Jazz hands!

Inner Journey


The Jazz museum was on the itinerary for today. I love music. I was looking forward to learning about the different types of artists that were good enough to be put in the museum. New Orleans is full of a variety of musicians that are extremely talented. There were four rooms in the museum that had different artists and their different instruments they played that made them famous. One room was dedicated to Professor Longhair. I had never heard of him. He was a piano player and singer who became famous for banging the ivory and song writing. The way he would play and create music was innovative and people loved the complexity that he brought to the music world. While walking around and looking at the different artifacts and photos on the wall, I stumbled upon a video interview of him. In the video he was explaining how he would garbage pick pianos as a boy and fix them. By doing this, he was able to learn how the put the piano together and how the keys make the sound. It was fascinating to hear the way he would create the different sounds and make it look easy. There was another room that was dedicated to an artist by the name of Louis Prima. it was very nice to see a picture of him and to hear songs that he recorded. On our tour of the city, the guide played a song by Louis Prima and it piqued my interest in him. The room dedicated to him was very big and bright. The first thing that I saw when I walked in was a short documentary of his life. In it, his wife and daughter speak about the kind of man he was. It showed him singing and playing with his band at the many different venues that he was featured at. When the British invasion came Louis's style of music was becoming obsolete, in order to stay relevant and keep making money, he became a figure in world of Las Vegas. He is mostly known for singing the song that King Louis sings in the movie "The Jungle Book", but he really was one of the most well-known artists to sing and play jazz and swing music. In his gallery, there were two letters addressed to him. One from Bing Crosby and one from Frank Sinatra. Both letters were thank you letters for something nice that Louis had done for them. In the back of the room there was a little recording studio that we could sing one of his songs in and then learn how to do a swing dance. It was very interactive and a lot of fun.






Proffesor Longhair











Louis Prima, Keely Smith, & Elvis Presley




Outer Journey




The Jazz museum is located on the corner of a city block across from the outdoor market. The building is a very large brick building with a black iron fence surrounding it and cypress trees that line the streets. The building is where the old U.S. Mint used to function. The doors to the building have large bars on them and upon entering, the building opens to a grand foyer with marble walls and staircases on both sides. The jazz museum features the artists on the second story. We entered the building around one o'clock in the afternoon. The sun shone brightly through the large vertical windows and reflected blindingly off the white walls. Each room was set up with either a different artist or by the types of instruments that were played. The drum room featured nothing other than drums and the artists that were awesome at playing them. There were showcases of base drums, snare drums, cymbals, and African drums. The African drum looked like a tall bongo and had antelope hide stretched over the top. The sides still had fur while the top was smooth from being played for decades. The faint hum of different beats lingered in the air, in an otherwise silent room. Another room had the baby grand piano that "Fats" Domino played along with the trumpet of Louis Armstrong. This room was particularly small. Only the piano and the trumpet were featured along with the story of how the piano was ruined when Hurricane Katrina struck. The restoration for this piano was pain staking slow and tedious. Due to the amount of water damage, physical damage and mold, the piano had to be completely taken apart. It was then cleaned, reassembled, and painted again. The piano was an eggshell white color and looked brand new. It was angled and braced to the wall. Metal surrounded it with a small black and white sign that read "Do Not Touch". This room was filled with palpable silence. I could hear my own heartbeat while walking the twenty steps it took to go through. After this I walked back out onto the sun-soaked stair case with music in my heart and curiosity in my head.