High notes of the 2008 New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival:

George Wein, who founded the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, was on hand in the Gospel Tent on Sunday for the tribute to Mahalia Jackson.

"I knew Mahalia and I worked with her, so it was wonderful to hear her music again," Wein said.

Wein, 82, also founded the Newport Jazz Festival and took Jackson to perform there in the mid 1950s, he said. He brought the famous gospel singer back to New Orleans -- her home town -- for the first Jazz Fest in 1970.

Wein spent the final day of the festival, which is in its 39th year, sampling the variety of music featured during the day and talking to artists he knows.

As for the New Orleans festival, which developed from a small, local celebration of the city's music, food and culture into an event that draws hundreds of thousands now and pours of $3 million into the local economy, Wein wasn't sure if it was what he expected when he launched it.

"I never know how anything is going to turn out," he said. "Sometimes they get big, sometimes they die out. You just have to wait and see what happens.

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Not everyone spends the Jazz Fest in front of the stages.

A lot use the time to chill out.

The huge oak trees that dot the infield of the Fair Grounds were the destinations of many fans who preferred to take their music from a distance.

Families, groups and individuals set up their folding chairs and spread out their blankets and tarpaulins under the trees, which they consider prime festival real estate.

"`We're always under this tree," said Chana Graves, a New Orleans hairdresser and regular at the show. "We can hear the music and watch all the people going by."

Graves and her friends do head to various stages to hear groups, but leave their chairs under the oak as a home base. But most of the time they spend in the shade enjoying the festival.

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Michael Clement realizes that he probably could not produce his artwork anywhere but New Orleans.

Clement, a landscape architect by training, was selling ceramic replicas of the tombs that fill New Orleans cemeteries at the Jazz Fest.

The ornate burial structures came in two sizes -- small for $98, large ranging from $250 to $500.

The tops to the little tombs are removable. People frequently buy the small ones to hold the ashes of a beloved pet, he said.

In fact, that's where the idea came from.

"I had my cat cremated and they returned the ashes in this little, disposable carton," Clement said. "So I made one of these for my cat, and a friend liked it and pretty soon I was making them and selling them."

A woman bought one of the bigger ones for her husband's ashes, Clement said. There was just one problem.

"Her husband was with her when she bought it," he said.

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The Jazz Fest had more rain this week than it has in years. The festival was doused on both weekends, but while the first weekend had daylong rains, the second weekend had just one morning downpour.

Saturday morning a heavy rain soaked the grounds, but was over by the time the gates opened at 11 a.m. CDT.

On Sunday, which was cloudless, sunny and breezy, the storms were only a memory and some sloppy areas on the grounds. Low-lying areas were muddy and the areas where people line up to make purchases at the food booths were a vast muck.

"I just don't look down or worry about my shoes," said Grace Davis, 52, of Los Angles. "You should never wear good shoes to Jazz Fest anyway, but this is wrecking my comfortable shoes."

Some people chose the no-shoes route to cope with the mud.

Others sported rubber boots beneath their shorts.

"I saw a woman in high heels earlier," Davis said. "Or high heel. One of them was stuck in the mud and she was standing on one foot trying to pull it out."

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Associated Press writer Chevel Johnson contributed to this report.

(Copyright 2008 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)