Tipitina’s presents the penultimate free Friday show, sponsored as always by the Tipitina’s Foundation, and it’s a winner. Gravy, one of the hottest of the newer funk bands on the scene, open for the New Orleans Suspects.
The Suspects, a band that features Reggie Scanlan, late of the Radiators on bass, have been touring in the usual places turning up in venues that the Rads used to play. This should be a great night.
Also Friday night, “Love Sessions,” “Irvin Mayfield’s ambitious 11-night fundraiser for local charities moves to the I Club in the JW Marriott Hotel. For the next four nights Mayfield’s band will battle the band of the trumpeter Roy Hargrove. This is gonna be a knockout.
Saturday evening is the annual Krewe of OAK’s Mid Summer Mardi Gras. Though the party at the Maple Leaf Bar is private. The parade that precedes it is free and open to the public in more ways than one. But on your skimpiest costume and come out and sweat as we wind our way around uptown. The theme is “mesh.”
If you’re looking for something to do after the parade, head down to Frenchmen Street. Good Enough for Good Times is playing at D.B.A. Also, Mia Borders and Big Chief Monk Boudreaux and the Golden Eagles are at the Blue Nile. She has a new band featuring jazz bassist Jesse Morrow and when I saw them a couple of weeks ago, they were really kickin’ it.
All day and into the night on Sunday is the grand opening of the New Orleans Healing Center, which is located on St. Claude Avenue. There will be tons of live music including performances by Sean Johnson and the Wild Lotus Band. They will be playing their mantra music in Johnson’s yoga studio, which is in the building.
There is also a full time performance space in the Healing Center, which is being called Café Istanbul in homage to the club that used to be in the location that now houses the Blue Nile. But you knew that. Expect to hear Henry Butler, in a now-rare New Orleans appearance, John Boutte, Lynn Drury, Chuck Perkins, and the Tremé, Hot 8 & Baby Boys Brass Bands.
