Maple Leaf Bar
Encyclopedia
The Maple Leaf Bar is a music performance venue in New Orleans, Louisiana
. It is also a bar
and hosts a variety of other events.
The Maple Leaf is on Oak Street in the Carrollton neighborhood
of Uptown New Orleans
. Opened on Feb 24, 1974, it is one of the longest continuing operations of New Orleans' music clubs with live performances seven nights a week. On that 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 numerous members of the Preservation Hall Jazz Band. The Society Jazz Band left in the summer of 1981 but have played there several times since including the 30th birthday party in 2004. Musical styles represented include blues
, funk
, R&B, rock, zydeco
, jazz
, jam bands and any combination thereof, hosting both local performers and touring national acts. Frequent performers at the Maple Leaf have included local legends James Booker
, the Rebirth Brass Band
, Papa Grows Funk
, Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown, Walter "Wolfman" Washington
, "Money Mike" Armstrong, The Radiators
and Henry Butler
. Unannounced sit-ins are not uncommon; Bruce Springsteen
once dropped in to jam with The Iguanas
and Jon Cleary
's band was once joined by his frequent employer, Bonnie Raitt
. The Leaf, as it is sometimes referred, has also been an important incubator for the city's many up-and-coming bands formed from the ranks of local musicians and music students at Tulane University
, Loyola University and the University of New Orleans
.
The poet Everette Maddox was a famous denizen of the Maple Leaf. The Everette C. Maddox Memorial Prose & Poetry Reading, held every Sunday in the courtyard at The Maple Leaf, is the longest running poetry
reading in North America.
The Maple Leaf also hosts other events, including poetry readings and fashion
shows. The Krewe of OAK
, a neighborhood New Orleans Mardi Gras
krewe
, starts and ends its parades at the Maple Leaf, where it also holds its Krewe Ball.
The Maple Leaf is portrayed in many books and stories by New Orleans writers. It is thinly disguised as "The Raintree Street Bar" in the Ellen Gilchrist
short story "The Raintree Street Bar and Washerteria" (the bar formerly housed a small laundromat within it). Poems about it can be found in books and chapbooks such as Mirror Wars and Shards, by Nancy Harris; Body and Soul and Rhythm & Booze, by Julie Kane
; and The Everette Maddox Song Book, Bar Scotch and American Waste by Everette Maddox. There have also been three anthologies of poets who have read their work at the Maple Leaf: The Maple Leaf Rag (1980), The Maple Leaf Rag 15th Anniversary Anthology (1994), and the Maple Leaf Rag III (2006).
R&B singer, songwriter, record producer, actress, and fashion designer Beyoncé Knowles
recorded a promotional video for her single "Déjà Vu", which features rapper Jay-Z
, at the Maple Leaf in June 2006.
was barreling down on the city. While attendance was smaller than usual, a crowd insisted on partying New Orleans style one last time. Some came to the event from having spent the day boarding up their homes and packing up their cars, and evacuated from the city after the party.
The Maple Leaf was closed for several weeks in the aftermath of the storm (see: Effect of Hurricane Katrina on New Orleans
). Owner Hank Staples stayed in New Orleans to guard the bar and his other properties, while vowing in interviews with national media outlets to host the first concert in New Orleans after the storm. And on September 30, 2005, Walter "Wolfman" Washington played the Maple Leaf's first post-Katrina show in New Orleans.http://neworleans.indymedia.org/news/2006/04/7424.php (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 gig was eventually shut down by police and National Guard as the city was still under a curfew
. Electricity was restored to this section of the city about a week later.
After Hurricane Katrina, several poets nation-wide came together to lament, honor, and pray for the victims of Katrina and Rita. Several of these poets, known world-wide as the Hymnagistes, published a volume of poetry: Hurricane Poems: An Anthology (Des Hymnagistes Press, 2006). These poets raised enough money to provide the Maple Leaf Poetry Reading Series a new microphone and funds for publishing a new volume of poetry (Maple Leaf Rag III).
Louisiana
Louisiana is a state located in the southern region of the United States of America. Its capital is Baton Rouge and largest city is New Orleans. Louisiana is the only state in the U.S. with political subdivisions termed parishes, which are local governments equivalent to counties...
. It is also a bar
Bar (establishment)
A bar is a business establishment that serves alcoholic drinks — beer, wine, liquor, and cocktails — for consumption on the premises.Bars provide stools or chairs that are placed at tables or counters for their patrons. Some bars have entertainment on a stage, such as a live band, comedians, go-go...
and hosts a variety of other events.
Carrollton, Louisiana
Carrollton is a neighborhood of uptown New Orleans, Louisiana, USA, which includes the Carrollton Historic District. It is the part of Uptown New Orleans farthest up river from the French Quarter...
of Uptown New Orleans
Uptown New Orleans
Uptown is a section of New Orleans, Louisiana on the East Bank of the Mississippi River encompassing a number of neighborhoods between the French Quarter and the Jefferson Parish line. It remains an area of mixed residential and small commercial properties, with a wealth of 19th century architecture...
. Opened on Feb 24, 1974, it is one of the longest continuing operations of New Orleans' music clubs with live performances seven nights a week. On that 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 numerous members of the Preservation Hall Jazz Band. The Society Jazz Band left in the summer of 1981 but have played there several times since including the 30th birthday party in 2004. Musical styles represented include blues
Blues
Blues is the name given to both a musical form and a music genre that originated in African-American communities of primarily the "Deep South" of the United States at the end of the 19th century from spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts and chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads...
, funk
Funk
Funk is a music genre that originated in the mid-late 1960s when African American musicians blended soul music, jazz and R&B into a rhythmic, danceable new form of music. Funk de-emphasizes melody and harmony and brings a strong rhythmic groove of electric bass and drums to the foreground...
, R&B, rock, zydeco
Zydeco
Zydeco is a form of uniquely American roots or folk music. It evolved in southwest Louisiana in the early 19th century from forms of "la la" Creole music...
, jazz
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
, jam bands and any combination thereof, hosting both local performers and touring national acts. Frequent performers at the Maple Leaf have included local legends James Booker
James Booker
James Carroll Booker III was a jazz, New Orleans rhythm and blues and soul musician born in New Orleans, Louisiana, United States.-Biography:...
, the Rebirth Brass Band
Rebirth Brass Band
The Rebirth Brass Band is a New Orleans brass band. The group was founded in 1982 by tuba/sousaphone player Philip Frazier, his brother, bass drummer, Keith Frazier and trumpeter Kermit Ruffins, and other school marching band members from Joseph S. Clark Senior High School in New Orleans’ Tremé...
, Papa Grows Funk
Papa Grows Funk
Papa Grows Funk is a funk band from New Orleans, Louisiana. The band was started by frontman John "Papa" Gros early 2000, developing from a series of Monday night jam sessions helmed by Gros at New Orleans’ Maple Leaf Bar...
, Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown, Walter "Wolfman" Washington
Walter "Wolfman" Washington
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....
, "Money Mike" Armstrong, The Radiators
The Radiators (US)
The Radiators, also known as The New Orleans Radiators, are a rock band from New Orleans, Louisiana, who have combined the traditional musical styles of their native city with more mainstream rock and R&B influences to form a bouncy, funky variety of swamp-rock they call fish-head music...
and Henry Butler
Henry Butler
Henry Butler is an American jazz pianist.He is known for his technique and his ability to play in many styles of music. Referred to by Dr...
. Unannounced sit-ins are not uncommon; Bruce Springsteen
Bruce Springsteen
Bruce Frederick Joseph Springsteen , nicknamed "The Boss," is an American singer-songwriter who records and tours with the E Street Band...
once dropped in to jam with The Iguanas
The Iguanas (New Orleans)
Hailing from New Orleans, where Latin and Caribbean music have a long and glorious history of interaction with R&B, blues and jazz, the Iguanas was formed in 1989 by guitarist/accordionist Rod Hodges and Joe Cabral, who alternates between saxophone and a traditional Mexican stringed instrument...
and Jon Cleary
Jon Cleary (musician)
Jon Cleary is a funk and R&B musician based in New Orleans, Louisiana. He is from Cranbrook in Kent, England, and has studied for the past 20 years the "musical culture and life of New Orleans," according to his website...
's band was once joined by his frequent employer, Bonnie Raitt
Bonnie Raitt
Bonnie Lynn Raitt is an American blues singer-songwriter and a renowned slide guitar player. During the 1970s, Raitt released a series of acclaimed roots-influenced albums which incorporated elements of blues, rock, folk and country, but she is perhaps best known for her more commercially...
. The Leaf, as it is sometimes referred, has also been an important incubator for the city's many up-and-coming bands formed from the ranks of local musicians and music students at Tulane University
Tulane University
Tulane University is a private, nonsectarian research university located in New Orleans, Louisiana, United States...
, Loyola University and the University of New Orleans
University of New Orleans
The University of New Orleans, often referred to locally as UNO, is a medium-sized public urban university located on the New Orleans Lakefront within New Orleans, Louisiana, United States. It is a member of the LSU System and the Urban 13 association. Currently UNO is without a proper chancellor...
.
The poet Everette Maddox was a famous denizen of the Maple Leaf. The Everette C. Maddox Memorial Prose & Poetry Reading, held every Sunday in the courtyard at The Maple Leaf, is the longest running poetry
Poetry
Poetry is a form of literary art in which language is used for its aesthetic and evocative qualities in addition to, or in lieu of, its apparent meaning...
reading in North America.
The Maple Leaf also hosts other events, including poetry readings and fashion
Fashion
Fashion, a general term for a currently popular style or practice, especially in clothing, foot wear, or accessories. Fashion references to anything that is the current trend in look and dress up of a person...
shows. The Krewe of OAK
Krewe of OAK
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 krewe's...
, a neighborhood New Orleans Mardi Gras
New Orleans Mardi Gras
Mardi Gras in New Orleans, Louisiana, is a Carnival celebration well-known throughout the world.The New Orleans Carnival season, with roots in preparing for the start of the Christian season of Lent, starts after Twelfth Night, on Epiphany . It is a season of parades, balls , and king cake parties...
krewe
Krewe
A krewe is an organization that puts on a parade and or a ball for the Carnival season. The term is best known for its association with New Orleans Mardi Gras, but is also used in other Carnival celebrations around the Gulf of Mexico, such as the Gasparilla Pirate Festival in Tampa, Florida, and...
, starts and ends its parades at the Maple Leaf, where it also holds its Krewe Ball.
The Maple Leaf is portrayed in many books and stories by New Orleans writers. It is thinly disguised as "The Raintree Street Bar" in the Ellen Gilchrist
Ellen Gilchrist
Ellen Gilchrist is an American novelist, short story writer, and poet.-Life:Gilchrist was born in Vicksburg, Mississippi, and spent part of her childhood on a plantation owned by her maternal grandparents. She earned a bachelor of arts degree in philosophy and studied creative writing, especially...
short story "The Raintree Street Bar and Washerteria" (the bar formerly housed a small laundromat within it). Poems about it can be found in books and chapbooks such as Mirror Wars and Shards, by Nancy Harris; Body and Soul and Rhythm & Booze, by Julie Kane
Julie Kane
Julie Kane is a contemporary American poet, scholar, and editor and the Louisiana Poet Laureate for the 2011-2013 term. Although born in Massachusetts, Kane has lived in Louisiana for over three decades and writes about the region with the doubled consciousness of a non-native...
; and The Everette Maddox Song Book, Bar Scotch and American Waste by Everette Maddox. There have also been three anthologies of poets who have read their work at the Maple Leaf: The Maple Leaf Rag (1980), The Maple Leaf Rag 15th Anniversary Anthology (1994), and the Maple Leaf Rag III (2006).
R&B singer, songwriter, record producer, actress, and fashion designer Beyoncé Knowles
Beyoncé Knowles
Beyoncé Giselle Knowles , often known simply as Beyoncé, is an American singer, songwriter, record producer, and actress. Born and raised in Houston, Texas, she enrolled in various performing arts schools and was first exposed to singing and dancing competitions as a child...
recorded a promotional video for her single "Déjà Vu", which features rapper Jay-Z
Jay-Z
Shawn Corey Carter , better known by his stage name Jay-Z, is an American rapper, record producer, entrepreneur, and occasional actor. He is one of the most financially successful hip hop artists and entrepreneurs in America, having a net worth of over $450 million as of 2010...
, at the Maple Leaf in June 2006.
Hurricane Katrina
The Maple Leaf hosted the Krewe of OAK "Midsummer Mardi Gras" parade and party as scheduled on the night of Saturday, August 27, 2005, although Hurricane KatrinaHurricane Katrina
Hurricane Katrina of the 2005 Atlantic hurricane season was a powerful Atlantic hurricane. It is the costliest natural disaster, as well as one of the five deadliest hurricanes, in the history of the United States. Among recorded Atlantic hurricanes, it was the sixth strongest overall...
was barreling down on the city. While attendance was smaller than usual, a crowd insisted on partying New Orleans style one last time. Some came to the event from having spent the day boarding up their homes and packing up their cars, and evacuated from the city after the party.
The Maple Leaf was closed for several weeks in the aftermath of the storm (see: Effect of Hurricane Katrina on New Orleans
Effect of Hurricane Katrina on New Orleans
The effects of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans have been long-lasting. As the center of Katrina passed South-east of New Orleans on August 29, 2005, winds downtown were in the Category 3 range with frequent intense gusts and tidal surge. Hurricane force winds were experienced throughout the...
). Owner Hank Staples stayed in New Orleans to guard the bar and his other properties, while vowing in interviews with national media outlets to host the first concert in New Orleans after the storm. And on September 30, 2005, Walter "Wolfman" Washington played the Maple Leaf's first post-Katrina show in New Orleans.http://neworleans.indymedia.org/news/2006/04/7424.php (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 gig was eventually shut down by police and National Guard as the city was still under a curfew
Curfew
A curfew is an order specifying a time after which certain regulations apply. Examples:# An order by a government for certain persons to return home daily before a certain time...
. Electricity was restored to this section of the city about a week later.
After Hurricane Katrina, several poets nation-wide came together to lament, honor, and pray for the victims of Katrina and Rita. Several of these poets, known world-wide as the Hymnagistes, published a volume of poetry: Hurricane Poems: An Anthology (Des Hymnagistes Press, 2006). These poets raised enough money to provide the Maple Leaf Poetry Reading Series a new microphone and funds for publishing a new volume of poetry (Maple Leaf Rag III).
Live albums
A number of live albums have been recorded at the venue, including:- Rebirth Brass Band / The Main Event:Live at the Maple Leaf (1999)
- Papa Grows Funk / Live at the Leaf (2006)
- Joe KrownJoe KrownJoe Krown is an American keyboardist, based in New Orleans, Louisiana. He is known for his long tenure with Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown's band. As a solo artist, he has been playing in several different styles. When he plays the piano, he typically plays in the traditional New Orleans style...
, Walter "Wolfman" Washington, Russell Batiste, Jr.Russell Batiste, Jr.Russell Batiste, Jr. is a drummer based in New Orleans.- Biography :Brought up in a musical family, Batiste started playing drums at the age of four...
/ Live at the Maple Leaf (2008)
External links
- Maple Leaf Bar official website
- Swampish Thoughts - a blogger's account of the first live concert in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, at the Maple Leaf Bar.
- Post-Katrina reopening audio story
- New York Times: Sounds of Vitality for New Orleans
- National Public Radio: A Day in the Life of New Orleans