The New Orleans Serenaders performs for Jazz Festivals and concerts. They revisit the repertoire associated with famous jazz pioneers Kid Ory, Louis Armstrong and others, bringing to life musical selections from all phases of their careers such as Ory's Creole Trombone, Cornet Chop Suey, Potato Head Blues, West End Blues, Maple Leaf Rag, Gatemouth, Down Home Rag, Shim-Me-Sha-Wabble, Black Snake Blues, and many more.

Only recently gathered together by Clive Wilson, the members of the Serenaders have a long history of musical friendships and associations going back nearly four decades. Playing with one another many times over the years in jam sessions, concerts, recording sessions, parades and even New Orleans funerals, they have a profound sense of a shared experience and a common love of the New Orleans style music. Most of them spent considerable time during the 1960s and 1970s, their musically formative years, listening to, studying with, and playing with, the living legends of New Orleans jazz.

Although they come from different countries, the Serenaders have played in concerts and jazz festivals on both sides of the Atlantic in recent years, and have been received with critical acclaim.

To purchase CDs by The New Orleans Serenaders visit Jazzology.


"Breathtaking! A remarkable band very sympathetic to Ory's ideals of dynamics and rhythm. The New Orleans spirit of Kid Ory and Louis Armstrong lives in the music of the Serenaders, and one will seldom hear this music performed as well." -The Mississippi Rag

"Superb - totally relaxed and convincing - they play fine original, relaxed jazz with impeccable taste and a rare empathy." -New Orleans Music

"Some idea of how good it is can be gained from the fact that Wilson played Louis's solo from Savoy Blues note for note, inflection for inflection. The band raised the roof at Jazz Ascona." -Jazz Journal

"They are so in tune with one another . . . that they can read each other's musical minds. Freddie John was given ample space to stretch out and on several numbers he was Kid Ory reincarnated." -W. Royal Stokes

"The mix of textures, fresh riffing and inspired ensemble playing on the shifting themes bring an element of surprise to a genre that in lesser musicians' hands can quickly grow stale." -Gambit, New Orleans

The concert was a big hit!! Playing to a full house, the band thrilled the audience with marvelous jazz in the New Orleans style." -Martin Colville (promoter)

"(They) gave enormous pleasure to packed houses. What an all-star cast - very much in the style of the masters. Brilliant." -Just Jazz