From Oct. 12-15, Dimitriou’s Jazz Alley salutes 43 years, with free commemorative Jazz Alley ball caps; an anniversary cocktail in a complimentary, limited edition glass; and a $43 New Orleans-themed dinner special (Jazz Alley Gumbo with seafood, chicken and Andouille Sausage, comes with starter salad and Pecan Pie.) On stage all four nights, Crescent City pianist Jon Cleary & the Absolutely Monster Gentlemen will let the good times roll.

Presented by KNKX. Beyond Cleary’s considerable skills as a tunesmith he is equally renowned around the globe as an accomplished keyboardist and guitarist, and a deeply soulful vocalist. Cleary’s thirty-five years of intensive hands-on work on the Crescent City scene has made him a respected peer of such New Orleans R&B icons as Dr. John and Allen Toussaint. Toussaint, in fact, took time from his busy schedule to write most of the horn arrangements for GoGo Juice – thus bringing symmetry to Cleary’s recording of an entire album of Toussaint songs, entitled Occapella, which garnered rave reviews in 2012.

At first glance, it seems entirely reasonable that GoGo Juice, the latest album from Jon Cleary has been nominated for a GRAMMY in the Best Regional Roots Music Album category. When GoGo Juice was released this summer, the New York Times called Cleary "...a singer-songwriter and pianist in tune with the pulse of New Orleans” and the album was cited as “another expert mix of strutting party-starters and beseeching soul anthems, sung in an agreeably raspy voice." American Songwriter’s reviewed the album suggesting, “It’s all about groove married to instantly memorable melodies and ensemble playing on par with anything from the Meters, Dr. John or the Neville Brothers, high praise indeed.”

GoGo Juice was recorded at Dockside Studio in Maurice, Louisiana and in Cleary’s own Funk Headquarters studio in New Orleans’ Bywater neighborhood. The album was produced by John Porter who has worked with B.B. King, Keb Mo, Ryan Adams, Los Lonely Boys, The Smiths and Roxy Music. Porter, who is also English, has numerous GRAMMY-awarded albums to his credit and has been working with Cleary since the late 1990s. GoGo Juice was released this past August on the independent FHQ label. All of the songs in its tunestack were written by Cleary including the evocative “Bringing Back The Home*,” an homage to his adopted city in the post-Katrina era.

Cleary who has just finished a string of dates with guitarist and jazz great John Scofield, expressed great humility regarding GRAMMY recognition for GoGo Juice, commenting, “As someone who moved halfway around the world after leaving school to dive in the deep end of New Orleans R&B, it’s a privilege, half a lifetime and a million gigs later, to be representing the city I love and that's given me so much. Any credit due for this Grammy nomination I’d like to share with the talented musicians who played on the record and I think they’d agree when I say that we're just standing on the shoulders of the giants who came before us here in the city that changed the way popular music is played around the world: New Orleans, Louisiana.”