There’s a moment in a New Orleans club when the drummer’s in the pocket, the sweaty crowd is gyrating and spilling out into the street and the bandleader pushes the music relentlessly faster like a potter spinning an enormous wheel. It doesn’t matter if it’s traditional jazz, blues (funk) or rock ‘n’ roll. Something about the mixture of African, Caribbean and European rhythms combines to create a sound, and a moment, that can only be experienced in New Orleans, in a small club with lousy acoustics, filled with residents from the surrounding neighborhood.
Daniel Fisher, Forbes Staff