Schedules and Highlights for the Second Weekend of Jazz Fest 2017

Our downloadable schedules for this weekend at The Fair Grounds, along with some of the acts we're looking forward to.

One of the pieces of news last Sunday at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival presented by Shell was how well the grounds held up to the morning rain. It’s hard to imagine we’ll be as lucky on Thursday after the overnight storm. If you’re not a Widespread Panic fan, it’s hard to see many reasons to face the soggy grounds on most Locals-Only Thursday lineup I can remember. We can hope that Herb Alpert will be more "Tijuana Taxi" than “Rise,” but I know where I’d bet my money. For me, the highlight is honky tonk purist Dale Watson, who fights what Nashville has become with every trucker song and twanged Telecaster in his being.

After the rains pass, we could have a beautiful weekend for the festival with the days sunny with highs in the low 80s. Once again, we have downloadable schedules with our highlights for each day color-coded on. Save these to your phone instead of a schedule app and save battery life.

Looking ahead to the weekend, here are a few songs to get you started. On Thursday, we’ll find out Thursday what Corinne Bailey Rae has done since the release of “Put Your Record On” in 2006. On Friday, the last hour is murderous with Wilco, Earth, Wind & Fire, Rhiannon Giddens, and King James and the Special Men, but the set I’m most excited about is Margo Price, who parts her Nashville Then And Now a little on the classic side. Her 2016 album, Midwest Farmer’s Daughter, came out on Jack White’s Third Man Records.

On Saturday, Los Van Van is among the most internationally famous Cuban groups, but I’m looking forward to The Pedrito Martinez Rumba Project with Roman Diaz, and on Sunday I want to see how Nicholas Payton’s Afro-Caribbean Mixtape sounds live.