Holiday Inn New Orleans

Louis Armstrong's New Orleans and 4 Top Jazz Places

Louis Armstrong’s birthday is this week, Thursday, Aug. 4. But were it not for the late Tad Jones, jazz history would be off by 13 months. Jones was the local jazz researcher who made the discovery that Louis Armstrong was wrong about the date he gave for his birth. Armstrong had claimed he was born on July 4, 1900 - certainly a festive date with a nice round number. Jones, however, located Armstrong's baptismal records at Sacred Heart church on Canal Street and discovered that the infant Satchmo actually made his debut on August 4, 1901.

Having a true birth date for Jazz’s greatest figure is significant, because so much else about the music’s history is uncertain.

Both the city and the music would profit if an exact place and time where jazz was born could be pinpointed. European tourists would head our way to see such a shrine. Japanese visitors would anxiously bring pictures back home. But there was no big bang moment for jazz; it just evolved over years. Attempts in 1995 to declare that year as the jazz centennial and to canonize Buddy Bolden as the music’s founder were premature and inexact. Jazz, for which Bolden was part of the evolutionary process, did not even have a name until 1916.

Armstrong, however, provides something solid, something documentable. Unfortunately, few places from his childhood still stand, but at least the locations are known. The site of the home on Jane Alley where he lived as an infant is now part of the garage complex for the main police station. The Perdido Street home where he grew as an adolescent would have been right across the street from the front entrance of City Hall.  Anyone stepping onto Duncan Plaza from the front steps of City Hall would be walking through the sites of of Armstrong's youth. Nearby South Rampart Street was part of the playground where the young Armstrong rambled, got in trouble, and heard music. Some buildings from his day still stand - though barely.

Yet there are places in town that pay proper homage to the music, an indication that while the city may have been a negligent parent, it still loves the child.

Here’s my short list of some local jazz spots worth appreciating:


• Hogan jazz Archive - Tulane University. If you’ re really, really serious about the music this is the spot for research and to perhaps make your own discoveries. The place is an epicenter of Jazz scholarship.


• Holiday Inn Downtown-Superdome - 330 Loyola Avenue. A walk through the parking area and the lobby should be required of all New Orleanians. The walls have been painted with murals depicting the early jazz scene that thrived within walking distance along S. Rampart Street. Glance at the neighborhood, stare at the murals and visualize what used to be. The clarinet painted on the side of the building captures the spirit of this place. If the imagination is working right, you can almost see an impish young Armstrong scampering by.

The Unofficial Guide to New Orleans

Toll-Free Phone Book USA 2006, A Directory of Toll-Free Numbers for Businesses and Organizations Nationwide

New Orleans for Dummies

Fodor's New Orleans 2009

Frommer's New Orleans 2004