June 2024

The final night of a beloved New Orleans traditional jazz venue underscores the threads of community connection – and the ties of the heart.

– by Ellis Anderson

photographs by Ellis Anderson, Catherine Lasperche, Chantell Nabonne and Pat Jolly 

On the first Sunday night in June, dozens of people line the sidewalk, waiting for the doors of Palm Court Jazz Cafe to open at seven.  It is the last night anyone will stand in line to get in. Ever. 

A beloved venue for traditional New Orleans jazz, the Palm Court usually closes for summer in the first part of June each year, reopening in September when the heat eases and the hotels fill.  But this year, September, and October, and November, and December will pass with no reopening.  No reservations, no dinners served, no horns or clarinets or trombones or drums, no singing or clapping of hands. 

The Palm Court is closing for good.

While the line out front is long, it’s lively – in a restrained celebration-of-life sort of way. Long-time Palm Court patrons move around, embracing and talking, some seeing each other for the first time in years.  When the door finally opens at seven, people file inside slowly, crossing a threshold of time. They step away from the cacophony of Decatur Street with its perpetual line of cruising cars and pods of tourists sipping from garish plastic cups into an elegant 1920s speakeasy. 

Inside the Palm Court, a vast mahogany bar anchors the enormous “L” shaped room, its floor of mosaic tiles the size of quarters stretching all the way to the next block. Bentwood chairs surround cloth-covered café tables, tonight topped with vases holding a single red rose. Old album covers and photographs of New Orleans jazz legends who have performed here – most long gone – cover the walls.

Owner Nina Buck and manager Kathy Edegran stand by the door, greeting everyone by name. The reservations for this night have been fully booked for weeks now and every person coming in is a musician or a long-time patron of the club. The two Englishwomen are generous with their hugs as they show people to their tables. 

Nina started Palm Court with her husband – traditional jazz aficionado and record producer, the late George Buck – in 1989. She’s a dynamic sprite of a woman, impossibly tiny and slender. She darts around the restaurant with a vitality that vanquishes any passing impression of frailty.

Kathy first came to work for Palm Court as a hostess in the ‘80s. Then 25 years ago, Nina eventually suggested that Kathy wouldn’t have to work so many hours if she gave up working as an event planner and came to manage Palm Court. That’s become a standing joke the two friends often laugh about.The hours, of course, turned out to be much, much longer. 

 Kathy is the sort of person you’d want on your lifeboat – gracious and warm, with an underlying strength, seasoned by years of handling the myriad challenges of a French Quarter supper club. 

“I know I shouldn’t be smiling,” Kathy says to one friend. Yet, while her hours will finally be shorter and her responsibilities ease, she’s going to miss it terribly. Her work at Palm Court has been “tremendously rewarding.” 

“It’s bittersweet,” says Kathy, using a word that will become a refrain on this night. 

Chantell Nabonne uses the word bittersweet too, although she can’t see the sweet part yet. It’s hard to get her head around the idea of the Palm Court closing. She’s been a regular there for nearly 20 years. She’s there dancing every June on the last night before it shuts down for the summer. And she’s dancing again every September on reopening night, celebrating the months of live music that lay ahead.

She and her mother, Sharon Nabonne, are seated at one of the front tables.  Earlier this weekend, Sharon – a veteran vocalist who’s performed with the likes of Allen Toussaint, Dr. John, and Lee Dorsey – sang as a guest with the band.  She might be called upon again tonight.

The Nabonnes are part of the Palm Court extended family, one that has intertwined lives and talents for more than three decades.  Back in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s, New Orleans music icons Lionel Ferbos (trumpet) and Pud Brown (clarinet) and other jazz veterans played in the house band for the hit show, One Mo’ Time, which ran for years at the Toulouse Theatre in the Quarter.

Back then, Sharon Nabonne played the spitfire character, Thelma. A petite young woman with a powerhouse voice, Sharon was the youngest of the star-studded cast – and a single mom with a young toddler.  Chantell was raised backstage in the Toulouse Theatre by an amazing musical village, made up of some of the city’s most talented performers.

“One Mo’ Time and I are the same age!” Chantell says, smiling.  “Forty-six.” 

One Mo’ Time closed long before the Palm Court opened in ‘89, so many of the show’s musicians like Lionel Ferbos, Pud Brown, Lars Edegran, Steve Pistorius, and Joe Lastie found a new home at the Decatur Street club. Preservation Hall principal players like Wendell Brunious and the Humphrey brothers also began performing at the Palm Court regularly, making the Palm Court a nexus for traditional jazz music.

Lionel Ferbos became Chantell’s “adopted grandfather.” Although when moved to Lafayette for several years after Katrina,  she’d “make it her business” to be at the Palm Court every Saturday night to see Lionel play. The venerable trumpeter performed there until he was 102 – just a year before his passing. Chantell remembers his 2014 death as a hard loss. And after tonight, another connection to him will be gone. 

A few tables further back, Catherine Lasperche toasts her longtime partner and new husband, Michael,  with a glass of champagne.  The revered nurse practitioner is retiring soon from the New Orleans Musicians’ Clinic, where for two-decades she’s given primary care to city’s culture bearers.  Many of her patients are here at the Palm Court tonight. She says that many of the cases she treats on a day-to-day basis are musicians who have been hurt on second jobs, the ones they have to take to make ends meet.  

A friend teases Catherine with a classic Palm Court story:  Years ago, two elder Jazz legends were overheard talking. One told the other in surprise, “Why, she had all my clothes off before we even said hello!” 

Turned out the musician wasn’t relating a romantic adventure - he was telling about a visit to Catherine at the musicians’ clinic.  Everyone laughs, including Catherine, who insists in her French accent that “the story has been embellished.” 

The servers move around the restaurant, dispensing drinks and taking dinner orders. The music starts at 7:30, so they need to get everyone settled in.  One of them is Randi Gilinson, wearing the same Palm Court shirt she wore as a server on the very first opening night, 35 years before.  

Randi has remained great friends with Nina and Kathy and she still visits from Birmingham a few times a year to get her Palm Court fix.  Although the next day is Randi’s 70th birthday, she’s driven five hours from home to volunteer for closing night.  She wouldn’t miss it for the world, she says. Apparently, it’s a big birthday week at the Palm Court. Chef Bobby’s grandson will turn three on Thursday.  Musician Lars Edegran will hit the 80 mark on Wednesday.  

At the moment, Lars is mixing in the crowd, greeting other musicians. Some are unpacking their instruments, others have come to listen and say goodbye to the classic venue.  Lars usually performs at the Palm Court twice a week, but tonight, he’ll just be a listener too, lending a hand to Nina and Kathy, his wife.  

The Swedish musician  - who plays piano, guitar and banjo - met George Buck in the mid-’60s, soon after he arrived in New Orleans. Lars and Kathy were introduced in 1980 when he was performing with One Mo’ Time in London and serving as the show’s musical director.  The two fell in love and married in 1982, and eventually, the Palm Court and its music became an inseparable part of their lives.  In addition to being a gigging musician, Lars is Vice President and Director of the GHB Jazz Foundation, housed on the floors above Palm Court.

Everyone has their drinks now, most of the food orders have been taken and the members of tonight's band drift onstage. The night’s bandleader is trumpeter Mark Braud.

Mark’s musical career began as a young boy after his uncle, the iconic New Orleans trumpet player Wendell Brunious, gave him a cornet. Wendell later hired Mark for his first Palm Court gig 35 years ago – soon after it opened. The teenager played in the second line of a wedding party the club hosted.  He was only 15. 

It seems fitting that Mark’s leading the band this night. It’s his regular night anyway.  In 2018, when he was working in New York City on a TV show with Harry Connick, Jr., he flew home most weekends to play his Sunday night gig at the Palm Court. He even wrote an original song, “Palm Sunday” as a tribute to the club. It’s a catchy tune people often request, with a lilting Latin feel. 

Mark brings Nina to the stage and both briefly welcome the crowd and thank everyone for their years of support. 

Then the band kicks in. 

The opening song is “Down in Honky Tonk Town,” written in 1916 and the first tune on the One Mo’ Time playlist. Mark, who played in the show’s 2002 Broadway revival, has chosen the song intentionally.  It’s one of Chantell’s favorites too - she literally cut her teeth on it - so she and her dance partner - Don Keller, are the first ones out on the dance floor. 

There’ll be singing waiters, 

dancing syncopaters, 

dancing to pi-an-no played

 by Mr. Bro-own…

The piano player tonight is not a Mister anything. Meghan Swartz joyfully digs right in, crossing her long legs as her hands tear across the keyboard. She and Mark have been married for six years and they often perform together. Like Meghan and Mark, several of the musicians on stage or present tonight are Gen X or Millennials. They have half a century or more to go to catch up to Lionel, 50 years of playing strong, of moving people’s hearts – and their feet. 

Outside the enormous French doors, the light fades and the little white string lights around the cafe come on, giving a soft sepia wash to the scene. Nina wafts through the crowd as always, an instigator to get people dancing, coaxing them onto the floor. Once there, the music works its power over them. They forget both inhibitions and problems. 

Wendell Brunious joins the band about midway through the second set, his presence underscoring the ties between the city’s tight community of traditional jazz musicians. Wendell is part of a strong New Orleans musical dynasty. 

In 1987, when he was just 33, Wendell became a bandleader at Preservation Hall and just last year, he was named the first musical director of the internationally-renown institution. Mark says Wendell was one of his main influences growing up, teaching him not only music, but how to conduct himself on stage, how to lead a band, how to be a pro. 

Eventually, Mark calls Sharon Nabonne up to sing and she lights into a soulful “Do You Know What it Means to Miss New Orleans.” The way Sharon sings it tonight, the words carry more weight. The song becomes one about missing this particular place, these particular people and never experiencing another night quite like this one.  Several people around the room dab at their eyes. 

Do you know what it means to miss New Orleans

And miss it each night and day

I know I'm not wrong this feeling's gettin' stronger

The longer, I stay away…

The band’s sets pass all too quickly and the crowd thins a bit before the last one.  Chantell has heard some say they just can’t stay for the bittersweet end.  But most of the musicians and people here tonight have participated in many a jazz funeral. They know the way it works:

The funeral band plays a forlorn dirge leading the way to the cemetery. Once the body is laid to rest - “cut loose” -  the only thing to do is embrace life more fully, with a renewed sense of its fleeting nature. So leaving the cemetery,  the band kicks into a swinging march while the second line of mourners dances and prances and dips and bobs down the street. 

That jazz funeral tradition reigns here tonight. Most present understand that Palm Court is part of a continuum with strong currents that time and circumstance can’t dam up. And they know that the creative wellspring connecting New Orleanians runs as powerfully as the Mississippi River, just a stone’s throw away.

Chantell believes that understanding of life is strong in Sharon, who often talks about how everything comes and everything must go.  Yet, during the last set, she sees her animated mother suddenly become very, very still. When Chantell checks on her, Sharon says “I’m starting to feel it.” But she shakes the mood off and is up and dancing with the next song.

A few tables over, Catherine feels it too, but the nurse did her crying in advance, the week before. She was standing with Kathy one night and the second the band started playing, “we had the tears at the same time,” she says in her French accent. Yet, Catherine believes something her father told her long ago:  Nothing is lost forever. It just transforms. 

Filled with people who hold these sorts of beliefs, Palm Court’s final hour is anything but maudlin. 

Toward the end of the set, Mark announces the band’s going to play his original, “Palm Sunday.” The entire restaurant becomes an effervescent dance floor, joy bubbling up and filling the room.  When the song is over, the audience believes the end has come, so they applaud and hoot long and loud when it’s over. Mark thanks the audience again and acknowledges Nina and Kathy and bartender Eileen Davis and Chef Bobby Davis and “our beautiful Palm Court family.” 

Chantell, standing in front of the bandstand, starts to break up and cry, but one of the musicians on stage catches her eye and gives her a thumbs-up. It soothes her and she feels more grounded. It helps that the smiling people around her are besotted with love and goodwill.

“This is bittersweet,” Mark says. “But we will see each other again.” 

Then Mark calls Nina to the stage. His respect for her is apparent.  He believes that the reason musicians loved playing here so much was her high standards – for the performances, the food, the atmosphere and the service.  Nina strides through a standing ovation and Wendell helps her up on stage. She thanks everyone again and calls out friends who have been supportive through the years. 

“I know it’s a bit sad…” she pauses, and the crowd, wondering if she’s going to break down,  is silent, respectful. 

But that’s not the response Nina wants.  “It is a bit sad, isn’t it?” she asks, and the room breaks into laughter. 

“Life goes on!” she continues. “The important thing is that this music stays alive, that we keep it alive!”  

“Now let’s tear the roof off the sucker!” 

Mark leads the band in a song called “Second Line,” with a beat impossible to resist. 

It’s your last chance to dance!

 GET UP! 

It’s your last chance to dance! 

GET UP! 

The entire place seethes with moving bodies, swaying shoulders and hips, arms lifted, feet stepping high across the tiled floor. A few folks wave napkins in the air, second-line style. One dancer grabs the hand of a man in a wheelchair, making him part of the action too.

Tear the roof off the sucka! 

Tear the roof off the sucka!  

Tear the roof!

Tear the roof!

Mark sings and the crowd shouts along, determined to make this last, final Palm Court dance one that they all remember. From the walls, the portraits of George and Lionel and Pud and Danny Barker stoically look on.  

When the applause finally calms down, the musicians present – about three dozen of them – crowd onto the small stage for a photo. Folks with cameras and phones spread out a few feet back, but even the widest lens isn’t likely to fit them all into a frame without distortion.  Then someone realizes who’s missing. A voice calls out, Get Nina! Get Nina!  She threads through the crowd and slips into a place the musicians make for her at the front. 

The photo documentation has been completed, the last song has been played, the final dance done, but there’s still no dash for the door. The crowd lingers on, reluctant to leave. Finally, around eleven, a few of the house lights go down.  People still refuse to take the hint and chatter on.

Few notice when a small child climbs up onto the stage.  His name is Royal and he’s the grandson of Chef Bobby.  His mama, supervising closely, tells a curious bystander that he’s only two – turning three on Thursday.  

Royal sits down behind the kit with its signature Palm Court bass drum and begins to play.  The drummer that evening, Aron Lambert, is a Preservation Hall/Palm Court regular who works with local programs teaching incarcerated kids to drum.  He stands behind the young boy and helps him hold the sticks correctly. Then Royal is on his own. 

Perhaps all the visits to the cafe have saturated Royal’s young mind with the rhythms of the city, because he’s remarkably good. This is not some bored toddler beating mindlessly to make noise. Royal’s playing is more complex, purposeful. He concentrates. 

Sharon and Chantell Nabonne are bidding farewell to friends, finally ready to leave.  But Sharon pauses by the stage to listen intently. After a few minutes, she smiles at Royal and says, “You keep practicing, you hear?”

Royal is in the zone and doesn’t appear to have heard Sharon’s advice, yet he follows it anyway and keeps drumming. This budding musician is the last one to play on the Palm Court stage.

Those standing near are grateful – for this last moment of sweet to help balance the bitter, and for this poignant reminder that nothing is lost forever, it just transforms.