The 1831 building is worth searching out, however, since it attracts some of the best jazz musicians in the city. The bar is stocked with a variety of cold schnapps and German beers on tap and in the bottle. Fritzel's is famous for late-night jazz. By the time the jam session is over, it could be lunch time the next day. It's impossible to take in even a fraction of what's going on at Jazz Fest.
Some people work over the day's performance schedule with highlighters, plotting their every move.
There are folks who've been coming for years who insist the absolute best is to plop yourself down at the gospel tent and stay, leaving only for food and bathroom breaks. Others graze, letting their ears lead them from place to place. My fiancee, Jane, and I relied heavily on the Hot Tips on the front page of the New Orleans Times-Picayune. It was through these recommendations, by music writer Keith Spera, that we got turned on to such local heroes as Mem Shannon, a poet and blues guitarist who was driving a cab until 1995, and Snooks Eaglin, a blind guitar player whose inventive playing and love of the crowd make him irresistible. At the Buckwheat Zydeco concert, we find ourselves sandwiched between an entranced, bare-chested young man with hair past his shoulders and a guy in a polo shirt and pressed shorts who looks like a preppy David Letterman.