Jazz Fest 2026. The New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival. The lineup just came out. I want to read it to you.

Eagles. Stevie Nicks. Rod Stewart. Lorde. Kings of Leon. Teddy Swims.

At the Jazz and Heritage Festival.

I want you to sit with that for a minute. I want you to say the words "Jazz and Heritage" and then say the words "Eagles" and notice that your mouth has to do something unnatural to connect them.

I lived in New Orleans for twelve years. I hosted Blues and Roots on WWOZ. Three hours a week. Professor Longhair. Guitar Slim. Snooks Eaglin. Earl King. The New Orleans piano players who invented rock and roll and never got credit and never got paid and never headlined Jazz Fest because Jazz Fest did not exist yet. When it started, in 1970, it was about the people who lived in the city. The Indians. The brass bands. The piano professors. The people who played the music that made New Orleans the only American city where the music lives in the architecture.

In 1970, Mahalia Jackson played the first Jazz Fest. Duke Ellington played the first Jazz Fest. The Eureka Brass Band played the first Jazz Fest. You could walk from tent to tent and hear the entire history of American music played by the people who made it. That was the heritage they were talking about.

I do not begrudge the Eagles their career. I do not begrudge Rod Stewart his microphone stand. But these are not jazz artists. These are not heritage artists. These are arena acts who sell tickets, and the festival needs tickets sold because the festival costs money and money requires compromise and compromise requires the Eagles.

That is the math. I understand the math. I have been doing the math my entire life — how much of your soul do you trade for the infrastructure to present the art? The answer is always more than you planned. The Ann Arbor Blues and Jazz Festival went broke twice because we refused to do the math. We put Muddy Waters and Sun Ra and Howlin' Wolf on the same stage because that was the truth and the truth does not sell enough tickets to pay for the portable toilets.

The problem is not the Eagles at Jazz Fest. The problem is that nobody notices. The problem is that the word "jazz" has been diluted to the point where it means "music performed outdoors in Louisiana in the spring." The problem is that the word "heritage" has been diluted to the point where it means "nostalgia that sells merch." The problem is that the festival is named after two things it no longer primarily provides.

WWOZ still exists. The brass bands still play. The Indians still come out on Super Sunday. The heritage is still in the streets. It is just not on the main stage at the Fair Grounds anymore. The main stage is for the people who flew in. The streets are for the people who live here. The festival serves the tourists. The city serves the music. These are not the same service.

I ran the Ann Arbor Blues and Jazz Festival with a budget held together with tape and good intentions. We paid the artists what we could. We charged what people could afford. And every act on the bill was there because they belonged there — because the music demanded their presence, not because the accountant approved their draw.

Jazz Fest 2026 has Jon Batiste. That is heritage. Jazz Fest 2026 has Nas. You can make a case. Jazz Fest 2026 has the Eagles. You cannot make a case. You can make a transaction. A case and a transaction are not the same thing, and the distance between them is the distance between a festival and a concert series with good food.

New Orleans does not need Jazz Fest to be New Orleans. New Orleans was New Orleans before Jazz Fest and it will be New Orleans after Jazz Fest and on any given Tuesday in any given bar in any given neighborhood a brass band will play a second line that contains more heritage than the entire main stage at the Fair Grounds on a Saturday afternoon in April.

But it would be nice. It would be nice if the festival named after the music actually featured the music. It would be nice if the heritage in the title referred to the heritage in the city instead of the heritage of the revenue model. It would be nice if Mahalia Jackson could look at the lineup and recognize the festival she helped start.

She would recognize the food, though. The food is still correct. The crawfish bread is still heritage. That much survives.

That's the transmission.

See also: TX013: The Second Line — WWOZ, twelve years in the French Quarter, brass bands at the airport. TX022: The Festival — Ann Arbor Blues & Jazz Festival, Muddy Waters and Sun Ra on the same stage. The Dial — radio as a frequency, not a business. TX023: The Dispensary — when the state discovered there was more money in taxing than in banning. The Ban — Bandcamp bans AI music. The gatekeeper changed, the gate did not. The Groove — Coltrane on a turntable in Flint, and what the music does when nobody is counting. Doorman — somebody decides who gets in before the lineup starts.

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