New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival — better known as Jazz Fest — will be taking over the New Orleans’ Fairgrounds for two straight weekends from April 28 to May 7. But that doesn’t mean that it will be the only game in the city. To celebrate Jazz Fest on their own, New Orleans’ Ace Hotel is running an 11-day-long celebration of new sounds and NOLA legends.
Six Of Saturns will feature DJ sets, live music, film screenings and other art-type things at the Ace Hotel’s Three Keys venue. Among the highlights are a jam session led by PJ Morton, a set curated by the Hawaiian music blog/record label Aloha Got Soul, the premiere screening of the Jazz Fest documentary Jazz Fest Legends: From Fats To Fess. The miniature fest-outside-the-fest will also include a performance by The 79ers Gang, a hybrid Mardi Gras Indian band made up of members of the 9th Ward Hunters and the 7th Ward Creole Hunters.
In addition to all that, plenty of the DJ sessions, online radio broadcasts and jams promise as yet unnamed special guests. While it could never be the biggest show in town that weekend — and it’s not trying to be — it’s certainly something to see. More information and tickets are available here.
