New Orleans was devastated by Hurricane Katrina, but the city's music lives, something French Quarter regulars Coco Robicheaux and the band Tin Men will demonstrate tonight in a benefit concert at Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson.

Robicheaux, lead vocalist and guitarist, will be joined by Dave Easley, a noted pedal steel-guitar player, who appears on Robicheaux's latest album, "Yeah, U Rite," by Spiritland Records.

"We're a force to be reckoned with," Robicheaux said by cell phone as he walked along the streets in Manhattan, where he is staying with a friend after escaping not only Hurricane Katrina, but Rita and Ophelia, too.

Robicheaux, whose heritage is Choctaw and Cajun, writes most of his own music, and he provides his own fanciful description of it as well.

"Techno-swamp, avant-blues," he said, with intonation. "Don't want to be pigeon-holed with anyone else. You tend to get cooped up in those pigeon holes. Can't spread your wings."

While Robicheaux spreads his wings, Tin Men - so named because of the metal that makes up most of the band's instrumentation - does the same. McMurray on guitar and vocals, is joined by the more unusual mix of Matt Perrine on sousaphone and washboard and Chaz Leary on washboard and vocals.

"It's a very full sound. It's very unique. We'll play any music," McMurray said, also by cell phone from New York City where he has lived for a year since leaving New Orleans. "We do Led Zeppelin, we do John Philip Sousa and everything in between ... We just kind of shape it to our will, and it comes out sounding like Tin Men."

Robicheaux, 57, known for keeping a bottle of Tobasco at his side while playing, began performing on the famed Bourbon Street of the French Quarter in New Orleans at age 15 with a drummer and bass player in their 80s.

"We had to play behind a curtain because we were black and white," he said, "and that was upsetting to some people in those times."

Robicheaux has performed throughout the world, but his home base - at least until Katrina crushed and flooded it - was New Orleans, where he not only played the clubs but since 1995, the French Quarter Festival and for 10 consecutive years the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival. His "Louisiana Medicine Man" was named Best Blues Album by a Louisiana Artist in 1998 by Offbeat Magazine. He also has had the distinction of performing with musical legends including Johnny Cash, Gatemouth Brown, Dr. John, John Lee Hooker, Herbie Hancock and James Brown.

New Jersey-born McMurray, who lived in New Orleans 17 years until moving to Brooklyn last October, had continued to keep busy with engagements in the city known as The Big Easy. Among other venues, both he and Robicheaux played monthly at the edge of the French Quarter in the club DBA, owned by Tom Thayer, who grew up in Tivoli and graduated in 1984 from Red Hook High School. It was through Thayer that Raissa St. Pierre, who founded Jazz at Bard along with Sheila Moloney, arranged tonight's concert.

"Tom had a tour he was lining up and thought Bard would be a great place to bring these bands...," Pierre said.

"All our properties fared very well," Thayer wrote in an e-mail. "The same can't be said for the city (of New Orleans). It's a huge mess, and it will be for awhile."

Robicheaux knows the destruction first-hand.

"There's nothing to do there, no one to play for, no hot showers, no gas, no electricity," he said. His 200-year-old house, located on relatively high land in the French Quarter, still stands, but that doesn't tell the whole story.

"My stuff was pretty good, but my way of life was gone, all gone over night," Robicheaux said. "A lot of people lost their lives, their vehicles and their houses. I feel sorry for them."

He and McMurray say their loved ones, including fellow musicians, apparently escaped harm.

"Everybody is fine, but my family is scattered to the winds," Robicheaux said.

In fact, wind is something he had a tough time escaping, not only in Louisiana but in Arkansas, after evacuating Texas to get away from Hurricane Rita - and in South Carolina in a visit to his daughter when Ophelia came knocking. He evacuated three times within three weeks.

"I call it Hurricane 'Kotria,'" he said. "It was like one unending storm."

But Robicheaux sees a clearing in New York City, where he and other displaced New Orleans musicians have been playing.

"They love us in New York City," he said. "We play most every night. They act like they've never heard this kind of music before. They're hungry for it."

McMurray, too, has been jamming with musicians from the Big Easy every Tuesday at Mickey's Blue Room and every Wednesday at the Niagara club, both in the East Village. The gigs not only ease musicians' financial situation - "We pass the hat pretty strenuously." It does much more.

McMurray said many of the musicians had not played for a month by the time they reached New York City.

"People kind of lose their minds if they haven't done this for awhile," he said.

IF YOU GO

WHAT: Jazz at Bard benefit features New Orleans' musicians Coco Robicheaux, Tin Men and Dave Easley.

WHEN: 8 tonight

WHERE: Olin Hall, Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson

DETAILS: Concert benefits the New Orleans Musicians Hurricane Relief Fund, established by Preservation Hall. Reservations or advance ticket purchase recommended.

HOW MUCH: Suggested donation is $20

CALL: (845) 758-7456

ONLINE: Web site: www.bard.edu/jazzatbard; e-mail: jazzatbard@bard.edu

In addition to the Jazz at Bard event today, additional benefits for the victims of Hurricane Katrina have been organized in the area:

* Sunday, 3 p.m., a Mardi Gras parade will step off from the parking lot of the Rosendale Café, 434 Main St., led by The Saints of Swing playing New Orleans-style Dixieland, jazz and down-home blues. The public is invited to join in the second line with instruments, pots, pans and kazoos. Costumes are welcome.

The parade will end at the Rosendale Recreation Center on Route 32, where vocalist Rene Bailey will perform with the Saints of Swing. In addition, there will be special guests, fun for the kid, prizes and a bake sale. Items for the sale can be brought to the recreation center after 1 p.m. the day of the event.

Suggested donation is $10. Money earned will be divided between two organizations - "One Bus, One Town," a grassroots effort to house evacuees of Hurricane Katrina in homes within the Hudson Valley, and the New Orleans Musicians Hurricane Relief Fund, established by Preservation Hall.

For more information, contact organizer Rachel Gatland at musicgivesfocus@aol.com, (845) 661-5624 or (845) 658-9079. For cake information, call (845) 255-4533.

* Oct. 23, 2 to 5 p.m., "The Big Easy Bash," at Rosita's Restaurant, 86 Rondout Landing in Kingston. The event, sponsored by The Ulster County Arts Council, Kingston Rep. Inc. and the city of Kingston, includes a buffet and loads of music, starting off with Cajun Music Hall of Fame inductee Jesse Legé as well as The Bosco Stompers Cajun Band, all from Louisiana.

Among other featured performers are The Kurt Henry Band, The Marc Black Band, The Betty MacDonald Band, Mikhail Horowitz and guests Amy Fradon, Mr. BanJones, Robert Rizzo and Marni Andrews and Rebecca Kappler, Miss Apple Valley.

Money raised will go to Project Heal of Louisiana, which will provide direct aid to artists of all kinds affected by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

Tickets are $25 each. Cash bar is available. For reservations, which are suggested, call (845) 339-9935.

* Sunday at 7 p.m., a benefit concert for hurricane relief takes place at Aquinas Theatre, Mount Saint Mary College, Newburgh. The concert will showcase the talents college students and the community. A benefit for hurricane relief efforts. Donations. (845) 569-3346.

* Sunday from 1 to 9 p.m., a benefit concert for Katrina and Rita victims takes place at Trinity Episcopal Church, Parish Hall, Barclay Heights, Saugerties. The concert of folk, rock, blues, bluegrass and jazz will feature performers from Bard College and the Saugerties High School Band. $6. Proceeds to benefit the American Red Cross for Katrina and Rita survivors.

* Sunday at 4 p.m., a special benefit performance by musicians and composers of the Warwick area takes place at Warwick Reformed Church, 16 Maple Ave., Warwick. Proceeds are to benefit Hurricane Katrina survivors. (845) 986-2043.