New Orleans never lacks a reason to throw a party, and the turn of the new year gives ample cause to get out and hear live music at any number of venues. A few shows have been canceled due to a recent spike in coronavirus cases, but most will go forth on New Year’s Eve, welcoming vaccinated revelers or those who provide proof of a negative test within the previous 48 hours. OffBeat has rounded up ten performances that we consider among the best.
The Soul Rebels and Walter “Wolfman” Washington will share a double bill at The Maison, 508 Frenchmen Street. The landmark nightclub offers plenty of room to groove with a ground-floor restaurant, bar, stage and dance floor and two upper-level balconies. In 1991, the Soul Rebels started with an idea—to expand upon the pop music they loved on the radio and the New Orleans brass tradition they grew up on. Thirty years later, the eight-piece brass ensemble continues to incorporate elements of soul, jazz, funk, hip hop, rock and pop music within a contemporary brass band framework. At age 81, Walter “Wolfman” Washington has been a mainstay in the New Orleans music scene since the early 1960s. He cut his teeth backing up some of the best singers and performers in New Orleans history including Lee Dorsey, Johnny Adams, and Irma Thomas before putting together his long time band The Roadmasters, who have been burning down and burning up local and national stages since their first gigs in the 1980s.
Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve with Ryan Seacrest 2022 will feature Billy Porter as the host of its New Orleans segment, live from Jax Brewery at Jackson Square on ABC. Porter won the 2013 Tony Award for Best Actor in a Musical for his role as Lola in Kinky Boots. He most recently won the Emmy Award for lead actor for his appearance in FX’s Emmy- and Golden Globe-nominated drama Pose, and also appeared in American Horror Story: Apocalypse. Porter will lead the countdown to midnight in the Central Time Zone as an illuminated fleur de lis drops from the brewery building’s rooftop in a scene similar to Times Square.
The Howlin’ Wolf, 907 S. Peters Street, will host CNN anchor and native Louisianan Don Lemon for a live broadcast with the Rebirth Brass Band and Jon Cleary & The Absolute Monster Gentlemen. The $90 entrance fee includes an open bar. The Grammy-winning Rebirth Brass Band is a true New Orleans institution. Formed in 1983 by the Frazier brothers, the band has evolved from playing the streets of the French Quarter to playing festivals and stages all over the world. Jon Cleary s a British-born funk and R&B musician based in New Orleans where he has studied the “musical culture and life of New Orleans” according to his website. Cleary is an accomplished pianist as well as being a multi-instrumentalist, vocalist and songwriter and has performed with a number of prolific musicians including Bonnie Raitt, Taj Mahal, B.B. King, Ryan Adams and Eric Burdon.
The Lena Prima Band will jump, jive and wail in the Carousel Bar & Lounge of the Hotel Monteleone, 214 Royal Street. Prima is the youngest daughter of music icon and New Orleans native, Louis Prima and his singing sidekick (and fifth wife), Gia Maione. A Las Vegas native, Lena spent much of her childhood in her father’s hometown of New Orleans, where she now resides and performs regularly. With seven albums to her credit, her sixth and seventh on Basin Street Records topping the Billboard Jazz Album charts, Lena is a seasoned veteran of the music industry and is rooted in the music of the Crescent City.
The House of Blues, 225 Decatur Street, will host Tab Benoit’s Swampland Jam, featuring Benoit with Big Chief Monk Boudreaux, Johnny Sansone and Waylon Thibodeaux. The Grammy-nominated Benoit is known throughout his thirty-plus -year career for his environmental activism. He appeared prominently in the IMAX motion picture Hurricane on the Bayou, a documentary of Hurricane Katrina’s effects and a call to protect and restore the wetlands, and produced a CD to help restore Louisiana’s coastal environment. Benoit was inducted into the Louisiana Folklife Center Hall of Master Folk Artists in 2020.
Big Night New Orleans will present Big Freedia, Tank & The Bangas, Five Finger Discount, the Brass-A-Holics, Bustout Burlesque and the 610 Stompers on stage at the Hyatt Regency, 601 Loyola Avenue. The New Year’s Eve fundraising party includes multiple themed party areas and casino games along with live music and DJs.
DJ Soul Sister’s 19th Annual New Year’s Eve Soul Train rolls back into Civic Theatre, 510 O’Keeffe Avenue. Soul Sister, known worldwide as the “queen of rare groove,” has been a crate digger and vinyl collector ever since she was six years old. As a veteran radio programmer on WWOZ FM New Orleans for more than 25 years, she is the host and founder of the popular “Soul Power,” the longest-running rare groove radio show in the U.S. Her extensive collection of over 10,000 records earned her a spot in the book Dust & Grooves: Adventures in Record Collecting.
The Joy Theater, 1200 Canal Street, will host a Dumpstaphunk New Year’s Eve with George Porter Jr. & Runnin’ Pardners plus Headhunters. Dumpstaphunk stands out as one of the funkiest bands to ever arise from the Crescent City. Born on the Jazz & Heritage Festival stage, and descended from Neville and Meters family bloodlines, these soldiers of funk ignite a deep, gritty groove that dares listeners not to move. Their performances combine ingenious musicianship through complex funk, rock, and jazz arrangements accompanied by soulful melodies and New Orleans traditions.
The Three Keys live-music venue at the Ace Hotel, 600 Carondelet Street, will present a New Year’s Eve party with the funk rock band Flow Tribe, a funk rock band based in New Orleans. The band, ounded in 2004, and was featured on Episode 11 of MTV’s The Real World: New Orleans, which aired in 2010. Flow Tribe continues to be a festival favorite playing The Voodoo Music Experience and the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival five years running. Relix Magazine called Flow Tribe “bizarrely irresistible.”
Galactic, featuring Anjelika “Jelly” Joseph and Naughty Professor, will usher in 2022 at Tipitina’s, 501 Napoleon Avenue. Galactic formed in 1994 in New Orleans and was originally called Galactic Prophylactic. Their music mixes hip hop, electronic, world music, rock, blues and jazz. Anjelika “Jelly” Joseph was a contestant on Season 14 of American Idol. who now regularly performs with Galactic. Naughty Professor is an iconoclastic New Orleans-based jazz-funk sextet whose adventurous recordings and horn-charged, high-energy live performances have earned them an enthusiastic fan base, critical acclaim, and widespread attention from their musical peers.
Check out all of OffBeat‘s live music listings here.
