This is the theme of the new club in the refurbished Royal Sonesta Hotel, right in the middle of the French Quarter. Truth to tell, a combination of funk and rock had largely displaced pure jazz from the center of the French Quarter to it's fringes, mostly to Frenchmen's Street adjacent to the Quarter, but not in it....so the renovation and launching of a sophisticated jazz club...Irvin Mayfield's Jazz Playhouse....in the Royal Sonesta is something of an event for jazz lovers.

This first section is of photos taken on a Monday night, June 1, at the club and afterwards on Bourbon Street. The band in the club is the Bob Henry band. The white-haired gentleman was a visiting businessman from St. Petersburgh, FL who also was an accomplished blues harmonica player and singer. Bob Henry dubbed him "Ray from St. Pete" and he played and sang his way into the hearts of the band and the crowd. After a break, the band's singer brought her mother and sister up on stage and they sang as a very accomplished "girl group" who had already release several CDs. The band provided improvisational support at a very high level.

This lighthearted, easygoing "partying" is part of the jazz scene in New Orleans, and is quite different from a formal road tour engagement.

After leaving the club, we joined the throng on Bourbon Street and at the corner of Canal Street ran into a (very) young brass band with no name, only a donation box. (We learned later from the proprietor of the Louisiana Music Factory [a music store] that the group called themselves T.B.C. for "to be continued".) In any case these two grizzled jazz veterans stood slack-jawed along with several dozen other folk as these young cats blew the tightest brass you'll ever hear...I mean the only thing we could think to compare them to was the Count Basie band's brass section back in the '50's/early '60's....they were that good. We bought several brass band CD's while in New Orleans, including the supposedly latest and greatest, the "New Renewal Brass Band", and they couldn't hold a candle to these kids. The record store proprieter told us the kids were playing to raise money in order to record a CD....we can only wish them luck. They deserve to be heard and some fame and fortune.