New Orleans Jazz National Historical Park

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

New Orleans Jazz National Historical Park
IUCN Category V (Protected Landscape/Seascape)

Location:	New Orleans, Louisiana, USA
Coordinates:	29°57′47″N, 90°4′5″W
Area:	4 acres (16,000 m²)
Established:	October 31, 1994
Visitation:	40,242 (in 2005)
Governing body:	National Park Service

New Orleans Jazz National Historical Park celebrates the origins and evolution of America’s most widely recognized indigenous musical art form, jazz. The National Park Service leases four acres within Louis Armstrong Park, which is located in the Treme neighborhood of New Orleans, Louisiana. The park has an office and concert venue a several blocks away in the French Quarter.

The park provides a setting to share the cultural history of the people and places that helped shape the development and progression of [azz in New Orleans. The park preserves information and resources associated with the origins and early development of jazz through interpretive techniques designed to educate and entertain.

[edit] Perseverance Hall No. 4

Perseverance Hall

The centerpiece of the site is Perseverance Hall No. 4 (not to be confused with Preservation Hall). Originally a Masonic lodge, it was built by white citizens between 1819 and 1820. It is the oldest Masonic temple in Lousiana. Its historic significance is based on its use for dances, where black jazz performers and bands reportedly played for black or white audiences. Although the building was used for social functions such as weddings and balls where jazz musicians performed, these uses have only been occasionally documented, perhaps because many pertinent masonic records have been destryoyed. During the early 1900s some bands, such as the Golden Rule Band, were barred from appearing at Perseverance Hall, apparently because management considered them too unidignified for the place. Various organizations, both black and white, rented Perseverance Hall for dances, concerts, Monday night banquets, and recitals. The building also served as a terminal point for Labor Day parades involving white and black bands. During the 1920s and 1930s, well past the formative years of jazz, various jazz bands played there.^[1]

Perseverance Hall was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on October 2, 1973. The entire National Historical Park was adminstratively listed on the Register on the date of its authorizaton, October 31, 1994.