The Spotted Cat Music Club

The Spotted Cat Music Club is a small, crowded jazz and swing room at 623 Frenchmen Street in the Faubourg Marigny of New Orleans, Louisiana, in the stretch of clubs just downriver from the French Quarter that locals favour over Bourbon Street. It is one of the best-known live-music venues on Frenchmen, and its appeal rests on closeness: the stage is little more than a corner of a long, narrow room, and the bands play within a few feet of the bar and the front tables. Programming centres on traditional New Orleans jazz, swing, gypsy jazz and related styles, with several acts through the afternoon and evening and sets continuing late into the night, often with dancers filling any available floor space. There is no cover charge. Instead, the house relies on a drink minimum and on tips for the bands, and visitors are expected to put money into the tip bucket or jar as the musicians pass it. The drinks programme is simple: beer, wine, cocktails and shots, with typical prices in the ten to fifteen US dollar range, and the focus is on the music rather than on mixology. The crowd is a lively mix of locals, music tourists and travellers on a Frenchmen Street crawl, usually in their twenties to sixties, and the atmosphere is informal, joyful and often packed shoulder to shoulder after about nine in the evening. Dress is casual. There are no table reservations and no bottle service; seats and standing space are claimed on arrival, and the venue sometimes fills enough that a short queue forms on the pavement on Friday and Saturday nights. Weeknights, early in the evening, offer the easiest access and the clearest view of the band. The room is adult-oriented because it operates as a bar, and the volume level can be high. Together with neighbouring venues on the same block, it forms a walkable circuit of live music within a few minutes' walk, which is the main reason many visitors treat Frenchmen Street as the city's best place for a night out.