Bourbon Street Parade
song

"Bourbon Street Parade" is a popular jazz song written by drummer Paul Barbarin in 1949. The song is an example of how early marching bands influenced New Orleans jazz. It has become a Dixieland classic and New Orleans Jazz standard.
It is often performed as part of "Second line" parades in New Orleans. This song was originally performed by Paul Barbarin & His New Orleans Jazz Band. The melody of "Won't You Come Home Bill Bailey" can be played simultaneously with "Bourbon Street Parade" and makes a pleasing counterpoint.
From 1954 till the end of his career, "Bourbon Street Parade" was the signature song of every concert of the Chris Barber Jazz Band.
Notable recordings
Louis Armstrong
Lucien Barbarin
Chris Barber
James Chirillo
Harry Connick Jr
Louis Cottrell, Jr
Dukes of Dixieland
Al Hirt
The Hot Sardines
Wynton Marsalis
Preservation Hall Jazz Band
Wilbur de Paris (recorded 1952)
Further reading
Buerkle, Jack; Barker, Danny (1973). Bourbon Street Black. New York: Oxford University Press.
“Bourbon Street Parade” enters the record as song. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Bourbon, Street and Parade can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Object files, edition statements, performance records and contemporary criticism preserve different stages of the work’s history. The source revision retrieved here is dated May 16, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q22043552. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1949, 1954, 1952 and 1973.
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This entry incorporates text from “Bourbon Street Parade” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.