Mardi Gras Music

While we have everything that you could you possibly need to make your Mardi Gras party memorable in the way of beads and decorations, it is not really a Mardi Gras party without Mardi Gras. Of course, Mardi Gras is synonymous with New Orleans, and you know what that means: jazz, jazz, jazz! While jazz of all kinds finds its roots in New Orleans, Mardi Gras music is a breed of its own. Whether it is boogieing to some of the most colorful zydeco music you have ever heard or celebrating with old standards like "When the Saints Come Marching In," Mardi Gras music is what getting down and having fun during Mardi Gras is all about.

While lots of jazz can be very cerebral and academic, this is not the case with Mardi Gras music. In every track of the albums of Mardi Gras music that we carry, you can tell just by listening how much fun the musicians themselves were having while they improvised the party music that has become one of the truly unique sounds to originate in America. An American art form onto itself, jazz is one of the great cultural institutions of the United States, and Mardi Gras is when jazz lets its hair to loosen up and just have a good time.

Probably the best known form of Mardi Gras music is zydeco music. Zydeco is really a form of American creole folk music that evolved from the curious but colorful mixture of black musicians in southwest Louisiana who created music of their own by mixing the cultures of the French speaking creoles of the area. A true form of Creole world music, this Mardi Gras music takes the celebratory sounds from musical traditions ranging from diverse roots ranging from Afro-Caribbean music and rock and roll to the blues and waltzes of yesteryear. Mardi Gras music continues to evolve today, as exemplified by the selection of albums that we are proud to carry.