New Orleans Cottonmouth Kings

Never heard the New Orleans Cottonmouth Kings before?

🎵 Listen First

"At the Jazz Band Hall"

💿 Then Try

Still Thirsty

🎟 Listen Live

"The New Orleans Cottonmouth Kings dig up the hot jazz songs everyone else forgot, and play them like nobody ever should have."

Why We Love the New Orleans Cottonmouth Kings

Most Frenchmen Street trad jazz bands lean on the same well-worn standards. The New Orleans Cottonmouth Kings go digging instead — six former members of the now-defunct New Orleans Jazz Vipers, unamplified and unbothered, hunting down the more obscure corners of the hot jazz canon and playing them with a style they've described as "tres chaud." No drums, no bass amp, nothing between the band and the room — just clarinet, violin, guitar, bass saxophone, upright bass, and a trumpet-and-vocal lead, swinging as hard as anything on the street. They've been a Frenchmen Street fixture for years, and they sound like it: loose enough to feel like a party, tight enough to know exactly what they're doing.

Biography

Frenchmen Street, Unamplified

The New Orleans Cottonmouth Kings formed from six former members of the New Orleans Jazz Vipers after that band's dissolution, carrying the torch for the same unamplified, no-nonsense approach to traditional New Orleans jazz. The sextet — Charlie Fardella (vocals, trumpet), John Rodli (guitar), Robert Snow (upright bass), Tom Saunders (bass saxophone), Bruce Brackman (clarinet), and Matt Rhody (violin) — built their reputation performing regularly on Frenchmen Street, where many of New Orleans' working musicians make their living moving between two or three bands and venues in a single night.

The band focuses on the more obscure tunes found in the traditional jazz canon rather than the most-played standards, performing songs including "Delta Bound," "Crazy About My Baby," "Nagasaki," "Egyptian Fantasy," "I Wished On the Moon," "Pennies from Heaven," and "I'm Confessing," alongside gospel medleys and other deep catalog selections — all delivered, as one description of the band put it, with a touch of Paris. They have released at least two studio recordings, Still Thirsty and Smokin' Swing from New Orleans.

The Cottonmouth Kings remain regulars at The Spotted Cat on Frenchmen Street, and have expanded their reach with appearances at Snug Harbor Jazz Bistro's Happy Hour Concert Series, presented by the Jazz Foundation of America, as well as regional dates including the Abita Springs Opry and shows in Austin, Texas.