New Orleans Music: Where to Hear It, From Frenchmen Street Up

At some point on your first night, you will hear a trombone through a doorway and change your plans. That is how New Orleans works. Music is not something the city puts on for visitors; it comes out of bars, churches, funerals, kitchens and street corners, and it has done for well over a century. Finding live music in New Orleans is easy. Finding the good stuff, and knowing how to behave when you do, takes a little local knowledge.

Frenchmen Street

Locals tend to send visitors away from Bourbon Street and a few blocks downriver to Frenchmen Street in the Marigny. In two short blocks you will find a run of small clubs with live bands most nights of the week, often starting in the early evening and going late. Doors are open, sound spills out, and the best plan is to walk the strip, listen at each door and go in where the music pulls you.

The Spotted Cat is a small, crowded room for traditional jazz and swing, and there are usually people dancing. d.b.a. has a deep drinks list and a wide range of bands. Snug Harbor is a proper seated jazz club with a dinner room, the place for modern jazz and listening rather than chatting. Blue Nile leans to funk and brass. Between sets, walk through the Frenchmen Art Market, a night market of local artists lit with string lights.

Many clubs charge a small cover or ask you to buy a drink per set. When the tip jar comes round, put something in it. For many musicians in this city, tips are a real part of the pay.

Preservation Hall

On St Peter Street in the French Quarter, Preservation Hall opened in 1961 to keep traditional New Orleans jazz alive, and it still feels like it did then. The room is small and worn, there is no bar, people sit on benches or the floor and stand at the back, and the sets are short. That is the point. Nothing gets between you and a band playing acoustic jazz a few feet away.

Shows sell out, especially at weekends. Buy tickets ahead and arrive early for a better spot. Check the hall's schedule before you go.

In New Orleans, the band does not play for you. You join in.

Second lines

If you can, plan your trip around a Sunday. Through most of the year, apart from the hottest summer weeks, the city's Social Aid and Pleasure Clubs take turns to parade. These are community organisations, many with roots in the Black benevolent societies of the nineteenth century. Members in matching suits, sashes and fans dance through their neighbourhood behind a brass band for hours, stopping at bars and homes along the route.

The club and the band are the first line. Everyone who follows, dancing along the street, is the second line, and anyone can join. Wear comfortable shoes, carry water and a little cash for drinks from coolers on the kerb, and follow the crowd rather than pushing to the front. These parades move through residential neighbourhoods like Tremé and Central City, so you are a guest on someone's block. Be friendly and pay attention to your surroundings, as you would anywhere.

The local community radio station, WWOZ, publishes a weekly second line schedule along with a daily listing of live music around town. It is the most useful single resource for music in the city.

Brass bands, clubs and the rest of town

Some of the best nights are outside the Quarter. Uptown, Tipitina's has been a home for New Orleans music since the late 1970s. The Maple Leaf Bar on Oak Street has hosted a weekly brass band night for years. Congo Square, inside Louis Armstrong Park in Tremé, is where enslaved and free people of African descent gathered on Sundays to drum, sing and dance, a story many see as one of the roots of jazz. Stand there for a minute before you go anywhere else.

The National Park Service runs the New Orleans Jazz National Historical Park, which offers free talks and some performances in the French Quarter. It is a good way to understand what you are hearing.

Festivals

French Quarter Fest in April fills the old town with free stages of local music. Jazz Fest, the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival, runs over two weekends from late April into early May at the Fair Grounds, with far more than jazz on the bill. Both are wonderful and both fill hotels fast. Then there is Mardi Gras, when the music shares the streets with everything else.

---

Good to know

• Listings: check the WWOZ live music calendar each afternoon to plan your night.
• Cash: carry small bills for covers, tip jars and street bands.
• Buy the music: many bands sell CDs or download cards at the gig. It goes straight to the musicians.
• Getting around: the streetcars are slow and charming. Late at night, a taxi or rideshare between neighbourhoods is the easy option.
• Summer is hot and humid, and some second line clubs pause. Autumn and spring are the best times to visit.
• Check before you go: set times, venues and parade routes change, sometimes on the day.

Do not over plan. Pick one sure thing each night, a Preservation Hall set or a Frenchmen Street club, then leave the rest to the sound coming out of the next doorway.