Jazz Fest's Second Locals Thursday Features Cage the Elephant, Serra Green and More

Cage the Elephant, by Cassilyn Anderson

The second weekend of Jazz Fest 2025 starts with a second Locals Thursday that looks like fun. It’s nice to have new-to-Jazz Fest acts Cage the Elephant and Morris Day & The Time headlining a Thursday, but I think we did math with an abacus when the Festival Stage headliner Santana first appeared at Jazz Fest. 

For more previews of Thursday at Jazz Fest, check our guide to this year’s international acts from Mexico, last year’s “Milky Way” feature with R&B band Sierra Green & the Giants (3 p.m., Blues Tent), and this year’s feature on New Orleans’ Americana band Loose Cattle (1:40 p.m., Sheraton New Orleans Fais Do-Do Stage). 

One question mark when the schedule dropped was who Big Chief Brian and Nouveau Bounce (12:50 p.m., Congo Square Stage) is. Not only did we discover that Brian is the son of Cherice Harrison-Nelson and grandson of Donald Harrison Sr. of Guardians of the Flame, but he contributed a “Milky Way” feature with his influences to help us get a handle on “Nouveau Bounce.” 

Last year, the first weekend of Jazz Fest at the Fais Do-Do Stage was thrown by the surprising death of Feufollet’s Chris Stafford. I wrote about what Stafford and Feufollet meant to Jazz Fest last year, and it’s good to see that he will be remembered at 4:15 p.m. at the Allison Miner Music Heritage Stage when host Barry Ancelet will talk to friends, family, and members of Feufollet about Stafford. It’s a tribute he absolutely deserves. 

Officially, Alejandro Escovedo (4:30 p.m., Sheraton New Orleans Fais Do-Do Stage) is classified as a Mexican artist this year, but the Austin, Texas resident has played Jazz Fest a number of times as an artist without a specific national affiliation. At one point, he shared a manager with Bruce Springsteen, and it made sense. Escovedo is one of those artists who synthesizes a broad swath of the American experience as the child of immigrants whose career has ranged from roots music to punk with songs that show empathy for the lives of people who could use a hand. 

I interviewed Escovedo in 2015 about his New York punk roots. Michael Tisserand will interview him at the Allison Miner Music Heritage Stage at 1:15 p.m.).

For more news, previews and reviews at the festival, check out My Spilt Milk at Jazz Fest 2025.