One of the best places to catch authentic brass band music is the corner of Canal and Bourbon Streets beside the Foot Locker. Despite being in the French Quarter, this corner is close to the Iberville Projects, and here the brass bands play as much for their friends and relatives as they do for the tourists. There’s always a friendly vibe, good crowd interaction and some amazing dancing and/or second-lining. It’s also free, although the bands will pass the box around for donations. This is also the ground where many young bands get their start, from the To Be Continued to the Young Pinstripes. 7/4/12
Vieux Carre
The Marriott Hotel on Canal Street, New Orleans, 7/4/12
The bass drum is like the foundation of brass band music. If you see somebody with a bass drum in New Orleans, that’s a really good sign. Follow him and see where he’s going, because there’s probably about to be some really good music going on.
Canal Street, Afternoon,New Orleans, 7/4/12
Noted artist George Rodrigue is from Lafayette, but his trademark blue dogs are everywhere in New Orleans, including on the front of the Sheraton Hotel on Canal Street!
This poster on a French Quarter wall was my first introduction to New Orleans hip-hop  artist Lyriqs Da Lyraciss (@UnderdogCentral), whose new album “The Nobody’s Monologues 2” is available for free download here http://www.underdogcentral.net/ (and worth downloading). Follow him on Twitter at https://twitter.com/underdogcentral or like him on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/underdogcentral.Â
The Marriott Hotel on Canal Street in New Orleans has some really amazing art work in the lobby and elsewhere.
Walking around the French Quarter in New Orleans, July 4, 2012
A Quarter Interlude, New Orleans
I got a fairly late start out of Memphis, heading for the Cutting Edge Music Business Conference in New Orleans, and I stopped for a …