History of New Orleans

The city's reputation as a place of debauchery was sealed early at the end of the last century by a place whose one-word name still resonates 100 years later: Storyville. Proposed by Alderman Sidney Story, the district was designed to halt the spread of prostitution throughout the city. The result was a rollicking red-light district that was a home not only to prostitutes, but also to musicians who would become some of the city's most famous. It also spawned the famous series of photographic portraits by E.J. Bellocq, and was the birthplace of the song "Pretty Baby," by pianist Tony Jackson. Its end came in 1917, when the Navy Department decided it was more important to make war, not love. At the Navy's insistence, the district was shut down to avoid spreading venereal diseases among servicemen shipping out of New Or leans to fight in Europe.

Mardi Gras happens every year, but it's never on the same exact date. It's always 47 days before Easter, and that date is celebrated on the first Sunday after the full moon that follows the spring equinox. Plan to come to Mardi Gras at your first opportunity:

February 5, 2008 February 24, 2009
February 16, 2010 March 8, 2011
February 21, 2012 February 12, 2013
March 4, 2014 February 17, 2015
February 9, 2016 February 28, 2017
February 13, 2018 March 5, 2019
February 25, 2020 February 16, 2021
March 1, 2022 Febraury 21, 2023
Febraury 13, 2024 March 4, 2025
Febraury 17, 2026 Febraury 9, 2027

Buddy Bolden


Louis Armstrong


Sidney Bechet


Ellis Marsallis


Wynton Marsallis


Branford Marsallis


Harry Connick, Jr.


In the late 19th century, while the rest of America was stomping their feet to military marches, and New Orleans was dancing to VooDoo rhythms.

New Orleans was the only place in the New World where slaves were allowed to own drums. VooDoo rituals were openly tolerated, and well attended by the rich as well as the poor, by blacks and whites, by the influential and the anonymous. It was in New Orleans that the bright flash of European horns ran into the dark rumble of African drums; it was like lightning meeting thunder. The local cats took that sound and put it together with the music they heard in churches and the music they heard in barrooms, and they blew a new music, a wild, jubilant music. It made people feel free. It made people feel alive! It made people get up and dance. And they danced to the birth of American music. And nobody played it like they played it in New Orleans, a city already used to feeling jubilant, and expressing its jubilation. A city where you could dance down the middle of the street, in the middle of the daytime, in the middle of the week, and instead of people wondering why you weren't at work, they'd be wondering how they could join you. The glory of New Orleans is that it's still that way today. Everyone loves a parade. Everything is touched by the joyous anarchy called New Orleans Jazz. And everybody's middle name is "Celebrate."

Since it is now the 21st century, we think it's about time for the First City of Jazz to start celebrating the First Century of Jazz, and we'd like to start by inviting you. If you've never been to New Orleans, don't miss this one. If you've been to New Orleans, you know what we mean. It's perfectly clear where Jazz began, even the historians agree on that one. What is not so clear, however, is when it began. Or who began it.

Some will say that Jazz was born in 1895, when Buddy Bolden started his first band. Others will say 1917, when Nick LaRocca and his Original Dixieland Jazz Band recorded the first Jazz record, "Livery Stable Blues." Ferdinand "Jelly Roll" Morton said, "It is evidently known, beyond contradiction, that New Orleans is the cradle of Jazz, and I myself happen to be the inventor in the year 1902." Jazz, of course, is not an invention. It's alive. It grows, it dies, it changes, it stays the same. Jazz is to American music what the Mississippi is to America, and just as many rivers feed into the Mississippi, music (and musicians) from many cultures came together in the creation of Jazz. And they came together in perhaps the only place in the world where it could have happened, a place where multi-culturalism was, and is, embedded in the fabric of everyday life: New Orleans. Possibly, the earliest noted use of African rhythms coupled with European "classical" music was "La Bomboula-Danse Negre" composed by Louis Moreau Gottschalk in 1847. Gottschalk's father was a Jewish doctor who moved to New Orleans from England. His mother was French and a native New Orleanian. He grew up in the French Quarter, barely two blocks from Congo Square, which was the center of VooDoo drumming and dancing in New Orleans.

More evidence of early Jazz was produced by Papa Jack Laine's band in New Orleans circa 1885 when it was noted that he played with a "ragged time," which meant the musicians were playing variations on the tempo to make it "swing." Irishman Papa Jack Laine's Reliance Brass Band was the training ground for many of the musicians, white, black and creole, who went on to pioneer Jazz in their own ensembles. Louis "Papa" Tio, a contemporary of Papa Jack Laine's, was a native New Orleanian of Mexican and Creole descent. He was a consummate clarinetist, and a consummate clarinet teacher as was his famous brother, Lorenzo Tio, Sr., and even more famous nephew, Lorenzo Tio, Jr.

Together, the Tio family influenced a generation of young musicians, opening them up to syncopated Latin rhythms. Papa Tio taught, among others, the great Sidney Bechet, and the Baquet brothers, Achille and George. George Baquet founded the Excelsior Brass Band, composed of black musicians. He also played with the creole-of-color bands, such as Manuel Perez's Imperial Orchestra and the Original Creole Orchestra. He worked with Buddy Bolden and recorded with Jelly Roll Morton. Achille Baquet was an excellent saxophonist as well as clarinetist. He played mainly with white bands: in New Orleans, with Papa Jack Laine's Reliance Brass Band, and in New York, with Jimmy Durante's Original New Orleans Jazz Band. Achille's choice to play music, passant blanc (passing for white), was not unusual for the time. Besides Achille on clarinet, Papa Jack Laine's band included Dave Perkins on trombone, another blue-eyed musician of black descent, who also played with Buddy Bolden. Although it's not certain if Bolden ever played with Laine, it's safe to say that he heard and was influenced by Laine, just as Laine was most likely influenced by Bolden. Nick LaRocca played with Papa Jack Laine, as did all the members of his Original Dixieland Jazz Band. LaRocca's heritage was Sicilian. His father was a cornet player in Sicilian marching bands, which have, interestingly, the same instrumentation as New Orleans brass marching bands, and they also share the tradition of performing at funerals. It's both possible and probable that Nick LaRocca heard, and was influenced by Buddy Bolden, who had the most popular black band at the turn of the century. Willie G. "Bunk" Johnson, another early cornet player, claimed, "King Bolden and myself were the first men that began playing Jazz in the city of dear old New Orleans." And then along came the most famous of them all, Louis Armstrong, who had this to say in his autobiography, "The first great jazz orchestra was formed in New Orleans by a cornet player named Dominic James LaRocca. They called him "Nick" LaRocca. His orchestra had only five pieces, but they were the hottest five pieces that had ever been known before." These are just some of the names of the progenitors of the Jazz idiom, but who really was the first to play Jazz? For all of the passionately-held theories, the only really accurate answer is New Orleans.

Jazz wasn't born on a particular day, it was created over a period of time. It wasn't just one person or one race that was responsible for creating it. It was a meeting, and mixing, of the essences and emotions of many people, of many cultures. When circumstances are right and a variety of influences come together to create something special, when many flavors combine to make a new taste that is greater than the sum of its spices, we have a name for it down here: we call it gumbo. And just like Jazz, nobody makes gumbo like we make it in New Orleans.

View of the French Quarter at Night


New Orleans Steamboat


New Orleans Superdome


French Quarter


Bourbon Street


New Orleans Swamps


Mardi Gras

New Orleans Seafood Dishes

Famous New Orleans Drinks

Seafood Gumbo New Orleans Style - I will put my recipe here. This is just a tempting picture to get your mouth watering. This is one of our favorite dishes.

Creamy Pralines
Creole spelling and pronounciation for Pralines- (praw-leen)

The sweetest of sweets, this New Orleans tradition is a candy patty made of sugar, cream and pecans

3/4 cup of brown sugar
3/4 cup of white sugar
1/2 cupf evaporated milk
1 tablespoon butter
1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup of pecan halves

Combine sugar and milk in saucepan and bring to a boil. Lower heat and cook until a small amount forms to make a soft ball when dropped into cold water. You will need to keep stirring while waiting for it to form the soft ball stage. Make sure the water is ice cold the ball will form better. And when you can roll the mixture into a ball form it is good for you to remove from the fire. Add butter, vanilla and pecans using a big spoon beat until it is creamy. Remember that you want to be able to drop them onto wax paper. A good way to test and make sure you have
beaten it enough is when you see the mixture gets creamy and hard to beat. Then drop by spoonfuls onto wax paper. Cool!!!
If you want to make chocolate pralines, add hersheys cocoa in the brown can. If you like coconut make sure you get coconut and use only white sugar. I add
to mines some rum or amaretto flavoring. They are so yumming!!! These pralines are a request around the holidays from my family especially my husband and children. Enjoy!!!!!

Sweet Pralines bubbling in an old copper pot. The click-clack of a horse-drawn carriage on a cobblestone street. Jazz drifting from an ancient doorway. The rich taste of gumbo. The first bite of a hot, fresh beignet. The smell of sweet pralines still warm from the kitchen. These are the sights, sounds and flavors that make up New Orleans. This is what the founders of Aunt Sally's® Pralines wanted to share with the world.

Pierre and Diane Bagur were both second generation New Orleanians of French Creole descent with a vision to share the mystique of their hometown, New Orleans. In the early 1930's, they opened their first shop in the French Quarter. The store resembled a log cabin and they selected their merchandise to remind visitors of the city's charms, rich history and delights. Among these items were the unique Creole candies called "pralines." With the help of talented candymakers, the Bagurs developed their own delicate version of New Orleans' signature candy, which they made over a gas stove in a copper pot, hand-pouring praline after praline onto marble surfaces. The pralines at Aunt Sally's® Praline Shop are made the same way today.

The Saints were admitted into the NFL at a league meeting held on November 1, 1966. That day also happened to be the Roman Catholic Holiday All Saints Day, New Orleans ownership felt it was only natural to call them the Saints for the day they were born on.

Logo:
A gold Fleur-du-lis a French symbol, used to represent the large numbers of French Colonist that settled in Louisiana.


Colors:
Black
Gold