WWOZ Brasses Pass for Jazz Fest 2026

In just a few days, we've sold over 40% of WWOZ Brass Passes for the 2026 New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival! This year's amazing lineup includes the familiar mix of local favorites like Irma Thomas, Trombone Shorty, and Cyril Neville, plus stars (like the Eagles and Stevie Nicks) and hundreds more amazing musical acts. Brass Passes come with a full year’s tax deductible membership to WWOZ, they're transferable, and they get you into the Fair Grounds for all 8 days of the festival. Between sets, Brass Pass holders can recharge in our Hospitality Tent, a shaded oasis of fresh fruit, iced coffee, WIFI, and seats!

» Get your Brass Passes

» Jazz Fest Lineup

End of Year Giving

Please keep a place for WWOZ on your holiday gift list! For over four decades, your support has powered our mission to preserve New Orleans musical history and cultural heritage. With the 2025 tax season ending soon, please consider making a tax-deductible donation to WWOZ today. Your support allows us to bring you not only great radio, but live broadcasts & video streams, the two-week on-demand archive, the Livewire music calendar, Takin' It to the Streets, our annual Festing in Place broadcast, and all your other favorite WWOZ programming. Help us keep guarding the groove!

» Be a Guardian of the Groove

All-Star New Orleans Piano Tribute

Tune in Thursday, December 18, for our All-Star New Orleans Piano Tribute to Professor Longhair & James Booker. Eight of New Orleans finest piano players (Tom McDermott, BC Coogan, Joe Krown, Tom Hook, Josh Paxton, Keiko Komaki, Tom Worrell, and Joe Ashlar) join host Michael Dominici on the New Orleans Music Show for a three-hour of celebration of Fess, Booker, and the New Orleans piano tradition. If you don't hear it live, hear it on our Two Week Archive, or watch on our YouTube Channel or Facebook page.

» All-Star New Orleans Piano Tribute

» Two Week Archive * YouTube * Facebook

Holiday Party Photos

WWOZ's Holiday Party celebrated the entire 'OZ family: our incredible show hosts, staff, super volunteers, and board. It happened Wednesday, December 10 in City Park's Pavilion of the Two Sisters, with Celebration in the Oaks going on all around us. Check out our gallery of over 100 photos!

» Holiday Party Photos

Livewire Music Calendar and Holiday + New Years Events

Remember the Livewire Music calendar for all your holiday season entertainment planning: it currently lists New Years Eve shows at ~50 venues. And don't forget about the Holidays New Orleans Style Annual St. Louis Cathedral Christmas Concert, which happens Sunday, December 21. Finally, New Orleans Eve returns with a new location at Woldenberg Park, 9pm-midnight, and featuring live performances (by Dumpstaphunk, Sweet Crude, and DJ Captain Charles), the Fleur de lis drop and Crescent City Countdown fireworks over the Mississippi River.

» Livewire Music calendar

» Holiday Season Events

Carnival Season Incoming

Carnival season gets rolling on January 6 with Monday evening Twelfth Night events, including walking parades in the French Quarter (Société Des Champs Elysées followed by Krewe de Jeanne d'Arc) and Saint Charles streetcar rides (Phunny Phorty Phellows and the Funky Uptown Krewe). Mardi Gras is February 17, so get into that king cake early and often.

» Photos from Mardi Gras 2025

Show Host Profile: Missy Bowen

Community radio is in Missy Bowen's blood. How could it not be, after nearly 50 years on the air? 30 of those years have been here at WWOZ, where she currently hosts the Wednesday edition of the New Orleans Music Show, 11am-2pm. In the mid-1990s, Missy left KDNK-FM (a community station in Carbondale, Colorado), and relocated to New Orleans. In addition to hosting on WWOZ, Missy spent thirteen years as the operations manager at the University of New Orleans department of music. "When we talk about WWOZ, it's that connection, that emotional connection that we make, that feeling that this is a personal thing for me, and this is a place where I find some heart in myself, and that is what I think community radio does. It reaches into living rooms and cars and phones and devices anywhere, and it brings us together as a community."

» Show Host Profile: Missy Bowen

Recipe: Bucatini Carbonara

This month's recipe, for bucatini carbonara, comes to us from Osteria Lupo, located on Magazine Street just above Napoleon and showcasing Northern Italian cuisine. It's a classic dish with two kinds of cheese (parmigiano reggiano and pecorino romano), plus rich pork flavor from guanciale (cured pork jowl); you can find guanciale at Italian delis like Central Grocery in the French Quarter.

» Recipe: Bucatini Carbonara