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This Week's Edition
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Jazz Fest Weekend 1 kicks off Thursday with Kings of Leon, Stevie Nicks, Rod Stewart, Jon Batiste, and Trombone Shorty, while Festival International takes over Lafayette with performers from 15 countries across seven stages. Here's your guide to the week Louisiana becomes the center of the music universe.
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APRIL 21-27, 2026
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Louisiana Becomes the Center of the Music Universe
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Jazz Fest opens at the Fair Grounds as massive crowds fill New Orleans for the biggest music weekend of the year
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| This is the week Louisiana becomes the center of the music universe. | | Jazz Fest Weekend 1 kicks off Thursday at the Fair Grounds with Kings of Leon, Lorde, Stevie Nicks, Tyler Childers, Rod Stewart, David Byrne, Jon Batiste, and Trombone Shorty. The greatest music festival on earth begins right here in New Orleans. | | And while Jazz Fest launches in New Orleans, Festival International de Louisiane takes over Lafayette. The 40th anniversary celebration runs five days with Stephen Marley, Rhiannon Giddens, and hundreds of performers from 15 countries across seven stages. The largest free Francophone festival in the United States. | | Plaquemines Parish hosts its Seafood & Heritage Festival in Belle Chasse. Tickfaw celebrates its Italian roots. Kite Fest Louisiane fills the skies over Port Allen. Arnaudville fires up the Étouffée Festival. West Monroe brings music to the Ouachita River. | | Perfect spring weather. Music everywhere. And from New Orleans to Lafayette to West Monroe, Louisiana is playing its soundtrack for the world. Here's what's happening across the state—April 21 through 27.
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What's Happening in Your Area Code
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🎭 New Orleans / Kenner / Metairie - 504
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Jazz Fest opens at the Fair Grounds with massive crowds and nonstop music
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| New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival — Weekend 1 |
| Fair Grounds Race Course, New Orleans · April 23-26, 2026 |
| Weekend 1 headliners include Kings of Leon, Lorde, Stevie Nicks, Tyler Childers, Rod Stewart, David Byrne, and Louisiana's own Jon Batiste and Trombone Shorty. The greatest music festival on earth kicks off right here in New Orleans, and it doesn't get more Louisiana than this. |
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| Plaquemines Parish Seafood & Heritage Festival |
| Belle Chasse · April 24-26, 2026 |
| Fresh Gulf seafood, live music, and the deep bayou heritage of Plaquemines Parish. One of the most authentic community festivals in the entire metro area, right across the river and worth every mile. |
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| Kite Fest Louisiane |
| Port Allen · Saturday, April 25, 2026 |
| The only kite festival in all of Louisiana fills the skies over West Baton Rouge with professional kite performers, exotic kite ballets, kite-making for kids, and 20,000 attendees. A completely free, one-of-a-kind Louisiana tradition right across the river from Baton Rouge. |
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🎶 Lafayette / Acadiana Area - 337
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Festival International and Cajun celebrations fill Acadiana with music and color
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| Festival International de Louisiane |
| Downtown Lafayette · April 22-26, 2026 |
| The 40th anniversary of Festival International de Louisiane runs April 22-26. The largest free Francophone festival in the United States, featuring hundreds of performers and visual artists from more than 15 countries across seven stages, with headliners Stephen Marley and Rhiannon Giddens. Downtown Lafayette becomes the music capital of the world for five days.
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| Annual Étouffée Festival |
| Arnaudville · April 23-25, 2026 |
| The 39th annual Étouffée Festival comes to Arnaudville. A true Cajun community celebration where the étouffée is made right, the music is live, and the whole thing feels exactly like Louisiana is supposed to feel. |
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🚤 Houma / Thibodaux / Bayou Country - 985
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| Italian Festival |
| Tickfaw · April 24-26, 2026 |
| Tickfaw celebrates its deep Italian roots with a three-day festival welcoming visitors from near and far. A reminder that Louisiana's immigrant heritage runs deep through the Northshore, where Sicilian families planted roots generations ago and never looked back. |
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🌲 Shreveport / North Louisiana - 318
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| Ouachita RiverFest |
| West Monroe · April 24-25, 2026 |
| One of Northeast Louisiana's signature spring events brings live music, food, arts, and community energy to the banks of the Ouachita River. West Monroe doing what it does best, bringing people together on the water.
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| The Moment That Created Jazz Fest |
| The Spontaneous Second Line That Created the Greatest Music Festival on Earth |
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A spontaneous second line in Congo Square helped define the soul of Jazz Fest
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| April 1970 |
| Only 350 people showed up to the first New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival. That was fewer than half the number of musicians and staff who were there to perform. |
| Jazz impresario George Wein had created the festival to celebrate Louisiana music and culture during the slow tourist season. The lineup included Duke Ellington, Pete Fountain, Al Hirt, Clifton Chenier, Fats Domino, The Meters, The Preservation Hall Band, and the Olympia Brass Band. The whole thing cost $3 to get in. |
Mahalia Jackson, the greatest gospel singer of her generation, was scheduled to perform at the Municipal Auditorium that evening. But that afternoon, she showed up at Congo Square just to see what was happening. She came upon the Eureka Brass Band leading a crowd of second-line revelers through the festival grounds. George Wein saw her, handed her a microphone, and she began singing "Just a Closer Walk with Thee" as she paraded with the band, purse in arm.
That spontaneous moment—the meeting of jazz and heritage, the greatest gospel singer in the world joining a brass band second line in Congo Square—became the spirit of Jazz Fest. It's stood for 56 years as the symbol of what Jazz Fest was always meant to be: authentic, joyful, and purely Louisiana.
By 1972, the festival had outgrown Congo Square and moved to the Fair Grounds. By 1975, 80,000 people were coming. By 1978, it expanded to two weekends. In 2001, during Louis Armstrong's centennial, 650,000 people attended over seven days. Today, Jazz Fest is the greatest music festival on earth, and this week, it begins again.
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| Can You Name This New Orleans Music Legend? | | This person was born February 26, 1928, in the Lower Ninth Ward of New Orleans.
He learned piano from his brother-in-law at age 10 and was playing bars by age 14. He dropped out of school, hauled ice, worked in a mattress factory, and became a regular in Billy Diamond's band at the Hideaway Club. | | In 1949, he co-wrote "The Fat Man" with Dave Bartholomew. The song hit number two on the R&B charts and became the first rock and roll record to sell over a million copies. | | He followed with a string of hits that became the soundtrack of a generation: "Ain't That a Shame" (1955), "Blueberry Hill" (1956), "I'm Walkin'" (1957), "Blue Monday" (1956), and "Walking to New Orleans" (1960). Between 1955 and 1960, he had eleven Top 10 hits. He sold over 65 million records and outsold every rock and roll artist of his era except Elvis Presley. | | He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1986 as part of its first class. He performed at the first Jazz Fest in 1970. Paul McCartney wrote "Lady Madonna" in his style. Elvis Presley gestured to him at a press conference and said, "There's the real King."
| | But he never left New Orleans. He lived in a pink-and-white mansion in the Lower Ninth Ward, drove a pink Cadillac, and stayed home. He didn't like touring because he missed New Orleans food—especially crawfish for breakfast. When Hurricane Katrina flooded his home in 2005, the Coast Guard rescued him. He released "Alive and Kickin'" in 2006 and donated proceeds to Tipitina's Foundation to help local musicians. |
| The answer: Fats Domino |
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Fats Domino brought New Orleans rhythm and rock and roll to the world
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| The Sandwich That Changed Everything |
| Gone, But Not Forgotten |
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| How a Sicilian Immigrant Invented New Orleans' Most Iconic Sandwich | | Central Grocery — Where the Muffuletta Was Born
923 Decatur Street, New Orleans | | In 1906, Salvatore Lupo, a Sicilian immigrant, opened Central Grocery on Decatur Street in the French Quarter.
Sicilian farmers and workers would stop by his shop at lunchtime and buy bread, cold cuts, cheese, and olives, then try to juggle everything while eating standing up or balanced on their laps. It was a mess. | | Lupo had an idea. He put it all together on one sandwich. He took a round sesame loaf called muffuletta bread, split it horizontally, and layered it with marinated olive salad, Genoa salami, ham, mortadella, Swiss cheese, and provolone. The sandwich took the name of the bread.
| | The muffuletta became a New Orleans institution. Central Grocery is still owned by the same family—Lupo's grandson Salvador T. Tusa and his cousins Frank and Tommy Tusa run it today, three generations later. | | The shop hasn't changed. Shelves stocked with imported pasta and olive oil, the smell of cured pork and aged cheese, muffulettas sliced the same way they've been sliced for 118 years. During Mardi Gras, they sell up to 1,200 muffulettas a day. The Today Show named it one of the five best sandwiches in America. | | Hurricane Ida damaged the roof in 2021. The store closed for over three years for repairs. |
| It reopened in December 2024, and the muffuletta is back. |
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The muffuletta was born in the French Quarter and changed New Orleans food forever
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The Week Louisiana Music Takes Over the World | | Jazz Fest Weekend 1 kicks off Thursday at the Fair Grounds. Festival International takes over Lafayette for five days. Plaquemines Parish celebrates seafood and heritage. Tickfaw celebrates Italian roots. Kite Fest fills the skies over Port Allen. Arnaudville fires up the étouffée. West Monroe brings music to the Ouachita River. | | From New Orleans to Lafayette to West Monroe, Louisiana is playing its soundtrack for the world. Kings of Leon and Stevie Nicks in New Orleans. Stephen Marley and Rhiannon Giddens in Lafayette. Jon Batiste, Trombone Shorty, and hundreds of Louisiana musicians on stages across the state. | | Perfect spring weather. The greatest music festival on earth. And from here through summer, Louisiana doesn't stop. | | Until next time, |
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