No city on earth gives you this much. Kermit Ruffins owns his room and plays it himself. Rebirth has held Tuesday at the Maple Leaf since 1990. Preservation Hall still runs four forty-five-minute sets a night with no bar and no phones, and Sunday belongs to the second line, free, in the street, wherever the club is parading that week. Twenty rooms here, from the Tremé corner bars to the listening rooms where people actually shut up during the solos.
Tap a gold pin to see the club and jump to its card below.
Ernie K-Doe opened it in 1994 and Kermit Ruffins reopened it in 2014, which means the owner, the headliner and the man working the BBQ pit are the same person. Shrine-painted walls under the Claiborne overpass, and Saturday around six is the slot.
Pip’s Tip Black-owned by Kermit Ruffins, who still plays it himself Mondays and Saturdays
Kermit Ruffins, Corey Henry and half the brass players in the city have held court here. No kitchen, food trucks outside, and a fixture on Sunday second-line routes through the 7th Ward.
Pip’s Tip Black-owned. A corner bar that turns into a horn room
Not a stage room. This is the official barroom of the Young Men Olympian Benevolent Association and a marquee stop on nearly every Uptown second line, which means the music arrives outside with a full brass band and several hundred people behind it.
Pip’s Tip Black-owned by the Elloie family since the 1960s. A second-line cornerstone
A purpose-built 370-seat listening theater with the Bolden Bar and a jazz reading library, and the only real modern-jazz concert hall in the city. Grown crowd, actual sightlines, actual acoustics.
Pip’s Tip Black-founded nonprofit, home of the Grammy-winning New Orleans Jazz Orchestra
An African-diaspora cultural center running since 1998, where poetry turns into horns and Afro-Caribbean percussion and young players try things out. The opposite of a tourist room.
Pip’s Tip Black-led arts house. Open mic Fridays 9pm, five dollars
The trad-jazz cathedral: wooden benches, no bar, no photographs, and forty-five minutes of the real thing. Preservation All-Stars, Preservation Brass on Mondays and the Legacy Band on Sundays.
Pip’s Tip Buy in advance. No cash at the door, no drinks, no phones
Pressed-tin walls, a back patio and a floor that has not stopped shaking since 1974. Tuesday nights with Rebirth are a genuine crush and worth every minute of the wait.
Pip’s Tip Rebirth Brass Band every Tuesday since 1990. Go at 9:30 or stand in the doorway
The city's serious modern-jazz listening room, with a two-tier balcony and Ellis Marsalis's old Friday-night house. The Marsalis family and Charmaine Neville still cycle through.
Pip’s Tip The room where people actually shut up during the solos
A sit-down jazz, blues and soul supper club with a Creole menu and a crowd that dresses for it. Closer to a listening room than a bar, and one of the few places on this list where you can make a whole evening of dinner and a set.
Pip’s Tip A fifty-year institution. Ownership is changing hands, call ahead
Small, seated, and people shush. Songwriters, blues guitarists and piano professors, with Blue Oak BBQ running the kitchen in-house.
Pip’s Tip The room where the band can play quiet
Tin ceiling, a serious tap list, and a room that actually quiets down for the band. Early shows are often free, late shows a small door charge, and no advance tickets.
Pip’s Tip The best-sounding bar on Frenchmen and the grown end of the street
The shoebox: standing room, swing dancers spinning between tables, and three bands a day starting mid-afternoon. Loud, sweaty, cash at the door, no reservations and no food.
Pip’s Tip Tremé Brass Band plays here Sundays around 6pm
Two rooms in one building: a proper downstairs stage for brass, funk and soul, and the upstairs Balcony Room dance floor. Free admission with ID for many shows.
Pip’s Tip Frenchmen's last band standing at four in the morning
String lights, mismatched chairs and a jazz trio outside. The most romantic low-stakes jazz in the city. Buy your wine from the shop and take it out back.
Pip’s Tip No cover, seven nights, in a backyard under a fig tree
The Professor Longhair shrine and the city's most beloved mid-size room, with a balcony, the banana-tree mural and a floor built for dancing.
Pip’s Tip Owned by the members of Galactic since 2018. Fais Do-Do is monthly now, not weekly
A Bywater corner bar that becomes a brass band room on Thursdays and stays that way until the horn players decide otherwise. Packs out, so get there early.
Pip’s Tip Corey Henry & the Tremé Funktet, Thursdays around 10:30pm
Vintage New Orleans rhythm and blues in a room with plywood on the windows and absolutely no pretense. Free to get in, tip the band.
Pip’s Tip King James and the Special Men every Monday, with free red beans and rice
Bourbon Street's oldest continuously operating traditional jazz club, running since 1969 in an 1831 building. Tiny, brick, hot, and the best early-afternoon jazz in the Quarter.
Pip’s Tip The one Bourbon Street room musicians don't sneer at
A plush hotel jazz room with red velvet and a real booking budget, inside the Royal Sonesta. Where you take somebody you are trying to impress.
Pip’s Tip No cover, one-drink minimum per set, 21 and over
Bowling lanes on one side and a dance floor on the other, with zydeco on Thursdays and swamp pop on weekends. One of the genuinely joyful rooms in the city.
Pip’s Tip Zydeco Night every Thursday. Grandparents will out-dance you
Ernie K-Doe opened it in 1994, Kermit Ruffins reopened it in 2014, and the owner, the headliner and the man on the BBQ pit are all the same person.
Sixteen cities in. Come hear it with the family.
