Big Joe Kennedy ~ A Taste of New Orleans

Name: Big Joe Kennedy ~ A Taste of New Orleans
Start: 2026-11-10T19:00:00-0800
End: 2026-11-10T21:00:00-0800
Location: The Back Room

Tue, Nov 10, 7pm - 9pm PST

The Back Room

Berkeley CA, United States

The Back Room

4424 followers · Contact host

Description

Big Joe Kennedy is a New Orleans pianist, bandleader, and performer known for concert experiences that are as musically rich as they are audience-engaging.

Rooted in the blues and jazz scenes of Milwaukee and Chicago, Kennedy earned a graduate degree in performance in Las Vegas before relocating to New Orleans in 2009. He served as pianist with the Dukes of Dixieland from 2013 to 2022, performing for audiences across the country, and remains a fixture at premier New Orleans venues including Mahogany Jazz Hall, The New Orleans Jazz National Historical Park, and The Carousel Lounge.

His concert program, A Taste of New Orleans, guides audiences through the traditions that shaped American music, from Traditional Jazz and Blues, to New Orleans R&B, with the authority and warmth of an artist who has spent decades inside this music.

Tickets are $20 in advance, $25 at the door general admission; $15 for students with ID. Children under 12 are free. Advance tickets are available here, or if the show is not sold out, you may purchase your tickets at the door before the show.

Doors open 30 minutes before show time. We accept cash or Venmo only at the door.

The Back Room is an all-ages, BYOB (for those 21+) space, dedicated to (mostly) acoustic music of all kinds. You are welcome to bring your own food and beverages. The venue is ADA accessible. If you need more information or have any questions, please call us: #510-381-1997.

To join our mailing list, please click here.

Please refrain from using your phone during performances, and if you use your camera or video, please disable the flash.

Although masks are no longer required, we strongly encourage their use to keep everyone safe in our intimate space.

Thank you for your support!

Tickets for good, not greed Humanitix dedicates 100% of profits from booking fees to charity

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The Back Room

4424 followers

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When, as a young man in 1981, Sam Rudin moved from his native Philadelphia to the East Bay, he quickly fell in love with the Freight & Salvage, Berkeley’s quirky little 87-seat concert hall.

Filled with comfortable thrift store furniture and an informal ambience of appreciative attentiveness, the Freight was a perfect fit for performers of modest renown and acoustically-based music.

As a solo (albeit high-energy) pianist, Sam’s music fit the bill, and the Freight became Sam’s home base. In the absence of other Freight-like rooms, Sam turned his solo performer attention to the outdoor fair and festival circuit, and later started the jazz/blues band Hurricane Sam & the Hotshots.

Now, maybe it’s all the energy he put into becoming a master piano teacher, or maybe the fair and festival circuit just doesn’t have the right ingredients to nurture a high-profile career. Whatever the reason, despite critical acclaim, four CD’s, and a whole bunch of happy audiences, years later Sam was still a performer of modest renown, and he missed that great little room.

As the Freight grew and expanded, ultimately arriving at the gorgeous 420 seat theater that it occupies today, Sam started to feel that maybe it was up to him to recreate that wonderful small space. No longer a young man, it would be his late-life adventure.

Eventually, he found the perfect spot: a beautiful space with brick walls and vaulted wood ceilings right by the Arts District in downtown Berkeley. As of April 2016, it is open for business, complete with the requisite thrift store furniture.

The space is actually the back room of a larger building, so of course it is called The Back Room, and the tag line on its logo says it all – “an intimate place for music.”

The site, at 1984 Bonita Ave., also functions as Sam’s teaching studio, so if you’re looking for “The Piano Lessons You’ve Always Wanted,” now you know where to find them.