“New Orleans life is such a night life. The thing that comes up very often is that our day doesn’t start until midnight or two in the morning.” Robert Asprin, American Author

 It’s late and we were looking for a Second Line Band to photograph with no luck. We are deep in the heart of New Orleans’ Treme district. We stop and ask a man, who introduces himself as Oswald, if there’s anywhere close by that has live music? He points across the street to a faded yellow building. His son’s band is playing later.

 The lounge is one big room, a bar, pool table and a large painted dance floor. The bartender says they got the best live music in NOLA. Around 10:30PM the bass line kicks in and the room begins to move. The band is the Treme Funktet— no playlist just old-school New Orleans music mixed with brass band, funk and some mainstream jazz. The group leader, Corey Henry, is royalty here and known for a Treme-born style of funk based in the New Orleans Second Line tradition.

Sound bounces off the plywood ceiling as the whole room seems to move to the bass line groove.  It’s getting late, but there’s no set time for the band to quit. We pay our tab and head back to the hotel as more people are pouring in. The Candlelight Lounge is the beating heart of the last live music in the Treme.

See Tom’s full gallery of images from the Candlelight Lounge here, and be sure to follow @tomhusseyphotography for more updates and stories.