Free introductory copies of the Baton Rouge Advocate's new New Orleans edition are seen next to copies of TheTimes-Picayune at Lakeside News in the New Orleans suburb of Metairie in September. The Baton Rouge newspaper started its own daily edition to try to fill the void left when TheTimes-Picayune scaled back its print edition to three days a week.
Credit Bevil Knappbevil for NPR
A year later, these friends are still gathering to talk over the paper, but it's not The Times-Picayune. From left: Sue Paraski, Sharon Morrow, Eric Hartman, Joe Mole.
Last year when New Orleans' main paper, The Times-Picayune, laid off dozens of newspaper employees and cut its circulation to three times a week, residents were shocked.
Sharron Morrow and her friends had bonded over the morning paper at a local coffee shop for the past 20 years.
"I've stopped my subscription, and I mourn the paper almost every day," she says.
Little Freddie King at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, 2013, photographed by Skip Bolen.
Credit Courtesy of Skip Bolen
Little Freddie King at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, 2013.
Credit Courtesy of Skip Bolen
Skip Bolen says B.B. King is one of this year's most photogenic performers at the festival: "He has such great expressions."
Credit Courtesy of Skip Bolen
Trombone Shorty at Jazz Fest in 2011.
Credit Courtesy of Skip Bolen
Dave Matthews' rain-soaked set at Jazz Fest 2013.
Credit Eve Troeh for NPR
Skip Bolen has attended the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival for years, competing with other photographers for the best shots — and forming relationships with performers in the process.
Credit Courtesy of Skip Bolen
Bolen shot one of Troy "Trombone Shorty" Andrews' earliest public performances at the 2001 Jazz Fest. Andrews' teacher Clyde Kerr can be seen at the far right.
The 2013 New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival wraps up Monday. This weekend and last, 12 stages have mixed such marquee names as Fleetwood Mac, Phoenix and Los Lobos with dozens of local bluesmen, soul belters and Cajun fiddle players.
