Mumford & Sons, Trombone Shorty, a Jon Batiste surprise cap off 2023 New Orleans Jazz Fest

The final moments of the 2023 New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival found Troy “Trombone Shorty” Andrews and Jon Batiste standing together, arms raised in triumph, on the main Festival Stage.

It was a big finish to a big festival.

Forty-eight hours earlier, Batiste headlined the same stage with an epic show. He returned as a special guest of Andrews, his pal and fellow New Orleans Center for Creative Arts alum.

For this first, fully realized Jazz Fest since the pandemic, two of the seven days featured native sons as main stage headliners. And, like the festival itself, they found a way to bring a bit of New Orleans to a national headliner.

It seemed as if everyone who skipped the stormy Saturday came out Sunday. At the Festival Stage for Mumford & Sons, the field was full from front to back, save a muddy depression along its edge.

At the Congo Square Stage ahead of Maze featuring Frankie Beverly, the field was also full, with overflow fans setting up chairs on the dirt track.

For a chunk of Mumford & Sons’ set, the musicians didn't seem to be considering the setting. The subtleties of quieter songs such as “Ghosts That We Knew,” while no doubt enthralling up front, were lost out on the packed field. At the very back of the oval, sound bleed from Ne-Yo at Congo Square was the dominant audio experience.

In his first surprise appearance of the day, Jon Batiste contributed accordion to Mumford & Sons' “Awake My Soul.” It was, like the rest of the arrangement, understated (though his smile was not).

Jazz Fest was only Mumford & Sons' second public show of the year, following an April 28 appearance at Pharrell Williams' Something in the Water Festival in Virginia. At that show, blues/soul guitarist Celisse Henderson sat in with the band, as she did for three songs at Jazz Fest. She set off some welcome electric guitar fireworks in "Believe."

Marcus Mumford, who made a Sunday morning pilgrimage to the Gospel Tent, took matters into his own hands during “Ditmas,” coming down from the stage to romp with the people as Henderson rocked out with the rest of the band. “I haven’t done that in a minute,” Mumford exclaimed. “It was pretty fun.”

It was. So, too, the uptempo “The Cave” and “The Wolf,” during which Mumford exhorted “the seated m--- f----” in the VIP bleachers to stand up.

He wasn’t kidding when he announced “something real quiet” to open the encore. He and his bandmates clustered around a microphone for the harmonies of “Timshel.” They drifted off into the ether, largely unheard.

What followed, by contrast, worked from the front to the back of the field: Batiste and his melodica and Trombone Shorty and his trombone lighting up “House of the Rising Sun.” With that, Mumford & Sons connected with both the city and the crowd. The exuberant “I Will Wait” that followed was lagniappe.

At the Shell Gentilly Stage, the 82-year-old Tom Jones, who delivered a killer set at the fest in 2019, acknowledged his mortality even as he defied it. With his shirt sensibly buttoned nearly to its collar, Jones owned his classic “Delilah” as his tight, multi-textured band laid down an undulating rhythm spiked with accordion and a jagged guitar solo.

Jones' voice is still robust and strong. In the story-song “Lazarus Man,” he belted the line “I got nothing but time!” with conviction, even if he knows in his heart it isn’t true.

The big names at Jazz Fest create big moments and draw big crowds. But it is the locals who give the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival its personality.

That was true throughout this year and especially on Sunday.

It was evident as Bo Dollis Jr., in a white suit, led his young Wild Magnolias, resplendent in yellow and pink plumage, in “Papa Was A Rolling Stone” segueing into the Wild Magnolias classic “Smoke My Peace Pipe (Smoke It Right)” at the Jazz & Heritage Stage.

It was evident as the Continental Drifters, an Americana band founded by New Orleans expatriates in Los Angeles that later relocated to New Orleans, reunited on the Gentilly Stage. They hadn’t rehearsed their closing number, the Mama and the Papas’ “Dedicated to the One I Love.”

“The Drifters don’t rehearse,” guitarist/vocalist Vicki Peterson noted.

“That’s for sissies,” bandmate Susan Cowsill replied.

But their four-part harmonies on “Dedicated” were spot on, dusted by a bit of bass and guitar. Earlier, Cowsill had quipped, “I can’t believe they let us in here.”

They absolutely belonged.

So, too, did Troy Andrews’ big brother, trumpeter James Andrews, who led a big ensemble goosed by five horns in a packed Blues Tent for an over-the-top “Ooh Poo Pah Doo,” his grandfather Jessie Hill’s 1960 hit.

“All the people that liked our show, wave your fingers in the air!” Andrews enthused. Once everyone’s hands were up, he added, “And watch your pockets!”

With that, he and his trumpet fired up “When the Saints Go Marching In.” He led the band offstage for a victory lap around the front section of seats as jubilant fans fell in behind him.

Signs on the barricades warned, “No standing in aisles per fire marshal.” They said nothing about second-lining.

Scores of visitors captured the scene on their cell phones. Wherever they are from, they will remember that special New Orleans moment.

Just as they will remember Trombone Shorty and Jon Batiste cutting up together on the main stage, cracking each other up, trading melodica and trumpet lines on “Sunny Side of the Street.”

That spirit carried over to the encore, with a medley that touched on “Down By the Riverside” and “When the Saints Go Marching In.”

“That’s the end of Jazz Fest 2023!” Troy Andrews proclaimed.

A couple of new New Orleans stars brought it home.