New Orleans Jazz NHP at a Glance

The National Park Service is the federal agency charged with the preservation, conservation, and interpretation of America's natural and cultural treasures. Traditionally, the 379 units in the NPS system celebrate the important places, events, and people in our nation's history. Increasingly, the Park Service has taken a deeper look at the intangible resources of American culture that have touches us all. These resources are "cerebral kinds of parks." parks that may be more of a "state of mind," than historic houses, monuments, trees, and animals.

One of these "cerebral parks" is New Orleans Jazz National Historical Park. Early in the park's conceptualization, park planners decided, that if jazz was to be recognized as a national American treasure, then New Orleans, the city associated with the music's birth, was the place to do it and so, in 1994, Congress created the historical park to foster preservation, education, and interpretation of jazz as it evolved in New Orleans while providing visitors with opportunities to hear, see and experience jazz today.

The park has become an active player in the New Orleans jazz scene. It has participated in the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, produced summer concert series in local neighborhoods, provided music education in local schools,conducted jazz interpretation aboard Amtrack passenger trains, and offers a monthly calendar of jazz related public programs including dramatic presentations and historical walking tours, among other things.

Visitors can begin their New Orleans jazz experience at the park's temporary visitor facility at 916 N. Peters Street. Located within the French Quarter, this orientation facility features exhibits, an indoor performance venue and space for public programs. Here visitors can get the latest information on the best places to experience the people, places, events, and stories that are New Orleans jazz.

Park staff continuously works to establish partnerships with organizations involved in jazz history and performance within the city and the state. The partners are as diverse as the city: New Orleans Jazz Commission, Smithsonian Institute, International Association of Jazz Educators, Recording Industry's Music Performance Trust Foundation, neighborhood jazz clubs, schools, city and state agencies, and individual and group jazz musicians. These partnerships assist the historical park in carrying out its mission of identifying historic resources, coordinating educational programs, and promoting a broad range of activities.

Honoring an American Art Form

Most historical parks in the national park system are created to commemorate a battle, a place or a person that played an important role in our nation's history. But in 1994, Congress authorized a new and different park in New Orleans as a national tribute to the uniquely American invention-jazz. The park's purpose is to preserve information and resources associated with the origins and early development of jazz in the city widely recognized as its birthplace.

Telling the Story of Jazz

Using a variety of interpretive techniques designed to entertain as well as educate, the park conveys the jazz story to visitors in programs on site and at various locations throughout New Orleans. Like the music itself, the park's interpretive program is dynamic and full of surprises. Visitors might experience the flavor of jazz at an impromptu jam session in a city park, or at a club in the French Quarter, or even on an Amtrak train between New Orleans and Chicago. The National Park Service sponsors the annual Jazz and Heritage Festival Kid's Tent. Educational inofrmances throughout the local schools are sponsered through a partnership with the New Orleans Musicians Mutual Protective Union Local 174-496 and funded through the Recording Industry's Music Performance Fund.

Coming Attractions

The Visitor Center is currently located at 916 N. Peters, in the French Quarter. In August 1999 New Orleans Mayor Marc H. Morial signed an agreement giving the National Park Service a long-term lease on a complex of five buildings in the City's Armstrong Park (named after famous New Orleans native Louis Armstrong). This complex at the northern edge of the French Quarter will be renovated into a visitors center and headquarters for the national historical park. Work is under way to create a visitor orientation facility with exhibits, performance venues for jazz musicians plus a rneeting/education center.

Preserving Historic Places

Another part of the park's mission is to work with partners such as the New Orleans Jazz Commission, the many neighborhood jazz clubs and the City to preserve historic buildings associated with the rich and colorful history of jazz.

The most prominent of these structures are four buildings in the 400 block of South Rampart Street in downtown New Orleans, which have a direct link to such jazz giants as Louis Armstrong, Buddy Bolden, Sidney Bechet and Jelly Roll Morton. They include Karnofsky’s Store/Morris Music, where seven-year-old Louis Armstrong began working part-time; the Iroquois Theatre, a place where several early jazz greats performed; the Eagle Saloon/ Odd Fellows Hall, scene of music acts and social club meetings and Frank Doroux’s Little Gem Saloon, where both Louis Armstrong and Jelly Roll Morton may have performed. If preserved and restored, the structures could be used for rehearsal halls, music education, exhibits spaces for jazz history and sales of jazz music and memorabilia.