Mardi Gras 2023!

Please join us for a  special Tuesday Night Jazz at the Church  Mardi Gras celebration!

Featuring a New Orleans-style parade, concert and party complete with a deluxe pancake supper and New Orleans traditional jazz concert!

Parade begins at 5pm at the Thrifty Foods Plaza (Menzies and Simcoe Streets) and moves down to James Bay United Church where the pancake party begins at 5:30pm in the downstairs hall  (enter off the patio at the back of the building) with live music upstairs and down!

The music continues right along up until the 7pm start of Tuesday Night Jazz at the Church where we tip our hat to the legendary music of the Crescent city!

Pancake supper $6 ($15 for families)

Celebrate Mardi Gras with a day of pancake feasting, community and music as we welcome the season of Lent.

Featuring an All-star cast of musicians including traditional jazz legends Toni Blodgett, Al Pease, Joey Smith, Kelby MacNayr and our very special guest from Vancouver, trombonist Brad Shigeta.

Brad Shigeta relocated to Canada‘s West Coast after 20 years in New York City playing with the likes of the Count Basie Legacy Orchestra and the Duke Ellington Legacy orchestra as well as stints with Eddie Lockjaw Davis, Illinois Jaquette and more!

The last time we held a Mardi Gras parade, it was February 2020, just before the world changed.

Check out the fun, and plan to join us this Tuesday - starting from the Thrifty Foods Plaza at 5pm.

The origins of Mardi Gras can be traced to medieval Europe, passing through Rome and Venice in the 17th and 18th centuries to the French House of the Bourbons. From here, the traditional revelry of "Boeuf Gras," or fatted calf, followed France to her colonies.