Jazz Music

Charlie & the Tropicales bring the sound and spirit of a 1950s Caribbean hotel band to life with torrid horns, tropical rhythms, and infectious grooves. Drawing on New Orleans' deep connections as the northernmost port of the Caribbean, the group explores musical traditions from Trinidad, Venezuela, Martinique, Guadeloupe, and beyond.

As jazz pioneer Jelly Roll Morton famously said, New Orleans music carries a “Spanish tinge,” an essential seasoning in the city’s musical DNA. The Tropicales embrace this spirit, blending  traditional New Orleans jazz with 1950s R&B, beguine from the French Antilles, and Trinidadian calypso, the Tropicales create a sound that feels both timeless and transportive — equally suited for listening and for the dance floor.

Led by trombonist Charlie Halloran — a fixture of the city's traditional jazz scene — the band reflects a broader exploration of Caribbean and New Orleans musical exchange. Halloran has been twice named a "Rising Star" in DownBeat Magazine and is a multi-time honoree in OffBeat Magazine's "Best of the Beat" awards, with credits including Jon Cleary, Allen Toussaint, Rickie Lee Jones, and U2.

Entry is free, join us at Good Measure.

Smoker's World is the most personal and experimental project of Derrick "Smoker" Freeman, the New Orleans drummer, songwriter, and DJ who also leads the Soul Brass Band. Where that group operates within the brass band tradition, Smoker's World is Freeman's creative laboratory: hip-hop grooves, funk, pop, and the deep New Orleans jazz foundation, filtered through social commentary, cheeky lyricism, and the energy of a full horn line that can shift gears without warning. Freeman describes it as the anchor of all his musical pursuits, built around a rotating cast of the city's most versatile jazz musicians. Their 2022 album WhiteSplain, which transforms pandemic-era political chaos into danceable tracks, earned wide attention for its balance of consciousness and fun.

Entry is free, join us in Good Measure.