Jon Batiste's Jazz Fest Weekend Continues Friday

The returning Batiste is among the highlights of the second day of Jazz Fest 2026.

After Jon Batiste’s 2024 set flying the flag his way for New Orleans funk and R&B, I wondered if he and Jazz Fest’s producers might want him to be a regular closer the way The Neville Brothers and Radiators used to be and Trombone Shorty and Orleans Avenue are now. He’s the most prominent musician from New Orleans working these days, and he’s true to the festival’s love of personal, musical, and cultural roots.

The closer thing didn’t happen, but Batiste is all over the first weekend of Jazz Fest. On Thursday, he did an interview at the Allison Miner Music Heritage Stage, today he closes the Festival Stage (5:10 p.m.), and on Sunday he’ll close the Blues Tent with “Jon Batiste presents Swamp.”

Batiste previewed Friday’s show for Jake Clapp of Gambit, saying, “What we want to do this year [at Jazz Fest] is create this moment that is all of that but in the form of a dance party.” It’s not clear what “Swamp” will be, since all of Batiste’s recent Jazz Fest sets and his Super Bowl “Love Riot” were clearly and deliberately imagined, it will likely be conceptually and musically solid.

One of last year’s revelations was Big Freedia’s gospel set, an unironic, unapologetic embrace of the church that is clearly an important part of her life. Not surprisingly, it’s liberation message that comes from a loving God who loves you for who you are, and Big Freedia manifests that idea ecstatically ecstatically. Last year, she performed that show on the Festival Stage before Lil’ Wayne. This year, it moves to the Gospel Tent (5 p.m.), and she’ll do a secular show on the second Saturday.

Sevana (Shell Gentilly Stage, 12:45 p.m.; Sandals Resorts Jamaica Cultural Exchange Pavilion, 3:35 p.m.) and Protoje (Allison Miner Music Heritage Stage, 1:15 p.m.; Congo Square Stage, 3:50 p.m.) are two of the Jamaican acts I looked forward to in my Jamaican music preview, but the focus on Jamaica has been augmented with some domestic ringers. Los Skarnales (Jazz & Heritage Stage, 1:15 p.m.; Sandals Resorts Jamaica Cultural Exchange Pavilion, 5 p.m.) from Houston visit ska with a Mexican flavor.

In 2011, Lafayette’s Givers (Shell Gentilly Stage, 2:10 p.m.; Allison Miner Music Heritage Stage, 4:15 p.m.) became the indie world’s It Band. Their debut album, In Light and in particular the song “Up Up Up” took off with a spirit and buoyancy that deservedly made them the band that people couldn’t ignore. By the time they finally returned to the studio for 2014’s New Kingdom, enough had changed that the follow-up didn’t land the same way and the project eventually dwindled into inaction. At Jazz Fest, the original lineup will return to revisit In Light.

In recent years, I have spotlighted New Orleans’ Americana band Loose Cattle (Sheraton New Orleans Fais-Do-Do Stage, 12:25 p.m.) and Dayna Kurtz (Rhythmpourium, 1:10 p.m.) and her band Lulu and the Broadsides. Both perform on Friday, Kurtz with long-time collaborator Robert Maché, and since she has recently been spotlighting her 2002 debut album, Postcards from Downtown, that will likely be a meaningful part of Friday’s show.