New Years Eve, 2015. These kids delivered some of the best music all night. For everyone who caught this bit, it was surely the highlight. They were tight like they'd been practising their whole lives. Like it was all they ever knew. None of them were old enough to get in a bar.
I had spent mardi gras night (fat tuesday) at this intersection in 1994. Amazingly then we had gotten a table. We were there pretty early, Racquelle had to work in the morning, and when we arrived it was a pretty busy intersection. Before too long, all the cars were blocked by this growing drum circle.
On new years eve, 2015, the cars were not blocked and there was no drum circle. At this point our phone batteries were totally dead and I couldn't record anything, but instead of drums we had live action jazz. It was cold outside but these guys got the whole place going.
A block east was a bar called Vasa(?) and we got a table again. Turned out the emcee was about to introduce the band.
This girl was spectacular to watch. The guy was pretty wasted. I should have gotten their names. And the name of the band, and, again. Everywhere the music was excellent. Anyone who got any gig in the French Quarter for New Year's Eve clearly had their set together long before.
Big city night travel with camera gear has its own set of precautions. Mostly we just roll with one camera and are usually inside after dark. That night seemed okay somehow. We didn't really know enough about the south yet, that education was on its way.
While not an especially excellent photo, this really captured the sense of the area, that night, to my mind.
