Thee Sinseers, Jourdan Thibodeaux Close Out Jazz Fest on a High Note

It wasn’t intentional, but from 1:20 and the end of Thee Sinseers set, I didn’t hear lyrics in English at Jazz Fest until Marty Stuart’s set started at 5:30. That was short-lived because after about 20 minutes of his set, I gave up on words altogether and finished the festival in the Jazz Tent with Kamasi Washington. 

That wasn’t planned, but following cool sound to cool sound took me to Mexican Institute of Sound, El Conjunto Nueva Ola, Banda MS (which was a little meh for me), Las Hermanas Garcia, Jourdan Thibodeaux et les Rôdailleurs (Cajun French), Lisbon Girls (local, but in Spanish), some more Mexican Institute of Sound, then Stuart. 

Admittedly, my inclination at Jazz Fest is to see the music I’m least likely to see again, but it’s also a testament to the strength of booking that so much good music could be heard between the big stages at either end of the Fair Grounds.

The best thing I saw all day and maybe all weekend came early in the Blues Tent with the lowrider soul of Thee Sinseers. The booking was easy to overlook because touring bands rarely play early sets, and Thee Sinseers from East L.A. are hardly a household name. Those who were there got a treat as singer Joseph Quiñones’ voice was a thing of beauty–a high, lonely cry full of passion, and the tight, gorgeous harmonies made every song a thing of beauty, even in the sonically rough and tumble Blues Tent. 

Like Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings and many of the artists on Thee Sinseers’ label Colemine Records, they work hard to recreate a classic soul sound in the songs and arrangements. Many retro soul bands work so hard on the sound that they forget to write songs, but that wasn’t the case with Thee Sinseers. The songs had a powerful, engaging simplicity that made them affecting. “It’s Such a Shame” started with two flutes in a gesture to the past, and when backing vocalist Adriana Flores sang the first notes with romantic ache, someone behind me audibly gasped.

Like much of the show, it and the next five minutes were breathtaking. Thee Sinseers specialize in slow, romantic soul, and they did their best to make the Blues Tent feel like a high school dance. I found it mesmerizing and lovely in a way that Jazz Fest rarely is. 

Jourdan Thibodeaux et les Rôdailleurs have become a Jazz Fest must-see for me. I used to love seeing older Cajun acts with their wives sitting on folding chairs at the back of the stage as if Jazz Fest was just another dance and the performers were just another band. 

It was a window into another time and another world, one where musicians were relatively faceless and part of the service industry. That’s not Thibodeaux. He wears a pearl-snap shirt like countless fiddlers and accordion players before him on the Sheraton New Orleans Fais Do-Do Stage, but he’s center stage because he has to be. He’s charismatic and swigs Jameson onstage between songs. 

His is a 21st century version of Cajun music, deeply rooted in the culture but he’s a fierce advocate for it as a contemporary, living thing. He’s not celebrating the ways things were; he’s all about the way they are and can be if people are willing to do what is necessary to keep Cajun culture alive. 

If you believe in your community, he preached, shop locally and not at Walmart to bring your neighbors along. He explained his new song, “Dit Moi,” saying if you want to impress me, show me something I can’t buy. 

“Money ain’t nothin’ but a thing, cher,” he said.

El Conjunto Nueva Ola was one of the silliest bands I’ve seen at Jazz Fest, sillier than I expected from their videos. The band from Mexico City performs in luchador masks, and their gimmick is cumbia and ska versions of pop hits. Some took the audience a moment to recognize, like their version of Milli Vanilli’s “Girl You Know it’s True,” but the audience blew up instantly for a fast ska take on “Moves Like Jagger.” 

As goofy as they were, they were also one of the few acts I saw address the government renditioning immigrants to El Salvador. The singer spoke about how wrong it was while introducing one of their songs about where many migrant workers can be found, “El Jom Dipo”--Home Depot. 

At the end of the festival and a month of writing about and thinking about Jazz Fest, it was great to have an experience like Kamasi Washington that I couldn’t write about. I could seize on moments—DJ Battlecat taking a turntables solo on Devo’s “Whip It,” or a Washington sax solo late in the set that started in a borderline romantic place before it organically grew into something nuclear—but it wasn’t a set about moments. It felt like a totality, and one that I was happy to simply take in.