The Big Easy does it

Bob Dylan offered solace and spiritual renewal to the hurricane-battered Gulf Coast inhabitants Friday at opening day of the 37th annual New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, while commercial powerhouse Dave Matthews concentrated Saturday on simply creating the soundtrack for a much-needed excuse to party.

More important than any of the more than 100 acts that played the first two days of this 10-day event was the symbolism of the festival itself. Its return -- which had been in doubt after Katrina -- provided a dramatic example of survival and renewal.

Emanating repeatedly from the 10 stages spread across the festival grounds were expressions of gratitude from the Louisiana musicians who made up 90% of a lineup topped by such other big-name guests as Bruce Springsteen, Paul Simon, Elvis Costello, Jimmy Buffett and Keith Urban.

“Thank you for being here and supporting la belle terre, this beautiful land,” said BeauSoleil leader Michael Doucet on Friday.

In some respects, Dylan’s 90-minute performance wasn’t radically different from his usual shows in recent years. However perilous it can be searching for the motivation behind one of his ever-morphing set lists, there was little doubt Friday that Katrina was strongly on his mind.

First, there was the sheer intensity of his vocals, which especially in the early going channeled the chesty growl of Howlin’ Wolf more than the typical Dylan nasality. His frequently blues-drenched treatment of songs old and new fit right in with Jazz Fest’s celebration of the many tributaries on the river of American roots music.

Mostly, though, it was the relevance of the material to the monumental destruction and the emotional and psychological aftermath that this region has been struggling with for the last eight months.

Three songs in, he pulled up “Lonesome Day Blues,” from 2001’s “Love and Theft” album, with its verse:

“The road’s washed out -- weather not fit for man or beast / Funny, how the things you have the hardest time parting with / Are the things you need the least.”

And during the encore, he zeroed in dramatically on the disorientation of tens of thousands of displaced people: “How does it feel / to be without a home / with no direction home?”

“Highway 61 Revisited” evoked the age-old conundrum of humanity striving vainly to understand the notion of “God’s will,” something all too familiar to those unfortunate enough to have been in Katrina’s path.

A rare unearthing of 1971’s “Watching the River Flow” brought the consoling observation that in times when it’s impossible to understand life, maybe it’s best to just take a step back and watch it.

The members of his new five-piece band fueled the music with an intensely meaty blues-soaked rock but were equally adept at the traditional folk and country settings their boss sometimes asked of them. And they conjured folk, country and blues sequentially in a brilliant revamping of “Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right” that coursed through those facets of the roots music spectrum surrounding Dylan at Jazz Fest.

Dylan’s mastery of those forms promised an especially fascinating juxtaposition to Sunday’s scheduled performance by Bruce Springsteen, whose new “We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions” album updates the tradition of socially conscious folk music.

The Dave Matthews Band’s music is dramatically less rich, and it seemed in keeping with his monochromatically uneventful songs that his introductory comments focused simply on describing New Orleans as “the greatest city in the world” and the festival as the world’s greatest party.

Music as inspiration for celebration is an age-old combination, but amid this festival’s panoply of rock, blues, folk, jazz, Cajun, zydeco, R&B;, Latin, African and other styles, the Matthews band sounded even less interesting than usual.

The magic of any festival, and Jazz Fest in particular, is that fans never need be bored for long. On other stages opposite Matthews at the close of Saturday’s eight-hour show were R&B; queen Etta James, jazz trumpeter Terence Blanchard and singer-accordionist C.J. Chenier & the Red Hot Louisiana Band, the last proudly carrying on the effervescently joyful zydeco sound that his father, Clifton Chenier, pioneered.

When it came to joy, there was little that could top the spirited atmosphere in the fest’s gospel tent, where groups including the Lighthouse Gospel Singers and the Electrifying Crown Singers brought to the fore the spiritual element behind overarching themes of loss and redemption.

Anyone listening to the Young Tuxedo Jazz Band midday Saturday was treated to an evocation of a New Orleans jazz funeral in a segment combining mourning over loss and the search for new reasons to celebrate life, paralleling the feelings so many hurricane victims have faced.

Galactic energized a large main-stage crowd Saturday afternoon with its punchy funk-rock-jazz instrumentals out of the James Brown and George Clinton school. The time and effort the septet saves with its one-chord vamping is redirected into coming up with dynamic riffing and expansive soloing.

A perfect example of Jazz Fest’s catholic mix of genres and scale was the contrast between the Matthews Band’s performance before 20,000 or 30,000 people on the festival’s main stage and an informal Q&A; session and performance across the grounds, before a couple of dozen onlookers, featuring Elvis Costello and New Orleans songwriter-producer-singer Allen Toussaint.

The pair discussed and played a few songs from their forthcoming collaborative album, “The River in Reverse,” juxtaposing Costello’s edgy rasp with Toussaint’s honeysuckle sweetness. The session, anticipating their main-stage performance that was scheduled for Sunday, wrapped with a gorgeous treatment of Toussaint’s soul gospel ballad “Nearer to You” that Costello’s vocal infused with a passion and intensity that brought out the spiritual yearning over the lyric’s earthly romantic bent.

It was the perfect end to a rich first two days of this event, which sent the unmistakable message that where there’s life and music, there’s hope.