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The Maple Leaf Bar is a music performance venue in New Orleans, Louisiana, United States. It is also a bar and hosts other events.
| | This article needs additional citations for verification .(September 2014) |
The Maple Leaf Bar is a music performance venue in New Orleans, Louisiana, United States. It is also a bar and hosts other events.
The Maple Leaf is on Oak Street [1] in the Carrollton neighborhood. Opened on February 24, 1974, it is one of the longest continuing operations of New Orleans' music clubs with live performances seven nights a week.
On the first night Andrew Hall's Society Jazz Band played and were there every Saturday for seven years. Many of the old time musicians were featured, including members of the Preservation Hall Jazz Band. The Society Jazz Band left in the summer of 1981 but have played there several times since then, including the 30th birthday party in 2004 and the 40th birthday party in 2014. Musical styles represented include blues, funk, R&B, rock, zydeco, jazz, jam bands.
Frequent performers have included James Booker, [1] Rebirth Brass Band, [2] Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown, Henry Butler, Walter "Wolfman" Washington, Papa Grows Funk, and The Radiators. The bar has been an incubator for young bands formed by students at Tulane University, Loyola University, and the University of New Orleans.
In recent history, the bar has weekly hosted residencies from acts such as Tank and the Bangas, The Revivalists, George Porter Jr., Jon Cleary (musician) and Johnny Vidacovich. Porter still holds a weekly, Monday night residency at the bar with his trio, featuring Terrence Houston, and Michael "Goldenthroat" Lemmler.
Poet Everette Maddox was so closely tied to the venue that his ashes are buried in the bar's patio area. [3] The Maple Leaf hosts poetry readings and fashion shows. The Krewe of OAK starts and ends its parades at the Maple Leaf, where it holds its Krewe Ball.
The Maple Leaf is thinly disguised in the Ellen Gilchrist short story "The Raintree Street Bar and Washerteria" (the bar used to contain a laundromat). Poems about it can be found in Mirror Wars and Shards by Nancy Harris, Body and Soul and Rhythm & Booze by Julie Kane; The Everette Maddox Song Book, Bar Scotch, and American Waste by Everette Maddox; and in the anthologies The Maple Leaf Rag (1980), The Maple Leaf Rag 15th Anniversary Anthology (1994), and Maple Leaf Rag III (2006).
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The Maple Leaf was closed for several weeks in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Owner Hank Staples remained in New Orleans to guard the bar and his other properties while vowing in interviews with to host the first concert in New Orleans after the storm. On September 30, 2005, Walter "Wolfman" Washington played the Maple Leaf's first post-Katrina show in New Orleans. (Some other local musicians who were playing in the aftermath of the storm dispute the claim that it was the city's first post-Katrina public performance, but this was the first to generate such sizable crowds and media attention.) That night many of the journalists, cameramen, and crew from NBC News and other media outlets joined the party and recorded the event. The band's equipment was powered by a diesel generator because electricity had not yet been restored to most of the city. The concert was shut down by police and National Guard because the city was under a curfew. Electricity was restored to this section of the city about a week later.
James Carroll Booker III was a New Orleans rhythm and blues keyboardist born in New Orleans, Louisiana, United States. Booker's unique style combined rhythm and blues with jazz standards. Musician Dr. John described Booker as "the best black, gay, one-eyed junkie piano genius New Orleans has ever produced." Flamboyant in personality and having an extraordinary technical facility, he was known as "the Black Liberace".
Galactic is an American jam band from New Orleans, Louisiana.
Kermit Ruffins is an American jazz trumpeter, singer, composer, and actor from New Orleans. He has been influenced by Louis Armstrong and Louis Jordan and says that the highest note he can hit on trumpet is a high C. He often accompanies his songs with his own vocals. Most of his bands perform New Orleans jazz standards though he also composes many of his own pieces. Jon Pareles of The New York Times wrote, "Mr. Ruffins is an unabashed entertainer who plays trumpet with a bright, silvery tone, sings with off-the-cuff charm and never gets too abstruse in his material."
The Krewe of OAK is a small neighborhood New Orleans Mardi Gras krewe and parade held in the Carrollton neighborhood of New Orleans, Louisiana. The parade starts and ends on Oak Street, presumably the origin of the name, although members say that OAK stands for "Outrageous And Kinky".
The Rebirth Brass Band is a New Orleans brass band. The group was founded in 1983 by Phillip "Tuba Phil" Frazier, his brother Keith Frazier, Kermit Ruffins, and classmates from Joseph S. Clark Senior High School, which closed in the spring of 2018, in the Tremé neighborhood of New Orleans. Arhoolie released its first album in 1984.
A jazz funeral is a funeral procession accompanied by a brass band, in the tradition of New Orleans, Louisiana.
The Radiators, also known as The New Orleans Radiators, are an American swamp rock band from New Orleans, Louisiana, United States. The band's musical style, which draws from blues, rock, rhythm and blues, funk and soul music, has attracted a dedicated fanbase who the band calls "fish heads". Described by OffBeat magazine as "New Orleans' longest-running and most successful rock band", The Radiators had only limited commercial success, with only a handful of chart appearances, but, as a party band from a party town, their enthusiastic live performances, danceable beats and relentless touring earned the band a dedicated following and the admiration of many of their peers.
Cyril Garrett Neville is an American percussionist and vocalist who first came to prominence as a member of his brother Art Neville's funky New Orleans-based band, The Meters. He joined Art in the Neville Brothers band upon the dissolution of the Meters.
The Voodoo Music + Arts Experience, commonly referred to as Voodoo or Voodoo Fest, is a multi-day music and arts festival held in City Park in New Orleans, Louisiana.
Scott Billington is an American record producer, songwriter, record company executive and blues musician.
Papa Grows Funk is a funk band from New Orleans, Louisiana. The band was started by frontman John "Papa" Gros in early 2000, developing from a series of Monday night jam sessions helmed by Gros at New Orleans’ Maple Leaf Bar. Gros would invite some friends down to play, and the impromptu jams became a common bond for a handful of musicians, including guitarist June Yamagishi, sax player Jason Mingledorf, bassist Marc Pero and drummer Jeffery "Jellybean" Alexander, who now make up Papa Grows Funk.
The Tulane University Marching Band (TUMB) is the marching band of Tulane University. It performs at every Tulane Green Wave football home game in Yulman Stadium, bowl games, and some away games. It is also marches in New Orleans Mardi Gras parades each year, having appeared in Le Krewe d'Etat, the Krewe of Thoth, the Krewe of Bacchus, and the Krewe of Rex, among others.
Morning 40 Federation is a rock band from the Ninth Ward of New Orleans which formed in 1998 and a took a six-year hiatus in 2008. The band cites as influences King Oliver, Tom Waits, and Jon Spencer. They have also recorded as The New Orleans Hellhounds with Andre Williams.
Joe Krown is an American keyboardist, based in New Orleans, Louisiana. He is currently touring all over the U.S. and the world as the organ/piano player for the multi award winning, chart topping Kenny Wayne Shepherd band. He is a New Orleans styled piano and Hammond B3 player. He is a Hammond endorsed artist and is part of the Hammond artist family. Joe's played at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival as a feature artist every year since 2001 and the French Quarter Festival every year since 1998. He has been nominated twice and won a 2000 New Orleans Big Easy Award in the Blues category. His trio with Johnny Sansone & John Fohl has also won a 2004 New Orleans Big Easy Award in the Blues category. His Hammond organ trio featuring Louisiana guitarist Walter “Wolfman” Washington won a 2009 New Orleans Big Easy Award in the Blues Category and a 2009 OffBeat Award for Best R&B/Funk Album. In April 2014, he was honored with a Piano Legacy Award, presented by the New Orleans Jazz Orchestra and for being a "Master of Piano".
Walter "Wolfman" Washington is an American singer and guitarist, based in New Orleans, Louisiana, United States. While his roots are in blues music, he blends in the essence of funk and R&B to create his own unique sound.
David Russell Batiste Jr. is an American drummer based in New Orleans.
Maxine Cassin (1927–2010) was a poet, editor, and publisher who influenced and published many New Orleans poets, most notably Everette Maddox, founder of the Maple Leaf Bar poetry reading series.
Frogs Gone Fishin is an American rock band. Andrew Portwood (singer-songwriter/guitarist), Trevor Jones (guitarist/singer-songwriter), Alex Scott (Bass), and Jeff Jani (Drums) make up the four piece rock quartet.
Basin Street Records is a Grammy Award-winning independent record label based in New Orleans, Louisiana, that specializes in jazz, funk, and rhythm and blues (R&B).
Everette "Rhett" Maddox (1944–1989) was an American poet who in 1979 co-founded the longest-running poetry-reading series in the South at the Maple Leaf Bar in New Orleans, Louisiana.
Coordinates: 29°56′57″N90°07′55″W / 29.949080°N 90.131986°W