Jimmy Cliff, headline the New Orleans Jazz Fest on Friday, April 24

Reggae elder statesman Jimmy Cliff kicks off the 2015 edition of the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival presented by Shell on Friday, April 24.

Also likely closing out stages that first day with Cliff are the enduring, eclectic Wilco;  Irish singer-songwriter Hozier, whose “Take Me To Church” is up for Song of the Year at the 2015 Grammys, and the Tedeschi Trucks Band, who last visited New Orleans for a gig at the Joy Theater in the fall of 2013. The crafty New Orleans multi-instrumentalist Nicholas Payton returns to the festival in 2015, as does Henry Butler with Steven Bernstein’s Hot 9, a collaboration that made a splash at the 2014 festival.