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“We want to weave together a tapestry of percussion, rhythm, and harmony from New Orleans through Cuba, the Caribbean, and back to Africa,” Sam Price said, by way of explanation.

The New Orleans-based Afro-Cuban group Otra, which bassist Price started in 2002, had just opened their Congo Stage set early on Thursday, the start of the second week of the 2012 New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival. Other groups on other stages would continue to explore this tapestry throughout the day.

Otra had help weaving from guest vocalist Michaela Harrison, also from New Orleans, and Guinean percussionist Thierno Dioubate on djembe. Harrison led the group through the opener, which started off in a slow, African-tinged mode, with Price echoing Harrison’s vocals. They went up-tempo in the middle, landing in Otra’s Afro-Cuban home turf, before returning to the opening, free-tempo African motif.

Across the fairgrounds in the shadow of the racetrack’s grandstand, brothers Julio and Cesar Herrera were proof of a more recent current in the New Orleans music scene. They moved to the city from Guatemala over three decades ago, and have been playing weekly gigs to largely Latino audiences in the city and nearby Slidell for years.

Their set, in front of a crowd that skewed old even by JazzFest standards, ran through traditional songs from Guatemala, Mexico, Argentina, and Spain, Julio’s light guitar leads weaving around Julio’s singing.

The New Orleans-Africa discussion continued on a small, blessedly air-conditioned space inside the racetrack’s grandstand. As part of a series of informal conversations and jams taking place through the Fest, writer Larry Blumenfeld led a discussion with New Orleans bluesman Little Freddie King and Malian griot and ngoni player Cheick Hamala Diabate.

Griot is the West African storytelling tradition, but King quickly showed he was no slouch as a storyteller either, regaling the crowd with a rambling, endearing one about making his first guitar out of horsetail.

Some magic happened when King and Diabate, a first cousin of Toumani Diabate, started trading tunes. They started with one of Diabate’s, which he said was about the people of Mali.

“We don’t wish to have war, we want to have peace,” Diabate said, referring to the coup that’s destabilized the country. “I want to invite people to go with me–after the war, not now! It’s a good country.”

Diabate started into a descending pattern on his ngoni, a string instrument similar to a banjo, and King soon picked out a single-string 12-bar blues that matched Diabate’s song perfectly. King followed up with a blues of his own, singing, “I used to be down, but I ain’t down no more.” Diabate clearly knew exactly what King was saying.

I was talking to a friend and blues scholar after the Diabate and King confab. He made the point that the ongoing discussion of the influence of Western African music—particularly Malian music —on American blues, often overlooks the fact that lots of Malian musicians grew up listening to the blues.

The influence goes both ways.

Over in the Jazz Tent, one of Diabate’s countryman, kora virtuoso Yacouba Sissoko, was helping the incomparable violinist Regina Carter recreate the music from her 2010 album inspired African folk tunes “Reverse Thread.”

Carter and her regular rhythm section were also joined by accordionist Will Holshouser. Holshouser, Sissoko, and Carter traded blistering leads on a song based on field recordings of Ugandan Jewish music. Holshouser then led the quintet through a song from a tradition of Madagascar accordion music. I knew nothing about either of these traditions. All of it was great.

Here’s Carter’s Tiny Desk Concert for NPR to give you taste of the sound of “Reverse Threat.”

Chico Trujillo was already a few songs in when I got over there. They rollicked through a set of their trademark infectious, psych-cumbia songs, complete with slide whistles and jangly keyboards and phased guitar.

These guys have a lot of fun playing. The crowd was totally on board, although it was perhaps thinned a bit by the fact that big draws like the Dirty Dozen Brass Band and Ani DiFranco were on stage nearby, and Carter had the Jazz tent packed.

We said no to headliner Jimmy Buffett, and yes to a brief rest before heading into the night for more music, this time along Frenchman’s street.

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