From NOLA.com: Quint Davis on how 2024 Jazz Fest will be ‘Buffett-ized’ in honor of Jimmy Buffett
The festival’s producer/director reminisces about his, and Jazz Fest’s, long history with Buffett
Quint Davis first met an unknown singer named Jimmy Buffett in the French Quarter in the 1960s. Their music industry careers would later intersect at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival.
In 1970, George Wein hired Davis, a Tulane University student and music fan in search of a calling, to help assemble the first Jazz Fest. Davis eventually became the festival’s producer/director and public face.
Meanwhile, Buffett built his “Margaritaville” empire around songs celebrating a devil-may-care, fun-in-the-sun, permanent vacation lifestyle. He was a Jazz Fest mainstay from 1989 until his death on Sept. 1, 2023, from skin cancer at age 76.
The 2024 Jazz Fest will celebrate Buffett’s legacy in a big way.
A display inside the Fair Grounds’ grandstand charts his history with the festival. On May 4 at 1:15 p.m., a jazz funeral procession in Buffett’s honor will proceed across the Fair Grounds to the Ancestors area at the Congo Square Stage, where his likeness will be enshrined.
Later that afternoon, his daughter Savannah Buffett and members of his Coral Reefer Band will reminisce at the Allison Miner Music Heritage Stage inside the grandstand.
The celebration culminates with the Coral Reefer Band and special guests playing Buffett’s songs on the main Festival Stage on the closing Sunday, May 5.
“It’s hard to really process the fact that he’s gone,” Davis said recently. “It’s just like, ‘Some months have gone by, Jimmy’s on some island somewhere. He’ll be coming back through New Orleans.’”
The following interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
How did you first meet Jimmy?
He had a white Ford Falcon that was hot-rodded up that he drove to New Orleans to a little parking lot off Esplanade Avenue, down by the Old U.S. Mint. Somehow we met up there and rode around in the car.
If Jimmy hadn’t driven a hopped-up Falcon, the entire history of Jazz Fest may have been different.
He and the festival were at parallel points, in terms of how big and successful. Then he started going faster than us, but he would keep coming to play. He loved New Orleans, got a lot of inspiration from here. He wrote a lot of his songs here. So the festival was just his favorite thing.
He helped us grow, because he got bigger than we did sooner than we did. My goal was to pay him at least half of what he was actually making (for other concerts). Every time, I’d say, “OK, this is all I got. Next year I’m going to pay” (the full amount). And then the next year, I paid what it had been, but he was double that. It was like that all the way till the end.
Even before Jimmy made his Jazz Fest debut in 1989, he’d come and hang out.
That’s how I met (the late “60 Minutes” correspondent) Ed Bradley, hanging out with Jimmy on the Mississippi River dock where the riverboat was (that hosted some Jazz Fest nighttime concerts). At that time there was a big, working fountain there. I can’t remember who the ladies were that got in the fountain, and whether or not Ed got in the fountain with them, but there was fountain activity. Jimmy hung with Ed a lot, and we hung out a lot, too.
Both Ed and Jimmy eventually earned the right to drive a golf cart at the Fair Grounds during Jazz Fest.
They did. They were employees. They were covered by insurance.
How did you first ask Jimmy to perform at Jazz Fest? Was it a casual, “Hey, Jimmy, would you want to play?,” or did you go through his agent to make it official?
All of the above. We were friends. He knew the festival. I said, “Man, you need to play.” He said, “Yeah, I want to play.” Then I had to circle back with his agent, Howard Rose, the only agent he’s ever had. I had to make it official, make a deal, get a contract and pay him.
During his “off” years, he’d make surprise appearances with the likes of Lyle Lovett, Dave Matthews and Allen Toussaint. I ran into him in 2014 in line at the booth for Prejean’s pheasant, quail and andouille gumbo.
He would put on a hat and sunglasses and go out and walk around the festival. He wasn’t just at the festival. He was a part of the festival. That’s different.
The Neville Brothers were heart and soul of the festival. They closed the festival; that was a special relationship. Jimmy was the same way. He was heart and soul of the festival.
He bookended the pandemic. He played on the last day before everything shut down, and then when we came back in 2022, he played the last day again.
He also performed at the first post-Katrina Jazz Fest, in 2006, when much of the city was still in ruins. Initially, he was reluctant.
He was such a smart guy. He was the first one that I talked to, because I knew him the best. He said, “I don’t think so. If I play, my people are going to come. If the city’s not ready, if the hotels and restaurants and clubs aren’t open, that word is going to go out, and that’ll do the opposite of what you want to do. You want to show that New Orleans is back. If people come and it’s not, it’ll set (the recovery) back.”
That’s intelligent logic. But I said, “Jimmy, we gotta do it.”
He was the first one (to agree to play). Then it was Dave Matthews, Paul Simon, Bruce Springsteen.
He was a Saints super-fan. He flew his own plane from Bora Bora in the South Pacific to the 2010 NFC Championship Game to see the Saints beat the Vikings to advance to the Super Bowl. En route to the Superdome, you and he stopped at a tailgate party.
There’s a certain group that tailgates under the overpass. They’re a happy group, but they’re a rowdy group. We stopped, and they were plying us with food and drink. That was when the Saints had that defensive coordinator with the hair that stood up (Gregg Williams). The host had a headband with the hair sticking up. He put it on Jimmy and got him to do a song.
Jimmy was in a suite with me for that game. When that kick went through (to win the game), Jimmy and I were embracing. It was a great moment for the city.
He played a huge role in getting the Grammy-winning 2022 documentary “Jazz Fest: A New Orleans Story” made. Jimmy invited you to a concert with the Eagles in Denver in part because heavyweight Hollywood producer Frank Marshall — whose credits include the “Jurassic Park,” “Indiana Jones” and Jason Bourne movies — would be there.
We had three producers approach us to do a documentary. I talked to Jimmy about it and he said, “Hold off. I know somebody that you should talk to.” Frank and Jimmy were really good friends. Frank was going to be at this show in Denver.
Jimmy’s shows are fun. Jimmy’s after-shows are fun. I don’t know how much tequila we drank. But through the medium of tequila, I met Frank. I wasn’t actually asking him to do anything. I wanted his advice on the three filmmakers. We went through that. At the end, Frank said, “Would you want me to get involved?
Jimmy was an executive producer of the Jazz Fest documentary and was featured in it.
In the documentary, there’s a series of mini-documentaries. Jimmy was a mini-documentary. They showed him when he’d just gotten to New Orleans and had to stay here because he didn’t have the money to go to California, so he “hippie-ed out” right here in New Orleans.
Jimmy changed Jazz Fest, in part by boosting attendance on the final Sunday.
He changed the whole dynamic. By the time you get to the last Sunday, it’s the end of the festival, which is emotional for people, but it wasn’t a big draw.
I put Jimmy on that last Sunday, and now we had more than 50,000 people. Once we did that, I had to start getting other acts that would draw 50,000 people, because I didn’t want it to fall back down.
And this year we’re going to (still) have Jimmy, so to speak. When he was real sick, he said, “I don’t want a tribute and I don’t want a funeral. Just keep the party going.” That was his direction.
But in New Orleans, we don’t mourn. We celebrate a great life — we have a jazz funeral. That’s what we’re doing. We’re celebrating Jimmy Buffett.
You’re also going to enshrine Jimmy as an Ancestor.
We are going to Buffett-ize Jazz Fest in many ways. (After he becomes an Ancestor) he’s always at the festival. He’ll be up there with Dr. John, Allen Toussaint, Ed Bradley.
When the Coral Reefer Band plays on the final Sunday, it will be emotional.
Yeah, it will be. It’s hard to comprehend that he’s gone gone and not just gone to Tahiti.
This interview is from a recent episode of “Let’s Talk with Keith Spera,” a partnership between NOLA.com The Times-Picayune and WLAE-TV. Episodes also air on WWNO 89.9 FM and can be viewed on WLAE’s YouTube page.