Maple Leaf Bar

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 24th 1974, it is one of the longest continuing operation 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 Sat for 7 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.