At the peak of the jazz age, the Little Gem Saloon served everyone from Buddy Bolden to Louis Armstrong. Decades later, in a city still swinging to beats of brass, the Little Gem continues its jazz tradition this Saturday, March 23, at 8 pm with a Basin Street Records CD release party for jazz drummer Jason Marsalis.  

Tonight in the Crescent City, check out Beach House at Tip’s, or go to Tulane for a free show from local legend Ellis Marsalis. Get your copy of Geoff Wyss' How signed at Maple Street Book Shop, and go out and heckle Batman and Robin at the Republic. Today in Louisiana music history, Jack Hammer, who co-wrote Great Balls of Fire with Jerry Lee Lewis, was born (1940), and Willie Nelson was arrested on I-10 near Breaux Bridge for possession of narcotic mushrooms (2006). Now for today's happenings:

TREME -- New Orleans' fragrant spring flowers mixed with the distinctive scent of All Night Drinking this morning in Armstrong Park, as jazz came home to Congo Square for International Jazz Day. The 7 a.m. concert not only featured the rare sight of Herbie Hancock playing for free, but also New Orleans musicians getting up early.

Get those tired JazzFest legs to bed early tonight, or bring your sunglasses if you're staying out all night. Come sunrise, jazz legend Herbie Hancock will unleash a concert that doubles as a coda to the first Fest weekend to the birthplace of the music form. At 7 a.m. in Congo Square, Hancock will headline a mostly local bill for a concert to celebrate International Jazz Day.

by Brad Rhines

If holiday carols aren’t exactly your cup of cocoa, there’s a good chance you’re doing it wrong.  Sure, when the co-worker in the next cubicle tunes in to Magic 101.9 this time of year and subjects the entire office to an endless stream of inanity like Bon Jovi and Debbie Gibson belting out Christmas classics, it’s enough to make any reasonable-minded person bah-humbug in protest.  But this is New Orleans, people.  Music is what we do, and holiday music is no exception.  Tonight is the first show in St. Louis Cathedral’s annual Christmas concert series, the best remedy in town for a case of the Christmas carol blues.

Today, Harvest the Music holds its last show in Lafayette Square, the Day of the Dead parade rolls at dusk, and Ellis Marsalis plays a free show at Tulane. On equally exciting November 2nds, the Dakotas became the 39th and 40th states (1889), Cheerleading started at the University of Minnesota (1898), Ronald Reagan signed a bill creating Martin Luther King, Jr. Day (1983), President George W. Bush was elected (2004), Marie-Antoinette was born (1755), George Bernard Shaw died (1950), and it's El Dia de los Muertos So go to the parade: