New Orleans Jazz Museum at the US Mint

The New Orleans Jazz Museum celebrates jazz in the city where it was born. Housed in the historic Old U.S. Mint, strategically located at the intersection of the French Quarter and the Frenchmen Street live music corridor, the New Orleans Jazz Museum is in the heart of the city’s vibrant music scene. The museum is open Tuesdays-Sundays, 10 am-4:30 pm and is closed Mondays and state holidays. This is run by Louisiana State Museums with some collaboration with the Jazz National Historical Park.

Louis Armstrong’s First Cornet

The museum features a display on the former US Mint as well as the Jazz exhibits. Completed in 1838, the Old U.S. Mint holds the distinct title of being the only mint to have produced both American and Confederate coinage. After the Civil War, the Mint was the only one in the South to reopen, resuming full operations by 1879. In 1909, minting ceased, and the building was used as a federal prison during Prohibition, then by the Coast Guard until the federal government transferred it to the state in 1966. In 1981, the Mint opened to the public as a state museum site.

A coin press in the old US Mint collection

A reviewing table where coins would be inspected

An old bullion cart

The New Orleans Jazz Museum is home to one of the foremost jazz collections in the world. Louis Armstrong’s first cornet, Sidney Bechet’s soprano saxophone, Edward “Kid” Ory’s trombone, George Lewis’ clarinet, Warren “Baby” Dodds’ drum kit, performance costumes, photographs, original manuscripts, historic recordings and rare film footage are among the thousands of irreplaceable treasures stored here, but only a fraction of this collection is on display.

Fats Domino’s piano

Picture in the Jazz Museum of Louis Armstrong’s Hot Five

Mahalia Jackson and Duke Ellington

Current rotating exhibits at the time of our tour included: Pete Fountain: A Life Half-Fast: When Pete Fountain died Aug. 6, 2016, it was not only the passing of an icon, but also the end of the era. This exhibit commemorates the life of Pete Fountain and his contributions to the world of music. Pete Fountain founded and led the Half-Fast Walking Club krewe. The “Half-Fast” is one of the best known marching Krewes that parades in New Orleans on Mardi Gras. The original name was “The Half-Assed Walking Club” and was an excuse to take a “lubricated” musical stroll down the parade route. Pete changed the name under pressure exerted by the parade organizers.

Pete Fountain’s clarinet on display

Women of Note: This exhibit highlights the continuum of females playing jazz in New Orleans from the music’s beginnings in the early 20th century to current jazz trends in the Crescent City (a New Orleans nickname) today. Via photos, instruments, records, and other artifacts, the exhibition features the better known and unjustly more obscure musicians from Lil Hardin Armstrong and Blue Lu Barker through Germaine Bazzle and The Boswell Sisters to Helen Gillet, Meschiya Lake, Marla Dixon, and Aurora Nealand.

Prospect 4: The fourth iteration of Prospect New Orleans’ international art exhibition, Prospect.4 (P.4), brings together 73 artists from North America, Latin America, the Caribbean, Africa, Asia and the European powers that colonized New Orleans, addressing issues of identity, displacement and cultural hybridity within the context of the celebration of the city’s Tricentennial. The theme, The Lotus in Spite of the Swamp, alludes to the city’s unique cultural landscape as a creative force. The artists include Larry Achiampong, Michael Armitage, Satch Hoyt, Rashid Johnson, Darryl Montana, Rivane Neuenschwander, Dario Robleto, Hank Willis Thomas, Peter Williams, and the late Louis Armstrong.

Reel to Real: The Louis Armstrong Collages: Louis Armstrong, nicknamed “Satchmo,” a trumpeter and singer born in New Orleans who went on to become one of America’s most esteemed jazz musicians and – as its cultural ambassador – introduced jazz to the world, was also a visual artist whose creativity is currently on display in Reel-to-Real: Louis Armstrong Collages. A collection of Armstrong’s reel-to-reel tape boxes decorated with his handmade collages are on loan from the Louis Armstrong House Museum in Queens, N.Y., where the trumpeter and his wife Lucille lived from 1943 until his death in 1971. The show includes 28 square tape boxes out of the more than 500-piece collection of boxes and scrapbooks Armstrong created over more than 20 years. His reel-to-reel tapes, recording performances, radio interviews, commentary and other audio, were often gifts to friends and family. Armstrong would glue newspaper clippings, photographs of fellow musicians and movie stars or other ephemera with sentimental quotations onto the box covers.

Louis Armstrong’s murals and reel to reels

Armstrong Reel Number 55

Armstrong Reel 144

Armstrong Reel 99

Armstrong Reel 90

I particularly enjoyed the Prospect 4 exhibit of Darryl Montana, a “Big Chief” of the Mardi Gras Indians, Black Carnival revelers in New Orleans who dress up for Mardi Gras in suits influenced by Native American ceremonial apparel. Collectively, their organizations are called “tribes”. There are about 38 tribes. They range in size from half a dozen to several dozen members. The groups are largely independent, but a pair of umbrella organizations loosely coordinate the Uptown Indians and the Downtown Indians. Mardi Gras Indian suits cost thousands of dollars in materials alone and can weigh upwards of one hundred pounds. A suit usually takes between six and nine months to plan and complete. Each Indian designs and creates his own suit; elaborate bead patches depict meaningful and symbolic scenes. Beads, feathers, and sequins are integral parts of a Mardi Gras Indian suit. Uptown New Orleans tribes tend to have more sculptural and abstract African-inspired suits; downtown tribes have more pictorial suits with heavy Native American influences.

Mardi Gras Indian costumes

Darryl Montana as photographed by Chondra McCormick

Mardi Gras Indians have been parading in New Orleans at least since the mid-19th century, possibly before. The history of the Mardi Gras Indians is shrouded in mystery and folklore. In the early days of the Indians, Mardi Gras was a day of both reveling and bloodshed. “Masking” and parading was a time to settle grudges. This part of Mardi Gras Indian history is immortalized in James Sugar Boy Crawford’s song, “Jock O Mo” (better known and often covered as “Iko Iko”), based on their taunting chants. However, in the late 1960s, Allison Montana, “Chief of Chiefs”, fought to end violence between the Mardi Gras Indian Tribes. He said, “I was going to make them stop fighting with the gun and the knife and start fighting with the needle and thread.” Today, the Mardi Gras Indians are not plagued by violence; instead they base their fights over the “prettiness” of their suits. The New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival began the practice of hiring tribes to appear at the Festival as well. In recent years it has become more common to see Mardi Gras Indians at other festivals and parades in the city.