Venue:
Ellis Marsalis and Jason Marsalis at the 2014 Best of the Beat Awards, Generations Hall, January 22, 2015. Photo by Willow Haley
Snug Harbor will reopen June 4 with a tribute to Ellis Marsalis
Snug Harbor Jazz Bistro, the venerable restaurant and jazz club a at 626 Frenchmen Street, will reopen its performance space on Friday, June 4, with a tribute to Ellis Marsalis performed by his son, Jason Marsalis. The elder Marsalis held a 30-year gig at the club before retiring in December 2019. He died at age 85 on April 1, 2020, due to complications from COVID-19.
Long respected as a listening room where respectful jazz aficionados gather to be entranced by musicians in an cozy setting, the performance space has been closed since March 2020 when pandemic restrictions forced all live-music venues in New Orleans to shutter their doors. Music clubs along Frenchmen Street have gradually reopened since the City of New Orleans began to ease crowd restrictions in mid-March, but Snug Harbor’s revival proved more challenging due to its intimate space where seated patrons sit shoulder to shoulder on the ground floor and along the railing of an upstairs balcony.