America Puts Its Best Foot Forward

And the Swiss come to dance...

Resting comfortably at the feet of the Alps, on the banks of the almost supernaturally placid waters of Lago Maggiore, Ascona Switzerland is a beautiful but admittedly unlikely place to seek out the spirit of America.

To begin with, the town is not exactly a hotbed of diversity. Ascona’s population appears to have a cultural range that extends all the way from Swiss to Northern Italian (on the other side of the lake) with maybe a few cheerful Germans thrown in for exotic effect. If this city is a melting pot, it doesn’t contain much more than mozzarella, gruyere and some white bread. It’s a place for fondue, not gumbo.

It would not be the first place I would expect to join a New Orleans second line.

But as the Trombone Shorty Foundation Brass Band and the parasol-pumping Chyna Doll paraded their way down the Lungolago to kick off Day 5 of the Jazz Ascona festival, there was the feeling that good times were about to roll in this soft-spoken Swiss town. It turns out that Mardi Gras gets a reprise every year here in Ascona , and what it lacks in drunken frat boys and the smell of fried beignets, it makes up for with music.

Featuring over 200 concerts and 300 performers over its 10 day run, the Ascona festival has always had its suede loafer and sandal-clad feet firmly planted in the mud of the Mississippi’s most iconic city, with a focus not only on traditional jazz, but all of the cultural and musical influences that make up New Orleans’ unique character. There are gospel concerts, food trucks, cruises and jam sessions, along with dance workshops and documentary films. On the cusp of the Fourth of July, it seemed an appropriate place for an ex-pat to go for a quick blast of the best vibes the U.S.A. has to offer this side of the Atlantic.

Like Wyatt and Billy in “Easy Riders”, I would set off to find the soul of America. But could it really turn up in a place so pristine it belongs on the front of a yogurt carton?

It didn’t look promising at first.

Like the Big Easy that it celebrates, Jazz Ascona gets a somewhat slow start. While the weekends are crowded all day, on the Monday afternoon when I arrived, there were no events until that evening. The town was in a self-satisfied torpor, and locals sat on park benches in silence looking out at a lake so calm and unmoving it could have been polished. It felt a long way from New Orleans.

Still, as I watched the ferry pull in from the nearby towns of Stressa or Intra , I could start to see some parallels between the two places. Both draw their identity and daily rhythms from the water that borders them. Both make a stew of the language: in New Orleans, they mix up English, Cajun French, and Louisiana Creole, while a conversation in Ascona can veer between Italian, Swiss, German and English in the course of one lunch order. And then there’s the humidity. It was as steamy as a Gulf Coast bayou in Ascona that afternoon, and I watched with trepidation as the black clouds, heavy as wrecking balls, began to roll up and over the mountains.

In fact, the ties that bind Ascona and New Orleans have grown ever tighter over the course of the jazz festival’s forty year history, to the point that now Jazz Ascona is the only European festival officially supported by the Crescent City . Eight New Orleans bands are performing at this year’s event and several of the programming coordinators are from there, including Adonis Rose, drummer and director of the New Orleans Jazz Orchestra. In 2022, New Orleans mayor LaToya Cantrell traveled to Ascona to announce that this oddball pair would officially became sister cities— two sisters from a different mister, you might say.

So at 6 that evening, when the first honks of a tuba kicked off the parade that rumbles nightly down the cobble stoned alley and along the edge of the lake, the locals seemed to know exactly what to do. Shutters swung open, jazz festival fans streamed into the streets, kids came running, and everyone fell in behind the brass band as they marched to the Blue Llama pop-up club that represents the heart of the festival. By the time the whole entourage arrived at the end of the pier, the party was in full swing.

And then came the rain.

My only memory of visiting the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Fest— an event I’d dreamed about attending since I was in high school—is standing in a knee-deep puddle of Louisiana mush during the kind of tropical downpour that shows up in John Grisham movies. So to me, nothing could have felt more like New Orleans than a thunderstorm capping off the opening parade. But as shutters blew shut and stage hands scrambled to throw down tarps, I worried that my journey to the heart of America in Europe could be over before it began.

I should have known that the boogie woogie would save the day. From under one of the tented stages, Switzerland’s own piano-pounder Silvan Zingg conjured up his best Dr. John and Professor Longhair, and soon people were dancing under umbrellas— or taking on the elements head-on. New Orleans, a place where resilience is baked into the DNA, would have been proud.

Unlike the Umbria and Montreux jazz festivals, which frequently book big name performers that fall far outside of the jazz tradition, Jazz Ascona favors lesser-known artists who capture with authenticity and genuine passion the endless variations of New Orleans music. Frog & Henry, a New Orleans-based string and brass band that wears its early 1900s style with hipster pride, were set up like good ol’ boys on the back porch under one of the few areas that offered shelter for both musicians and audience—in front of Ascona’s only cannabis dispensary and vintage barbershop. It seemed kind of perfect.

While they regaled the crowd with songs that had titles like “My Gal Sal“ and “Swaller Tail Coat”, the rain drifted back out to the mountains and the evening turned cool and fresh. Once again, the streets were full of musicians trundling upright basses and festival goers checking their programs.

On the Elvezia stage, Berlin’s Jungle Jazz Band brought back the days of the Cotton Club or a night at Jay Gatsby’s, against a backdrop of Ascona’s Belle Epoque villas and sailboats idling on the moonlit lake. On Stage New Orleans, the soul-inspired sextet Organic Brew served up some Hammond B3 cooking, flavored with local Italian swagger. To wind up the night, New Orleans’ own Corey Henry brought it all back home in an explosive set that combined marching music, Jimi Hendrix, hip-hop and the youthful, celebratory spirit of the 504. Even the still waters of Lake Maggiore might have been moving after that show. Music, after all, is as much a force of nature as thunderstorms or hurricanes.

In a moment when the U.S.A.’s international presence appears to be defined by preening newlywed billionaires and angry ultimatums to build more bombs, it’s nice to be reminded by events like Jazz Ascona that America has also brought plenty of beauty into the world. Any country that gave the world Louis Armstrong, Miles Davis, Elvis and Aretha Franklin deserves to be celebrated at least once a year.

But we should also acknowledge that much of that beauty was created not by the powerful or wealthy, but by Americans on the margins: the descendants of slaves, Appalachian miners, and Mississippi sharecroppers. Those groups were followed by Jewish refugees from Eastern Europe, Irish and Italian immigrants, Latinos from Cuba and Puerto Rico, and people of all variety of sexual orientation. Ultimately, it’s their rebellious, triumph-over-all-odds spirt that gives the sounds and stories of America their power to connect with people everywhere, even in a tidy town in the mountains of Switzerland.

The message at the heart of any American music is always freedom. And it’s in that message that the whole world finds its joy.

Wishing all of you who celebrate it a very happy Fourth of July!