Photographer: Willow Haley

When the music started at the Candlelight Lounge, the token sliver of space between the Tremé Brass Band and and its exuberant audience dissolved within minutes. There was a trombone behind me and a wild tambourine to my left as the song pressed in from all directions. Then, Kenneth Terry threw his head back and sang. For a beat, the room was his. As the music and the people overflowed into the street, the lawns and the houses, I learned that the cramped Candlelight Lounge is anything but small—on Wednesdays, it’s the size of a neighborhood.