The music keeps playing at New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival
Jazz Fest is a celebration of all things New Orleans. The huge festival attracts nearly half a million attendees yearly, displaying the resilient soul of the city. Leslie Bouie, a fifth-generation New Orleans native, remembers the one following Hurricane Katrina most fondly because it was the one that almost wasn’t.
Resilience in New Orleans - Jazz Fest
Read the transcript
Read the transcript
Title: Jazz Fest Cut 2 with changes
Duration: 3:30 minutes
Description:
This video features former Shell employee and grandmother, Leslie, as she attends the Shell-sponsored New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival.
Jazz Fest Cut 2 with changes Transcript
Leslie
Are you all excited about going back to Jazz Fest?
Grandchildren
Yes.
Leslie
Uh-huh.
Leslie
I'm a fifth-generation New Orleanian. I've lived in New Orleans pretty much all my life.
[Video footage]
We open on footage of Leslie with her grandchildren, getting ready for Jazz Fest. As they speak together, the grandchildren look through the perfume bottles, make-up, etc. on Leslie’s countertop. As we hear Leslie in voiceover, we see her choosing a bead necklace from her collection and slipping it over her head. She smiles at herself in the mirror as she adjusts her shirt over the jewelry.
Grandchild
Um…
Leslie
Okay, look, these are some of grandmother's Jazz Fest skirts.
Grandchild
Uh-huh.
[Video footage]
Leslie is seated in her living area with her grandchildren, showing them her Jazz Fest skirts.
Leslie
Jazz Fest is one of the biggest cultural events that we host here.
[Video footage]
As we hear Leslie’s voiceover, we see the New Wave brass band performing in the street in the classic second-line street procession, where colorfully dressed dancing revelers follow the band.
Grandchild
That’s easy. N.O. Jazz Fest.
Leslie
All right. Very good.
[Video footage]
Close-up footage shows Leslie holding onto some colorful fabric as her grandson reads off the wording painted on it.
Leslie
Jazz is in the heart and soul of this city. It’s the music that was born here. It was born of the people here.
[Video footage]
As we hear Leslie in voiceover, we see more second-line jazz processions, including the Kinfolk brass band as well as other musicians on the sidewalks the traditional instruments, drums, tuba, trombone, trumpet, saxophone. We see a tourist following the procession, taking video footage with her mobile phone. Aerial footage shows the procession moving down the street.
Leslie
I don’t think New Orleans would be New Orleans without jazz.
[Text displays]
Leslie Bouie
Former Shell Employee
[Video footage]
Close-up footage shows Leslie speaking to the off-camera interviewer.
[Text displays]
In 2005, Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans.
Jazz Fest was in jeopardy following one of the worst natural disasters in US history.
[Audio]
Storm sound effects.
[Graphic]
Dark grey text transitions in to display against a white background.
[Background music plays]
Slow, sad, emotional instrumental music, featuring keys.
Leslie
This area was all flooded. Imagine an entire community that was totally covered in mud. It was like a bomb had dropped and everything was just devastated. It was just total silence. There was no traffic, no people, no birds, nothing. It was just, it was like dead. It was like everything was gone. It was horrible. Just really, really bad.
[Video footage]
We see Leslie seated in the car, speaking to the off-camera interviewer. Through the windows, we pass suburban houses and open, green pieces of land. We cut to footage of the same area during Hurricane Katrina, showing the devastation to houses and land. We return to footage of Leslie in the car, speaking to the off-camera interviewer.
[Text displays]
In the months following the disaster some questioned if New Orleans could bounce back.
Shell was one of the first major employers to return to the city.
[Graphic]
Dark grey text transitions in to display against a white background.
[Background music plays]
Star-spangled Banner played on trumpet.
Leslie
New Orleanians were determined to come back and get our city back. Shell was very, very visible in the community in trying to do things to help the people that had been displaced, particularly employees.
[Video footage]
We see Shell employees conducting a flag handover ceremony on a paved area outside an imposing building, and we see the American flag being raised up a flagpole. This footage is interspersed with close-up footage of Leslie speaking to the off-camera interviewer. We then see a man gesturing to a cut red ribbon outside the tall building while another man raises a large pair of scissors, posing to have his picture taken. Onlookers applaud.
Male Speaker
Ladies and gentlemen, the world is open for business.
[Video footage]
Low-angle footage shows the flag flying against a sunny blue sky, and the lone trumpeter standing alongside the tall flagpole.
[Background music plays]
The Sound of Shell adaptation.
Leslie
When the announcement was made that Shell was going to back Jazz Fest, it was profound. It was unbelievable. It was like a vote of confidence that, hey, New Orleans is going to come back. The citizens are committed, we’re committed, so everybody else, jump on board.
[Video footage]
An aerial shot shows numerous Shell employees and others standing in the paved square, applauding. A series of shots show Shell employees standing in the crowd. We cut to close-up footage of Leslie speaking to the off-camera interviewer.
[Text displays]
Organizers had believed Katrina marked the end of Jazz Fest forever.
[Graphic]
Dark grey text transitions in to display against a white background.
[Text displays]
Quint Davis
Producer & Director, New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival
Quint
The effect of Katrina on the fairgrounds here, where the festival is, there wasn't one roof left on any structure in the whole place. Two thirds of the field was underwater. And there would’ve been no festival, until Shell showed up and bailed us out and made Jazz Fest possible to live again.
[Video footage]
Close-up footage of Clint Davis speaking to the off-camera interviewer. We see him walking onto a stage at Jazz Fest. A series of footage shows the excited and expectant crowd facing the stage. We see Leslie in the crowd. Quint takes the microphone. We return to close-up footage of Clint speaking to the off-camera interviewer.
Quint
Y’all get ready to funk it up with the Pinettes Brass Band.
[Video footage]
We see Quint speaking enthusiastically into the microphone on stage, introducing the Pinettes Brass Band. Again, Leslie is shown applauding from the crowd.
[Background music plays]
Pinettes Brass Band performs.
Band member
Are y’all ready?
[Video footage]
A video montage shows the band begin to perform, and the crowd responding to the music, some dancing to it.
Leslie
I couldn’t wait. I just could not wait for Jazz Fest to return. I think that year, I went every day. Yeah, I went every day that year. I just didn’t want to miss a thing. Because after going through Katrina, you have this fear that what if New Orleans would not have ever come back? But it was coming back. Jazz Fest was coming back. The city was coming back.
[Video footage]
Close-up footage shows Leslie speaking to the off-camera interviewer. A video montage shows the band playing, the crowd enjoying the atmosphere, Leslie dancing and clapping to the music and enjoying the food, and then we see the food area, with several close-ups of traditional foods, jambalaya, crawfish, shaved ice. We return to close-up footage of Leslie speaking to the off-camera interviewer, then see more footage of Leslie and other festivalgoers enjoying Jazz Fest.
[Text displays]
Shell’s partnership with Jazz Fest has remained strong to the present day.
[Graphic]
Dark grey text transitions in to display against a white background.
Leslie
It’s fun. It’s music. It’s camaraderie. It’s people. It’s New Orleans.
[Video footage]
More close-up footage of Leslie speaking to the off-camera interviewer intersperses a video montage of festivalgoers enjoying Jazz Fest. We see a woman in a costume of colorful feathers dancing for the camera. A man plays a violin, then blows a kiss out to the crowd. We see various festivalgoers dancing.
Pinettes
Ain’t no city like the one I’m from!
[Video footage]
Drone footage moves over the vast crowd facing the stage on which the Pinettes are performing. We see Leslie in the crowd, enjoying the music and cheering the performers. The crowd applauds.
[Video footage and animated sequence]
We end on a yellow background sequence where we see various people, including Leslie, successively posing against the yellow background and smiling into the camera. An animated Pecten shape displays at frame-centre over the flashing images, neon light appearing to move around the outline in a chasing effect.
[Audio]
Shell brand mnemonic played on keys.
[Text displays]
#PoweringProgress
© Shell International Limited 2023
[Animated sequence]
Successively larger Pecten shapes pulsate out from the original shape, which ultimately expands to fill the frame and dissolves out. The small classic red and yellow Pecten transitions in to display at frame-centre against a white background. Text displays below this.
Music, culinary wonders, architecture and a bit of mystery makes New Orleans – also known as NOLA – what it is today.
NOLA is a place where letting the “good times roll” is a lifestyle, not just a slogan on a t-shirt found on Bourbon Street. The New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival is another true representation of the soul of the city. Held over 10 days each spring, the festival dates to April 1970, when Mahalia Jackson and Duke Ellington headlined the inaugural lineup. Today’s acts mix hometown jazz favorites with international superstars, drawing nearly half a million attendees each year.
Leslie Bouie is a fifth-generation New Orleans native who knows a thing or two about the festival - she’s been attending for 40 years after all.
Leslie Bouie, fifth-generation New Orleans nativeJazz is in the heart and soul of this city. It’s the music that was born here. It was born of the people here. I don’t think New Orleans would be New Orleans without jazz.
Reclaiming confidence in NOLA
When Hurricane Katrina decimated New Orleans in August 2005, many doubted if the iconic event – like so much of NOLA – could return to its former glory. Katrina’s floodwaters nearly destroyed the festival’s longtime venue, the Fair Grounds Race Course, scuttling its horseracing season for the rest of the year and organizers wondered if the music could return the following spring, or if at all.
Shell USA, a major employer in the Gulf Coast, stepped up to sign a long-term arrangement as the festival’s presenting sponsor, and with backing from other major supporters, the festival returned for an emotional 37th run in April 2006.
Bouie, who is also a Shell retiree, considers the 2006 festival a pivotal moment that showed the world that New Orleans would recover from Katrina. After the hurricane, when confidence was a bit shaken by the effects of Katrina, Shell committed to the community by moving its 1,000 displaced employees back, hoping to encourage other firms to do the same. At the same time, Shell began heavily investing in the community, training teachers and developing engineering programs at local universities, helping cultivate the workforce that would be pivotal in the rebuilding of the beloved city.
And the music plays on...
Shell’s support of Jazz Fest and NOLA is steadfast. Between the horns and revelry, of Jazz Fest, a massive sustainability effort takes place in the background. As you might imagine, hundreds of thousands of attendees viewing multiple stages for two full weekends means a lot of waste from food packaging, to cooking oil, to utensils, and more. When sent to landfills or treatment facilities, this waste generates greenhouse gas emissions, squandering an opportunity to produce future products.
This conundrum prompted Shell to work with organizers to increase recycling and reclamation. Last year’s efforts diverted more than 21 metric tons of waste from landfills and including 2,500 pounds of reclaimed cooking oil used to produce biodiesel in shrimp boats. At the same time, Shell partnered with NexusCircular to convert 1.13 metric tons of hard-to-recycle plastics into pyrolysis oil, which is a feedstock the company’s nearby Norco Manufacturing Complex can use instead of fossil fuels to produce all kinds of renewable products.
Shell in Louisiana
New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival Earns Evergreen Certification for Sustainability and Community Impact
The New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival (“Jazz Fest”) presented by Shell USA, Inc. (“Shell”), has been awarded the Evergreen certification by the Council for Responsible Sport (“Council”). Jazz Fest, a 55year-old New Orleans institution known for its celebration of music, art, and culture, is the largest cultural festival to ever achieve Evergreen certification.
