Sam Friend photographed by Kaitlin Hanrahan
This balcony show has been moved inside due to inclement weather.
Sam Friend will perform at The New Orleans Jazz Museum's Balcony Courtyard concert series on Tuesday, November 15th at 5:00 PM CDT. Bring your blanket! Seats are not provided for outdoor programs.
Enjoy jazz music from home with the New Orleans Jazz Museum! Join the Jazz Museum online for their weekly Courtyard Live-Stream Concert Series, in which dynamic jazz musicians perform live from the Jazz Museum’s balcony! Tune in every Tuesday at 5 pm on facebook.com/nolajazzmuseum/live to watch for free.
Sam Friend
Sam Friend is a singer-songwriter, guitarist, banjoist, composer, arranger, and bandleader known for his command of the blues, rock, funk, and traditional jazz. Based in New Orleans and hailing from New Rochelle, N.Y. He interned at Jazz at Lincoln Center and received a degree in musical composition from Amherst College, composing and performing a 40-minute jazz suite, “The One of Us,” for 40 musicians, including big-band, nonet, and acapella. In 2012, Friend co-founded the New Orleans Swamp Donkeys Traditional Jazz Band with trumpet player and vocalist James Williams, also featuring Wes Anderson IV (Quad) on Tuba, Jon Ramm on Trombone, and Joshua "Jams" Marotta on Drums. The band gained renown at the New Orleans Jazz Fest and at jazz festivals around the world, including North Sea, Ascona, Vitoria-Gasteiz, Le Sporting Monte-Carlo, and the Edinburgh Blues and Jazz Festival.
The band has released two albums (Swamp Donkey, Donkey Business), sold out New York's Blue Note and B.B. King's, and created a viral "Game of Thrones" video, which has drawn over 1 million viewers. During the summer of 2014, Friend was a guest on Michael Feinstein’s NPR program, “Song Travels.” His compositions have graced NCIS: New Orleans, CBS’s “The Early Show,” and VanityFair.com. Friend has toured with Soul Brass Band, Irvin Mayfield, and the New Orleans Jazz Orchestra, and has played and recorded with Trombone Shorty, James "12" Andrews, the Treme Brass Band, the late Travis "Trumpet Black" Hill, and the Red Hot Brass Band among a variety of other local talents. You can find him sharing the stage with a plethora of revered musicians throughout New Orleans and New York.