Join Us for Piano Night 2025

WWOZ Piano Night happens at the House of Blues New Orleans on April 28, the Monday night between Jazz Fest weekends. This year's lineup includes Jon Cleary, Marcia Ball, Bill Payne, Joe Krown, Tom McDermott, Oscar Rossignoli, Keiko Komaki, John Papa Gros, Josh Paxton, BC Coogan, Tom Worrell, Larry Seiberth, Lilli Lewis, Kyle Roussel, Al Lil Fats Jackson, Tom Hook, Jesse McBride, Rickie Monie, Yoshitaka Tsuji (Z2), Joe Ashlar, Craig Adams, Mari Watanabe, Courtney Bryan, Victor Campbell, River Eckert, and more to come! Get your tickets directly from 'OZ by Thursday, February 20, after which tickets will be available via the House of Blues & Ticketmaster.

» Piano Night Happens April 28

Get a Brass Pass for Jazz Fest 2025

This year's New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival lineup includes a mix of Big Stars like Pearl Jam and Lenny Kravitz and tons of local favorites like Trombone Shorty, Tank & the Bangas, Irma, and dozens more. With a WWOZ Brass Pass, see as much music as you can and recharge in the WWOZ Hospitality Tent, our shaded oasis of fresh fruit, iced coffee, WIFI, and seats!

» Get a Brass Pass

» Jazz Fest Lineup

Spring Membership Drive, March 13-21

WWOZ needs your support in order to keep the never-ending stream of pure New Orleans groove flowing! Please join during our Guardians of the Groove Spring Membership Drive, which happens March 13-21. Power up the device of your choice, tune in, and help us Guard the Groove.

» Why not join right now?.

February 18: Special Happy Birthday "Irma's Story"

Be sure to tune in next Tuesday, February 18 as we celebrate Irma Thomas' birthday with a special program: "Irma's Story," produced by three of WWOZ's veteran show hosts, Cole Williams, Neil Pellegrin, and George Ingmire. Our wide-ranging conversation with Irma addresses her early years, her time working with Allen Toussaint and other New Orleans greats, the twists and turns her life has taken, and how she got the title of Soul Queen of New Orleans. We've added great songs from throughout her career to an amazing interview with this unique woman, who's at once both down to earth and extraordinary--a True Queen of New Orleans! The two-hour special will air twice on February 18: Noon on Cole Williams' New Orleans Music Show, and 8 pm on Neil Pellegrin's 1950s R&B Show.

» Hear "Irma's Story" on February 18

Booker T. Washington High and Its Auditorium

In recognition of Black History Month, we'd like to remember Booker T. Washington High and its auditorium. Completed in 1942, it was the first new high school built specifically for Black students in New Orleans. Its Art Deco auditorium seated 2,000 and became a de facto civic center for New Orleans' African Americans, hosting legendary artists like Paul Robeson, Ray Charles, Marian Anderson, and Dizzy Gillespie, as well as meetings for unions, civil rights groups, and professional organizations. A who’s who of New Orleans’ top musicians attended Booker T. Washington, including Alvin Batiste, Harold Battiste, Eddie Bo, Ernie K-Doe, Earl King, Master P, James Rivers, Allen Toussaint and numerous others. Read more about this and other historic sites at A Closer Walk NOLA, our New Orleans History Map.

» Booker T. Washington High School Auditorium

» All For One (AFO) Records

» Benevolent Societies / Social Aid and Pleasure Clubs

Live from Our Balcony

Our studio at Jax Brewery has some great balcony space, which we've been putting to good use. Our first "live from the balcony" set featured the Soul Brass. The second was our New Orleans Beatles Tribute in which The Walrus and special guests Susan Cowsill, Alex McMurray, and Josh Paxton gave us a New Orleans version of the Beatles' final performance on a London rooftop in January 1969. On the anniversary of that historic performance, we streamed our homage live from our balcony, overlooking the rooftops of the French Quarter. It was made possible by the Gia Maione Prima Foundation

» New Orleans Beatles Tribute with The Walrus

» Soul Brass Band

Hear Carnival on WWOZ

Now that Super Bowl season is past, it's time to get down to Carnival! Krewe du Vieux rolls through the Marigny and French Quarter this Saturday night, February 15, and things escalate from there. If you can't make it to the Crescent City, we've got you covered: during the last seven days of Carnival, from February 26-March 4, our show hosts will break format as they see fit in order to bring you the soundtrack to Mardi Gras. New Orleanians all over the world tune in to our stream at WWOZ.org on Mardi Gras day--if you're not here this year, you can still come join the party!

» Mardi Gras Parade Schedule

Show Host Profile: Al Colón

When you tune in to Wednesday's version of Jazz from Jax Brewery from 4 to 7pm on 'OZ, you'll hear an impeccably curated playlist of classic modern jazz delivered by the resonant voice of Dr. Al Colón. "I call it classic modern jazz by design. It represents the music that I like and which I think serves as a ground floor since the 1940s for the music that we hear today, not only in jazz but in other expressions as well. I wanted to blow up the idiom of modern jazz and play the best music I could assemble." Dr. Colón brings his lifelong love of jazz as well as his 45 years of service in higher education (and a life that took him from Alabama to Jamaica, Queens before New Orleans) to bear in every program. As the retired National Endowment for the Humanities professor explains, "I want to entertain, but I also want to educate and open people's horizons, and more than anything I want to humanize this art form and the culture it's embedded in."

» Full Al Colón profile by Melissa Milton

Recipe: Jam and Ham Beignets

Savory beignets are a thing! This version is called the Jam n Ham Beignet, and it's from Beggars Banquet at 1330 Prytania, just a few blocks above Calliope. It features black forest ham and raspberry preserves spread over a freshly made beignet & closed into a sandwich. Of course, the bulk of this recipe is concerned with making beignets from scratch. Which is interesting reading and good to know.

» Recipe: Jam and Ham Beignets