The Sunset Jazz Band
The Sunset Jazz Band formed during the pandemic, when a few New Orleans musicians took to meeting in Crescent Park, on the Bywater riverfront, to play as the afternoon ran out. The sessions gave the band its name.
The idea was to honor Georges Brassens, the legendary songwriter and poet who has been a fixture of the French songbook since the 1950s. He knew how to work a bawdy room and how to write the most profound poem of the evening, often in the same song. They play that work as a blend of French gypsy music and New Orleans jazz — a pairing that suits it better than it has any right to.
The first show was a house show at the legendary Pearl, followed by an open jam with an invitation to bring your instrument. Club dates came after: the Hi-Ho Lounge, the Allways Lounge, the Saturn Bar, Bar Redux, the Mudlark Theater, Okay Bar, Beanlandia.
Their songs travelled further than the clubs — the Fête de la Francophonie and the gala for the Alliance Française de La Nouvelle-Orléans, the Union Française, and a live score to The Hunchback of Notre Dame for the Historic New Orleans Collection.
Things have taken off since, and the repertoire has grown with them: Charles Trenet, Boris Vian and Les Têtes Raides now sit alongside Brassens. L’âme des poètes is their first full studio EP, recorded at Butcher Studios in New Orleans in October 2025, with vocals from Romain Beauxis, Clara Sinou, Ella Thomasine and Blandine Laroche.
Their aim has not changed: to bring these songs, the words as much as the music, to audiences in New Orleans and beyond.