The Stooges Brass Band has earned their rank as one of the elite brass bands in New Orleans. The band consistently provides a welcome blast of true New Orleans spirit engaging audiences with their innovative blend of traditional New Orleans brass sounds, contemporary jazz and hip-hop beats.

The Stooges Brass Band has earned their rank as one of the elite brass bands in New Orleans.  The band consistently provides a welcome blast of true New Orleans spirit engaging audiences with their innovative blend of traditional New Orleans brass sounds, contemporary jazz and hip-hop beats.

The Stooges Brass Band has earned their rank as one of the elite brass bands in New Orleans.  The band consistently provides a welcome blast of true New Orleans spirit engaging audiences with their innovative blend of traditional New Orleans brass sounds, contemporary jazz and hip-hop beats.

The Stooges Brass Band has earned their rank as one of the elite brass bands in New Orleans.  The band consistently provides a welcome blast of true New Orleans spirit engaging audiences with their innovative blend of traditional New Orleans brass sounds, contemporary jazz and hip-hop beats.

Gwen Thompkins is a New Orleans-born journalist, writer and first-year PhD student in History at Tulane University. Dr. Randy Sparks is her faculty advisor.

Blues vocalist Irma Thomas was born Irma Lee on February 18, 1941, in Ponchatoula, Louisiana. She was raised in New Orleans, Louisiana, and attended New Orleans’ McDonald 41 public school. Thomas displayed her early vocal talents as a teen. She sang with a Baptist church choir and a gospel quartet at Home Mission Baptist Church. Her very first recording was a school song, which was recorded at Cosmo’s studio with fellow classmates. At the age of eleven, Thomas won The Ritz Theater’s talent night and two years later, she auditioned for Specialty Records.

Terry McMillan was born and raised in Port Huron, Michigan, and discovered her love of literature while shelving books at the local library. She burst onto the literary scene in 1987 with her wildly acclaimed New York Times bestseller Mama, which won the Doubleday New Voices in Fiction award in 1986 and an American Book Award from the Before Columbus Foundation in 1987.