The rooms in the United States
Basilica Hudson
An 1880 forge and foundry for steel railway wheels on the Hudson River, turned into a non-profit arts centre in 2010 by Melissa Auf der Maur and Tony Stone.
Bishop Museum (Hawaiian Hall)
1889 Romanesque-revival hall built from local lava-stone. Three storeys of prized koa-wood display cases, a full-size sperm-whale skeleton suspended overhead.
Burning Man
A temporary city of about 71,500 people on the Black Rock Desert playa in Nevada, built and burned each year. The next edition, Spellbound, runs 29 August to 6 September 2027.
Carnegie Hall
The 1891 concert hall at 881 Seventh Avenue and 57th Street, New York.
Elsewhere
A five-room venue in a former Bushwick furniture factory at 599 Johnson Ave, Brooklyn, open since Halloween 2017.
Hollywood Bowl
The Hollywood Bowl is an outdoor amphitheatre in a natural canyon in the Hollywood Hills, Los Angeles. It opened in 1922 and has 17,500 seats.
House of Blues New Orleans
French Quarter flagship of the House of Blues chain since January 1994, at 225 Decatur Street. About 1,000 capacity, all ages with a ticket, every show sold through Ticketmaster.
Kingston Mines
Chicago's oldest continuously-operating blues club, open since 1968 in Lincoln Park. Two stages running simultaneously, one rotates while the other plays. Open until 4am.
Merrie Monarch Festival
Most prestigious hula competition in the world. Annual since 1964 the week after Easter, in honour of King David Kalākaua.
Newport Jazz Festival at Fort Adams
George Wein's 1954 jazz festival, the world's first, held inside the granite ramparts of an 1841 coastal artillery fort overlooking Narragansett Bay.
Pappy and Harriet's
Roadhouse and music venue in Pioneertown, California, a 1940s Western film set on the high Mojave above Joshua Tree. Open since 1982, 250-cap room.
Preservation Hall
Preservation Hall is a small jazz room at 726 St Peter Street in the New Orleans French Quarter.
Red Rocks Amphitheatre
Two 300-ft red sandstone monoliths framing a stage at 6,450 ft elevation, west of Denver. A natural amphitheatre 300 million years in the making.
Ryman Auditorium
1892 revival-meeting tabernacle, home of the Grand Ole Opry 1943-1974. Curved pine pews, brick walls, original stage. The Mother Church of Country Music.
Smalls Jazz Club
60-cap basement jazz club on West 10th Street, open since 1994. The most-recorded session room in the New York jazz scene of the past 25 years. SmallsLIVE streams every set.
Terra Blues
Greenwich Village basement blues club on Bleecker Street, open since 1992. Two sets every night, acoustic at 7pm, electric at 10pm. The longest continuous blues residency in New York City.
The Caverns
A 333-ft-deep subterranean amphitheatre in Big Mouth Cave on the Cumberland Plateau. Home of Bluegrass Underground, where stalactites do the reverb work.
The Gorge Amphitheatre
27,500-cap natural amphitheatre carved into the cliffs above the Columbia River Gorge in central Washington State. Opened 1986.
Village Vanguard
Wedge-shaped basement jazz club on 7th Avenue South, opened 1935. 123-capacity. More than 100 live records cut here, Coltrane and Bill Evans among them.
Waikiki Shell
Edwin Bauer's 1956 white concrete clamshell facing 2,400 seated and 6,000 on the lawn in Kapi'olani Park. Diamond Head behind the stage.
Walt Disney Concert Hall
Frank Gehry's stainless-steel origami above Bunker Hill, opened 2003. Minoru Nagata and Yasuhisa Toyota acoustics, Douglas-fir interior, home of the LA Philharmonic.
Planning a trip
Hearing music in the United States
Think in types. Concert halls include Carnegie Hall, the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles and the Ryman in Nashville. Basement clubs cover jazz at Village Vanguard and Smalls, blues at Terra Blues and Kingston Mines in Chicago, and traditional jazz at Preservation Hall in New Orleans, where tickets are sold in advance, one per 45-minute set. Outdoors, Red Rocks, the Gorge in Washington and the Hollywood Bowl suit big nights under open sky, while The Caverns in Pelham, Tennessee, puts bluegrass inside a cave. Hawai'i adds Waikiki Shell, the Bishop Museum and the Merrie Monarch hula festival.
Seasons split the map. Red Rocks runs summer evenings from June to September; the Gorge peaks in July and August; the Hollywood Bowl's 2026 season ran from June to September, and the 2027 season was still unannounced at last check. Newport Jazz Festival takes the first weekend of August, and Burning Man ends on US Labor Day weekend. Halls such as the Walt Disney run September to June. Basilica Hudson's 24-Hour Drone last ran noon to noon on 18 to 19 May 2024, and Merrie Monarch follows Easter by a week. Burning Man tickets are not refundable.
Cities are easy by transit: subway lines serve the New York clubs and Carnegie Hall, the Red Line serves Kingston Mines, and Amtrak reaches Hudson from New York Penn Station in two hours. Red Rocks is 20 miles west of Denver on I-70. The Gorge, Pappy and Harriet's and The Caverns have no public transport, so plan to drive.
FAQ
Questions people ask
What is the best time of year to hear live music in the United States?
It depends on the room. Summer evenings suit Red Rocks, the Gorge and the Hollywood Bowl, while halls such as the Walt Disney Concert Hall run from September to June. Newport Jazz Festival is the first weekend of August.
How do you get to Red Rocks Amphitheatre?
Drive about 20 miles west from Denver along I-70 as far as Morrison, then turn south onto Red Rocks Park Road. Parking at the site is free for concerts, so aim to arrive 90 minutes ahead. On event nights, the Bustang Outrider bus leaves Denver Union Station.
Which jazz clubs in New York City are worth visiting?
The atlas lists Village Vanguard, a 123-capacity basement open since 1935, and Smalls Jazz Club, a 60-capacity basement in the West Village with sets at 7:30pm, 10pm and midnight. Smalls charges per set, while the Vanguard is a cash bar with a two-drink minimum.