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Sunday night, when Allen Toussaint played "Yes We Can Can" for Democratic convention delegates in Denver, the song sounded tailor-made for the Obama campaign. But he wrote it in New Orleans, in 1970, inspired by a different era of change.

No wonder. New Orleans musicians have for more than a century anticipated and articulated just what this country needs. Now, three years past the floods that followed Katrina, Mr. Toussaint and other bearers of the city's unique (and uniquely American) culture -- jazz musicians, brass-band members, Social Aid & Pleasure Club second-liners, and Mardi Gras Indians --call on the country to respond to their needs, for the good of us all. We must recognize this culture as essential to New Orleans recovery, not to mention the restoration of our damaged national identity.

Politics were in the air during jazzfest -- literally. While the Neville Brothers closed the event on the Acura stage, a plane circled above the Fair Grounds towing a banner that read: "Shell, Hear the Music. Fix the Coast You Broke." Not all the commentary was so overt, and none as visible, but it was there if you kept your eyes and ears open. Mind you, it's too easy in New Orleans these days to read meaning and purpose into every lyric or song choice -- was Sheryl Crow making a statement by covering "Gimme Shelter," or was she just doing a Stones tune? -- yet some of the messages were timely, pointed, and worth remembering.

Here's my reflection on all that in a piece for the website Truthdig.

Just when I was feeling guilty about heading into Passover without a thought of my desert-crossing ancestors or my going-without-bread family members, I ran into Ronald Lewis, a sweet-hearted, tough-minded guy who is still among the lonely pioneers who've returned to his Lower Ninth Ward neighborhood. (He was a key character in a piece I did for Salon last year.)

"You comin' to the Seder?" he asked.

"What Seder?"

"The one at my house."

"Huh?"

Turns out LJ Goldstein, photographer, Jew-about-town, founding member of Krewe du Jieux, was holding his krewe's ritual dinner at Lewis's recently restored home. If my culture was on display for a night at Lewis's place, so was his, permanently: When I introduced my wife, Erica, Lewis commanded: "Go see my museum!" -- the House of Dance and Feathers located just behind his home (this is the second edition, and impressive at that, reconstructed after Lewis lost his previous artifacts in the floods).

Some guests had prepared traditional Jewish fare -- kugel and matzoh ball soup and so on. There was brisket, too -- from The Joint, a favorite Bywater barbecue spot. We sat on the floor and worked through two hours of a Passover service far more faithful than my family's version. And different -- the Haggadah, for instance, began with "Shalom, y'all." Helen Regis, scholar of all things second-line, was there, as was Joel Dinnerstein, who is on Tulane Univeristy's faculty. So was Willie Birch, whose paintings, drawings, and mixed-media sculptures tell stories of struggle and transcendence as powerfully as the Haggadah.

"Yeah. I'm doin' a multicultural thing," Lewis joked when Birch showed up. When it came time to give thanks and to reflect, he turned serious. "I'm thankful for being back. But I miss the Ninth Ward like it was. I used to be able to just walk and see everyone and everything where there is still mostly nothing."

From there, as any good Seder does, we traced the tale of enslaved Jews on the run from Egypt, and I thought about how little difference there is between "Let My People Go" and "Let My People Go Home."

The NBA all-star game brought "I love this game" excitement, much-needed out-of-state money and laudable good will campaigns (wherein 7-footers in windbreakers hammered nails, read to schoolkids, and showcased the many worthy nonprofit efforts around town). I guess I was remiss in not posting this piece of mine, which ran in the New Orleans Times-Picayune:

Links between basketball and jazz run deep
By Larry Blumenfeld

One striking absurdity of the National Basketball Association is this fact: The team from Utah wears the jerseys emblazoned with "Jazz."

That name originated in New Orleans, of course, where the Jazz played its first five seasons in the late 1970s. Back then, the shirts made fundamental sense -- and not just as a nod to the city's iconic art form.

(read on or click here to link)

It's nearly March, but the sight of Mardi Gras Indian Chiefs in New Orleans on Fat Tuesday is fresh in my mind. And the Democratic primary race, which tightened that same day, remains a horserace.

My thoughts on how the two subjects intertwine (or not) is expressed in this Village Voice piece:

"It's amazing how much joy and hope these beads and feathers bring."

The Sunday before Mardi Gras in New Orleans, Donald Harrison Jr., Big Chief of the Congo Nation, son of Big Chief Donald Sr., lay on the living-room floor of his mother's house in the Ninth Ward, cutting leopard-print fur in a pattern as he spoke. Nearby, a sofa and chair were covered with beads and rhinestones, along with ostrich and turkey feathers that had been dyed a golden yellow. Harrison was preparing to "mask," to enact the city's least-understood tradition, and these days, perhaps, its most essential: Mardi Gras Indian culture. These rituals, which date to at least the mid-1800s, are an African-American homage to the Native Americans who once sheltered runaway slaves and to the spirit of resistance.

The calendar was pointed in its irony this year: Elsewhere, February 5 marked Super Tuesday....

For the full piece, click here or read on.