MMJ, Mos Def, Blind Boys, Allen Toussaint & More to Join Preservation Hall Jazz Band at Carnegie Hall

New Orleans jazz legends Preservation Hall Jazz Band are pleased to announce the special guests that will join them on stage for their 50th anniversary performance.  On January 7^th, 2012 at 8:00pm they will grace the Stern Auditorium / Perelman Stage at Carnegie Hall, with special guests My Morning Jacket, Del McCoury Band, Trombone Shorty, GIVERS, Allen Toussaint, Blind Boys of Alabama, Tao Seeger, & Mos Def.
Tickets for what is bound to be an unforgettable night go on sale December 2^nd and are available at www.carnegiehall.org, by calling CarnegieCharge at 212-247-7800 or at the Carnegie Hall box office at 57^th street and 7^th avenue.

The Preservation Hall Jazz Band has been carrying the distinctive sound of New Orleans jazz around the world on behalf of Preservation Hall, a unique venue that embodies the city’s musical legacy.  With a cast of musicians schooled through first-hand experience and apprenticeship into the music’s historic traditions, the PHJB has served as an irreplaceable, vital link to the earliest days of one of America’s most beloved forms of popular music.

The group manages to evoke the spirits of times past in an ever-evolving modern context that has found them traveling around the world.  Along the way, they have brought in collaborators of all musical stripes to play, honor, and reinterpret America’s first true art form.  The PHJB have played and recorded with artists like Tom Waits, Pete Seeger, Ani DiFranco and My Morning Jacket.  Their most recent collaboration has been with the Grammy-winning bluegrass outfit, the Del McCoury Band, with whom they released a joint album earlier this year titled American Legacies.

The Louisiana State Museum also just launched a major exhibition celebrating Preservation Hall’s 50^th anniversary at the Old U.S. Mint.  Co-curated by Preservation Hall and the Museum, Preservation Hall at 50, tells the story of the venue’s history through artifacts, photographs, film and audio clips, as well as interviews and oral histories.  The exhibit is open now and will run through 2012.