NOLA’s most iconic jazz experience is still found at this 100-capacity shrine just around the corner from the debauchery of Bourbon Street. True to its name, the venue began in the ’50s as a space for intimate jam sessions from the city’s jazz legends, honoring their legacy in real time. Today, the club’s renowned house bands play up to four shows a day (Taylor Swift sneakily caught one of them in 2022).

Your best bet for live jazz is Frenchmen Street, the Marigny neighborhood drag that’s been called “the locals’ Bourbon Street” so often that tourists have caught on. Still, the stretch has mostly retained its character, serving up a full spread of NOLA sounds: jazz, blues, zydeco, and more. Amid the bustle is this no-frills club where the fanfare never interferes with the music—a rotating cast of local legends from Jon Cleary and the Absolute Monster Gentlemen to the Palmetto Bug Stompers.

The Frenchmen Street club sits in the street’s reportedly oldest building (built in 1832), giving the dreamily lit, marble-floored space the sense of living history amid its raucous surroundings. You’ll need a ticket to get in downstairs, where jazz legends like Kermit Ruffins, Trombone Shorty, and the brass band The Soul Rebels play each night. Upstairs you’re just as likely to hear reggae, hip-hop, and blues, or partake in the Marigny neighborhood’s best people-watching from the balcony.

The first thing you’ll see inside this shedlike club is a hand-painted banner declaring: “This Is Not That Kind of Place!” An essential hub for local and national jazz and blues since its opening in 2006 and renovation in 2021, Chickie feels singular and unmistakably New Orleans. Its Mid-City location may be off the beaten path, but jazz heads flock to the 200-person venue for post-Jazz Fest marathons and local luminaries like Jon Cleary.

“I’m not sure, but I’m almost positive that all music came from New Orleans!” reads an Ernie K-Doe quote painted on the outside of Kermit’s. The Treme neighborhood club offers a comprehensive New Orleans experience, starting with the murals where R&B legends smile from Heaven and gators jive on the dance floor. It’s been a nonstop party since Kermit Ruffins reopened the iconic venue in 2014, with nightly live music (sometimes from Kermit himself), cheap drinks, and free food most nights.

As tourists grew hip to Frenchmen Street, some of its venues changed accordingly, but The Spotted Cat feels stuck in time in the best way (think: comfy couches and a creaky wooden bar adorned in folk art from local legend Dr. Bob). Among the small club’s charms is its commitment to swing jazz, meaning you might find yourself swing-dancing around the floor to the music of the house bands.

This outdoor venue emerged in 2020 as one of the city’s most inspired pandemic innovations: a pop-up spot that opened in the gravel lot of its sister business, the Broad Theater, one of NOLA’s best indie movie houses. In the time since, the Broadside has become a Mid-City favorite, with both a movie screen and a stage. Here, you might catch a crawfish festival, a local brass ensemble, a good old-fashioned blues band, or a cult film showing accompanied by a live orchestra.

The Leaf is to Uptown what Preservation Hall is to the French Quarter—a venerable institution frequented by stars (Bruce Springsteen, Bonnie Raitt, and Jon Batiste have all dropped in to play) that does just fine as a local joint. The club has hosted live music every night since ’74, excluding a brief post-Katrina hiatus, after which the National Guard shut down its first generator-powered show. Catch a set from the Rebirth Brass Band or a Sunday night poetry reading.

This wine bar deep in the Bywater neighborhood was formerly a post-Katrina pop-up speakeasy, earning Bacchanal a placement on HBO’s Treme, as well as a raid by the NOPD. A few years (and permits) later, the jazz club and bustling backyard restaurant is a can’t-miss destination. Come before the line snakes up Poland Avenue to secure a table, a bottle, and plenty of ice to hear performances from some of New Orleans’ best up-and-coming jazz singers and ensembles.

Much of New Orleans’ local jazz scene revolves around hotels, which offer a more buttoned-up version of the city’s trademark sound. To experience the crème de la crème of these upscale lounges, head to The Jazz Playhouse at the Royal Sonesta, a far cry from the Bourbon Street chaos just outside. (Drinks are served in martini glasses, not fishbowls.) The Playhouse’s reputation guarantees a revolving cast of local jazz titans, from the Brass-A-Holics to Big Sam’s Funky Nation.