The sounds of New Orleans are a mix most people don't notice until they leave: the streetcar bell on St. Charles, the steam calliope on the Natchez, a brass band warming up somewhere you can't see, freight trains along the river, and cicadas so loud in summer they drown out the air conditioner. Locals stop hearing it. Then they move away and miss it in a way that's hard to explain.
We printed a shirt about this. It says Listen To Your City, and Scott Campbell's design is basically a request: put down the pen, close the laptop, pocket the phone, and pay attention. So here's a field guide to what you're listening for.
The Streetcar Bell
The St. Charles line has been running since 1835, which makes it the oldest continuously operating street railway in the world, as we wrote in our history of the line. The olive green Perley Thomas cars date to 1923 and 1924.
What you hear first is the bell. Then the rumble, then the squeal of steel on steel as a car takes the curve near Carrollton. If you live on or near the avenue, it's how you know what time it is. After Katrina, the line didn't return to full service until December 2007, and for a long stretch, as our streetcar post put it, St. Charles Avenue was silent.
The Calliope on the Natchez
Stand anywhere near the riverfront in the French Quarter and at some point you'll hear what sounds like a circus organ being played by a steam engine. That's because it is. The Steamboat Natchez, built in 1975 at Bergeron Shipyards in Braithwaite, carries a steam calliope that can play 32 notes, according to Wikipedia's entry on the boat.
It's loud, which is the whole point. A calliope is built to be heard from shore. We wrote more about the boat in our Steamboat Natchez post.
A Second Line Coming Down the Block
You usually hear a second line before you see it. A tuba first, from blocks away. Then everything else at once.
On Sundays from late summer through spring, social aid and pleasure clubs parade through their neighborhoods with brass bands, and 64 Parishes describes those parades as rooted in the city's benevolent societies and jazz funerals. If you've never been to one, start with our explainer on what a second line is.
Brass Practice
This one doesn't make the guidebooks. Walk around parts of the city on a weekday afternoon and you may hear a high school band drilling for the next parade, or a single trumpet running the same phrase over and over on a porch. It's not a performance. It's somebody getting ready for one.
Several of the city's best-known brass bands started out as kids practicing. Rebirth, for one, came out of Joseph S. Clark Senior High School in Treme in 1983, according to Wikipedia. Our Brass Band Enamel Pin is a small salute to every kid hauling a sousaphone case to the bus stop.
Train Horns
Freight trains run right through the city, along the river and across it. The New Orleans Public Belt Railroad, formally established in 1900 and a subsidiary of the Port of New Orleans since 2018, runs about 26 miles of mainline track, according to Wikipedia, and owns the Huey P. Long Bridge. At night, especially Uptown near the river, the horns carry farther than you'd expect. Newcomers complain about them for a month. Then they start falling asleep to them.
Cicadas, and Everything Else in Summer
From about June on, the trees get loud. Cicadas in the afternoon, frogs after a storm, rain drumming on a tin awning, the hum of window units up and down the block. Add the thunder that rolls in most summer afternoons and you've got the city's least glamorous soundtrack, and one of the most honest. We wrote a whole post about the humidity that comes with it.
The Radio Is Part of It Too
If there's one sound that ties all of it together, it's WWOZ 90.7. The station went on the air Dec. 4, 1980, and for a while broadcast from an apartment above Tipitina's, sometimes lowering a microphone through a hole in the floor to catch the band downstairs, as we wrote in our WWOZ post. Today it's on 90.7 FM and streaming at wwoz.org. Our WWOZ Listen to Your City shirt is for the people who stream it from a thousand miles away because it sounds like home.
Sounds of New Orleans: FAQ
What does New Orleans sound like?
Brass bands and second lines, the St. Charles streetcar bell, the Natchez steam calliope on the river, freight train horns at night and loud summer cicadas. WWOZ 90.7 FM is often playing underneath all of it.
What is the music coming from the riverboat in New Orleans?
That's usually the steam calliope on the Steamboat Natchez. It's an organ-like instrument powered by steam, and the Natchez's calliope can play 32 notes.
Where can I hear street music in New Orleans?
Sunday second lines during parade season are the most traditional place, and they're free. Musicians also play on Royal Street and Frenchmen Street, and WWOZ's Livewire calendar lists club shows every night.
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