Later than you think

Or maybe earlier than you would have expected previously...

For more than 20 years, trumpeter Kermit Ruffins’ weekly Thursday gig at Vaughan’s in Bywater has served as a dependable, and popular, late-night music option. At Vaughan’s and elsewhere, he embodied the start late, finish even later ethos of New Orleans music.

But no more. In the coming weeks, Ruffins intends to start and end most local performances much earlier in the evening.

“I’ve been thinking about this for a long time,” he said Thursday. “If I can play all those shows earlier, I could be in bed by midnight. So I’m trying to get my fans on board with this.”

Effective Dec. 1, he plans to fire up at Vaughan’s at 7 p.m., and call it a night by approximately 10. His two or three monthly appearances at the Blue Nile on Frenchmen Street will also be 7 to 10 p.m.

At Rock ‘n’ Bowl, where Ruffins generally performs at least twice a month, the change will be more gradual. At first, instead of 9:30 to 12:30, he’ll shift to 9 to midnight. “If our audience stays with us, we’ll go 8:30 to 11:30,” said Tom Thompson, Ruffins’ longtime manager. “We’ll wean them off late-night.”

Everyone gets old, I guess.