Music Pictures: New Orleans

Music Pictures: New Orleans gives us legacy portraits and a rare backstage access into the lives and craft of four New Orleans music legends: Irma Thomas, Little Freddie King, Ellis Marsalis, and The Tremé Brass Band. Now in their 80s, these local masters continue their practice, for the love of the music, in the city that made them who they are.

Thomas, a Grammy-winning vocalist known as “The Soul Queen of New Orleans,” has recorded cult classics with James Brown, Allen Toussaint and Swamp Dogg. But she never enjoyed the same degree of international fame of her contemporaries like Aretha Franklin. Jones is the founder of the world renowned Tremé Brass Band and a fixture in the New Orleans jazz community. King is one of the last original bluesmen who at the age of 81 still performs live. Marsalis - father of internationally acclaimed musician, composer and bandleader Wynton Marsalis - is the patriarch of the famed jazz family who helped found the modern jazz scene in the 1950s. 

Music Pictures: New Orleans follows these four artists one by one as they rehearse, perform and talk about their lives as it celebrates 100 years of New Orleans musical history with rare historical footage and testimonies.

Directed by Ben Chace, 2022, USA, 72 Min, Documentary, English

"Music Pictures: New Orleans is a pleasantly entertaining, early 2020s snapshot of four influential artists in blues and jazz." - Culture Mix

"Sometimes if you’re tired of documentaries that try to push a one-sided political message, a musical documentary can fix that. The documentary Music Pictures: New Orleans is an insightful documentary of a town with a century of a music legacy." ~ Jon The Blogcentric.org

" Music Pictures: New Orleans is a great documentary showcasing musicians, both individuals and groups, and how their sound has an impact not only on the sounds of New Orleans but on musical genres as a whole. It’s as much about its past legacy as it is about its present and future." ~ Jon The Blogcentric.org