Oh to have been hiding in these trees a couple of hundred years ago. This is Congo Square in Louis Armstrong Park, where it’s thought the first sounds that could reasonably be described as what would emerge as jazz were heard.
While slavery was abolished slightly later in Louisiana than the rest of the States, N’Awlins had a rather different relationship with its slave population, allowing them Sundays off (no doubt on religious grounds rather than an act of charity) from around 1805, where they were allowed to congregate at Congo Square and sing, dance and play their drums.
I was both pleased and troubled – as I am by much of what
makes America – that there weren’t crowds the day we visited, despite the New
Orleans Jazz Festival and its almost half a million attendees (over seven days)
only half a mile away. There were three small groups with guides but otherwise
it’s just another park doing what parks everywhere do.
Follow it round and there’s a fine statue of Buddy Bolden springing into action with his horn - which Mrs T and I loved – before you get to the big one – Louis Armstrong himself. I imagine many people who live in N’Awlins hate his music the way scousers should hate the Beatles and Swedes should hate Abba – you hear it everywhere all the time every day. It’s now an acquired taste which I acquired some years ago but generally only play in the first three and a half weeks of December.
Nowadays it’s all overshadowed by the Mahalia Jackson Theater for the Performing Arts, which must be an incredibly inspiring environment for any performer fortunate enough to find themselves there. Steve T
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