Description:

Everybody knows that Louisiana is all about music. Now that Jazz Fest and French Quarter Festival are over, you’ve got another chance for the music festival experience, with a very different vibe. On June 14-15, 2014, the Louisiana Cajun-Zydeco Festival at Louis Armstrong Park showcases contemporary Cajun and Zydeco music, crafts and food. Transport yourself right here in New Orleans to the prairie country of southwest Louisiana. You’ll be immersed in the toe-tapping folk music that’s characteristic of Louisiana’s unique culture. Cajun music is generally French-language ballads and dance music. It’s the traditional music of the 18th century “Cajun” or Acadian exiles from Nova Scotia who settled in the Atchafalaya Basin and the prairielands to the west of the Mississippi River. There’s always a fiddle and an accordion. Multiple Grammy winner Beausoleil avec Michael Doucet is the ultimate Cajun band, and it’s going to play at the Festival!

Zydeco music is fast, rhythmic and lively. It’s the party music of rural French Creole speakers, usually black, and merges Cajun music, blues, and rhythm and blues. Modern practitioners are Dwayne Dopsie and The Zydeco Hellraisers and repeat Grammy winner Terrance Simien and; The Zydeco Experience. The Festival this year features, among others, Rosie Ledet and The Zydeco Playboys. Rosie, the “Zydeco Sweetheart,” is a petite dynamo who’s redefined traditionally male zydeco music with her exciting singing and accordion instrumental skills.

The Louisiana Cajun-Zydeco Festival connects you to another world. It’s a little slower-paced, more rural, world. Check it out, chér!