The Gospel (Tent) according to Morris Bart: How basketball led to Jazz Fest sponsorship

The singers themselves get in for free. But family members can’t always afford to go to the festival.

“Given the prices, it’s cost prohibitive for a lot of families,” Bart said. “Now that each member has two tickets, they’ll be able to invite parents or close family or friends to be in the Gospel Tent while they’re performing.”

In total, 1,000 free tickets will be distributed as part of his sponsorship. Bart said he plans to personally hand them out. ”I want to see the joy of these choir members when I give them tickets. So I will be doing that from now until the festival starts.”

Music and movie connections

After the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that lawyers could advertise their services, Bart jumped in whole-heartedly. Starting in 1980, he became the first Louisiana lawyer to aggressively promote himself. His ubiquitous “one call, that’s all” catchphrase was a stroke of marketing genius.

Beyond his own self-promotion skills, Bart has occasionally dabbled in the entertainment industry. In the mid-2000s, he produced three films, including “Factory Girl,” which starred Sienna Miller as doomed Andy Warhol muse Edie Sedgwick.

He made a cameo on “Jimmy Kimmel Live” after a story about a Prairieville 2-year-old’s Morris Bart-themed birthday party made international news.

The music business runs in his family. An uncle, Ben Bart, founded the talent agency Universal Attractions Agency in New York in 1945. Universal Attractions helped launch the career of James Brown and represented him for decades.

Dan Aykroyd played Ben Bart in the 2014 Brown bio-pic “Get On Up.” Morris Bart and his wife attended the movie’s red-carpet premiere at the Apollo Theater, where they met Aykroyd and Mick Jagger, a producer of the film.

Universal Attractions, now run by a cousin of Bart’s, maintains a client list of dozens of entertainers. Bart, meanwhile, has done quite well representing clients far less famous than James Brown. Over the decades, his firm has won hundreds of millions of dollars in damages.