Super Bowl Parade, Louisiana Culture Festival and Super Bowl Experience THE NEW ORLEANS SUPER BOWL PARADE will feature all the trimmings Saturday at 10 a.m., with Kern Studios floats, marching bands, groups like the 610 Stompers and the Baby Dolls, plus NFL partners and floats for the Philadelphia Eagles and the Kansas City Chiefs. The parade starts at Esplanade and Elysian Fields avenues, rolls through the French Quarter on North Peters and Decatur streets, crosses Canal Street to Tchoupitoulas Street, turns right on Poydras Street and left on St. Charles Avenue to St. Joseph Street. nfl.com.
For two days, the French Market will be host to the LOUISIANA CULTURE FESTIVAL, held in conjunction with Super Bowl antics around the city. Three stages of live programming at the free fest in the French Quarter feature a variety of music and dance, cooking demonstrations and more. The fest runs 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Friday and Saturday. frenchmarket.org. n
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n Need more Super Bowl sensory stimulation? Head over to the New Orleans Ernest N. Morial Convention Center for the SUPER BOWL EXPERIENCE Friday from 3 p.m. to 10 p.m. and Saturday 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. for the final two days of the fan experience that includes interactive games, player autographs and photos with the Vince Lombardi Trophy. Tickets for adults start at $40. nfl.com.
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STAFF FILE PHOTO BY SCOTT THRELKELD
Troy ‘Trombone Shorty’ Andrews, left, and Wild Man Chuck Jones, of the 9th Ward Black Hatchet Mardi Gras Indian tribe, join singer Lauren Daigle on the Shell Gentilly Stage during the 2022 New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival.
SPECIAL GUEST Lauren Daigle talks about Super Bowl show with Trombone Shorty, and what she’d say to Taylor Swift
BY KEITH SPERA
Staff writer
Lauren Daigle, born in Lake Charles and raised in Lafayette, is arguably the most successful singer from south Louisiana since Britney Spears. She left LSU to launch her career FEB. 9 NEW ORLEANS in contemporary Christian music, then expanded her fanbase into the larger world of mainstream pop with the massive hit “You Say.” A global audience in the tens of millions will watch Daigle and Troy “Trombone Shorty” Andrews perform “America the Beautiful” on Sunday dur-
ing the Super Bowl LIX pregame broadcast from the Caesars Superdome in her adopted hometown of New Orleans. During that all-Louisiana pregame show, Jon Batiste will animate the national anthem and New Orleans-born contemporary R&B vocalist Ledisi will perform “Lift Every Voice and Sing.” In the following interview, lightly edited for length and clarity, Daigle talks about how her Super Bowl collaboration with Trombone Shorty came about,
what she’d say if she meets Taylor Swift, her possible law school future and more. Does the knowledge that millions of viewers will be watching you sing at the Super Bowl make you nervous? I just noticed my hands are getting a little wet. Oh my gosh. I’m excited. It’s going to be a beautiful opportunity for us to showcase what New Orleans represents, and the culture, and the beauty of unity in music. New Orleans has seen some trying times recently. To be able to offer a sound of hope for people in this city, to sing out over the city and from the city into the rest of the world, is going to be one of my favorite things, maybe ever.
ä See GUEST, page 2D
Jewish Community Center launches composer initiative
ated position of JCC music direc- cert Series. 75 minutes of original tor He’ll spend a week with a guest — which would enable him to a little less — Haas jumped composer writing and rehearsing music written in a tour 75 minutes of new music, then at the opportunity. week, then premiered “I’m 50 years old,” he said. “Last perform it at the JCC.
BY KEITH SPERA Staff writer
Keyboardist Brian Haas has spent much of the past 31 years crisscrossing the country in a van, performing experimental, often improvised music. So when Jewish Community Center CEO Michael Rawl suggested he apply for the newly cre-
year, I did 150 shows, and a lot of that was (traveling) in the van.” The JCC job “enables me to keep doing the only real thing I know how to do, which is make new art, and be more grounded in New Orleans. To build more community here and not have to be in the van so much.” The most ambitious initiative of Haas’ tenure at the JCC so far is the Composer in Residence Con-
The series’ first composer in residence is trumpeter and arranger Steven Bernstein, a titan of the New York avant-jazz scene. This week, Haas and Bernstein holed up in an apartment at the foot of Esplanade Avenue to write. They’ll premiere their new work Saturday at 8 p.m. at the JCC’s
STAFF PHOTO BY KEITH SPERA
New York-based trumpeter Steven Bernstein, left, and New Orleansbased keyboardist Brian Haas stand Monday in an Esplanade Avenue apartment while composing music for the Jewish Community Center’s ä See COMPOSER, page 3D Composer in Residence Concert Series.