New Orleans Jazz Museum

The New Orleans Jazz Museum was a museum related to the history of New Orleans jazz. Originally a separate museum, the collection is now in the Louisiana State Museum Jazz Collection.

Plans for a museum commemorating New Orleans jazz were begun in the 1950s by a collaborative group of New Orleans jazz collectors and enthusiasts of the New Orleans Jazz Club (founded 1949). Key movers were Edmond "Doc" Souchon, Myra Menville, and Helen Arlt.

The museum opened in 1961, at 1017 Dumaine Street in the French Quarter, with Clay Watson as curator. This location is maintained today as part of the Hotel St. Pierre, including commemorative plaques on the property.

The museum collection includes many instruments used by New Orleans jazz greats, perhaps most famously Louis Armstrong's first cornet.^[1] In 1969 the museum relocated to the Royal Sonesta Hotel. In the early 1970s the Sonesta changed ownership. The museum then relocated in 1973 to 833 Conti Street, but it soon went bankrupt. The collection went into storage and was later donated to the Louisiana State Museum, on September 15, 1977.

In the early 1980s, the Louisiana State Museum's Jazz Collection exhibit opened on the second floor of the New Orleans Mint building under the curatorship of Don Marquis. In addition to the items suitable for exhibiting, the donated collection includes research materials (letters, photographs, and interviews), available to researchers by appointment.

The Old Mint Building was damaged by Hurricane Katrina in August 2005, including some damage to the jazz collection.

As of April 2015, the Jazz Collection exhibits are available for viewing in the Mint building, at 400 Esplanade Avenue. There are plans to establish a Louisiana Music Museum.^[2]

References

Further reading

• New Orleans Jazz: A Family Album, by Al Rose and Edmond Souchon, 3rd Edition, Louisiana State University Press, 1984.

External links

• La. State Museum "History of the Jazz Collection" Accessed 28 Apr 2015.