Anita Baker To Make Debut At New Orleans Jazz Festival
Grammy Award-winning vocalist Anita Baker will perform for the first time at next year’s New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival. Marking its 41st year, the festival is scheduled for the weekends of April 23-25 and April 29-May 2 and features hundreds of acts in genres ranging from pop, rock and gospel to R&B, jazz and zydeco. Also performing will be Sax for Stax with Gerald Albright, Kirk Whalum and Jeff Lorber.
Among the many hundreds of other artists on hand at the festival will be Van Morrison, Marcus Miller, Aretha Franklin, Lionel Richie, Steve Martin, Gipsy Kings, B.B. King, Average White Band, Jose Feliciano, Stanley Clarke, Pearl Jam and Johnny Lang. Next year’s festival will include a tribute to one of the genre’s founders, the jazz singer, songwriter and trumpeter Louis Prima, who was born in 1910 and helped elevate jazz worldwide.
Though filled with major national acts, festival producer Quint Davis says its made up of more than 80 percent Louisiana artists such as the Neville Brothers, Irma Thomas, Pete Fountain, Dr. John, Juvenile, Trombone Shorty and Buckwheat Zydeco.
Besides music, the festival offers a host of food and craft booths, some that include the history and making of New Orleans pottery, jewelry, clothes and Mardi Gras.