the 2017 Congo Square poster as a 12’ tall spray painting in a single kinetic all-night session. Batiste’s luminescence turns up the chroma on the legend - a double entendre that encompasses the lettering and these twinned artists that keep it real every day.
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Jazz Fest 2017 | Presented by Shell