The Dukes of Harlem

Bourbon Street is a live music club at Leidsekruisstraat 6 to 8, a short walk from Leidseplein in the centre of Amsterdam. It opened on 21 September 1990, founded by Ricardo Reeberg and Bert Hendriks, and has kept the same address and the same basic idea ever since. The club is styled after a New Orleans jazz bar, with a large bar, a dance floor and a lounge area, and it puts bands on stage seven nights a week. The venue itself counts its history from 1990 and has marked more than three decades of operation. The programme leans on jazz, blues, soul and funk, with a lot of room for local musicians. Sunday and Tuesday have long been jam session nights, open to anyone willing to step up and play. The Sunday jams were led by Terry Mann, a familiar blues figure in Amsterdam, while the Tuesday sessions passed to another local blues name, Lamar Chase. A typical week also includes cover bands, funk and soul collectives, and Amsterdam groups playing everything from Elvis and Chuck Berry to the Beatles and the Stones. On weekends the club books bands from elsewhere in Europe and the United States. Over the years the stage has also seen bigger names. Dutch artists such as Herman Brood and Hans Dulfer have played here, as have international acts including Sting, Bruce Springsteen, ZZ Top, Joss Stone, Jeff Healey, Tower Of Power, Bobby Kimball of Toto and B.B. King. Those shows were exceptions rather than the rule, and the everyday character of the place is that of a casual beer hall with good live music. It draws tourists in particular, but also locals, students and musicians, and the crowd tends to span ages and nationalities. The late evening start and the sense that the party carries on until you decide to leave are part of its reputation, somewhere between cheesy and charming.