Travel and Adventure by Various Travel Authors

By Steve Bergsman

Our guide, Nita Hemeter, had it all organized: We would tour New Orleans' historic music spots while she played appropriate music on her iPod. The idea worked well at the start, and we set off down Bourbon Street to the sounds of traditional New Orleans jazz.

Then somewhere after the site of the old French Opera House, now the Inn on Bourbon, the iPod, died. The music we would be hearing over the next hour or two would be in our heads.

Hemeter plays in a traditional jazz band called Some Like It Hot, and in the summer months she runs the New Orleans Traditional Jazz Camp. When she's not doing all that, she's a tour guide specializing in the music history of New Orleans.

My wife and I met her at Preservation Hall in the heart of the French Quarter, which is a fitting venue for the start of a music tour. Today it's the most well-known venue for jazz in the city.

Preservation Hall sounds like a grand auditorium, but it's not. It's a small room off the entryway to a courtyard. A diminutive bandstand looks out to a few rows of seating. It is dark, dingy and still the hottest jazz spot in town. The musicians who play here play traditional New Orleans jazz, which has its roots in the late 19th century. Anyone wanting to hear "When the Saints Go Marching In" will have to pay an extra $2. That's how tired the musicians are of playing it.

Preservation Hall was established in 1961 to preserve traditional jazz, the popularity of which had been surpassed by swing and then bebop. One of the most interesting facts about the courtyard is that it was featured in Elvis Presley's movie, "King Creole."

A walk down Bourbon Street reveals a music club featuring Chris Owens, a local women famous for wearing burlesque outfits and singing the blues. She seems to be ageless, but trumpeter Al Hirt played in her band some 50 years ago.

Bourbon Street is still home to some of the best bar bands in the country, but they tend to play endless renditions of "Sweet Home Alabama" or "Brick House." A better bet is to watch the weekend carnival on the street.

More interesting to me was the house 828 St. Louis St., which is one of three New Orleans residences said to be the house of ill repute featured in the song "House of the Rising Sun." Coincidentally, the house across the street was once Al Hirt's residence.

New Orleans has a long history of successful prostitution businesses, and at the turn of the last century, some of the biggest, most modern establishments were the houses where these women worked. They often featured other forms of entertainment, such as a rollicking piano man or a small jazz band. Jelly Roll Morton and Tony Jackson got their starts in these infamous places.

For a period of time, the houses of ill repute were centered in one area of town called Storyville. It is said that Louis Armstrong played here as a teenager. In May Baileys on Dauphin Street (now part of the Dauphin Orleans Hotel), the small bar is an homage to those interesting businesses. The glory days were recorded by photographer Ernest Bellocq, whose house — which was also the residence of New Orleans' last madam, Norma Warren — can be found at 1026 Conti St.

A walk across Rampart Street and out of the French Quarter leads to Our Lady of Guadalupe church, which is the oldest church structure in the city.

Song luminaries such as Mahalia Jackson and Aaron Neville have sung here.

Out the back door and across Basin Street is the Treme, the oldest African-American neighborhood in New Orleans. From there it's a short distance to St. Louis Cemetery No. 1, the classically ornate final resting place for New Orleans residents. The architecturally beautiful mausoleums create an urban neighborhood of the dead, with the most famous being that of Marie Laveau, the infamous voodoo queen. This is the country's second most-visited gravesite, only surpassed by the final resting place of Elvis Presley. Another significance is that it was the site of the famous LSD trip of Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper in the movie "Easy Rider." Hemeter told us that the local archdiocese was so offended by the movie that it has never allowed another motion picture to be filmed in the local cemeteries.

Just a short walk down Basin Street is Louis Armstrong Park with the Mahalia Jackson Theatre of the Performing Arts. Especially noteworthy is the small corner of the park called Congo Square. In the mid-1800s the city had specific regulations regarding slaves, one of which was that they were to be allowed to take Sunday as a day of rest. After church, they would gather at this spot to socialize and play the music they remembered from their roots in Africa. That music influenced both jazz and blues.

The saddest spot on our tour was the last place we were to visit — a recording studio that was integral to the formation of rock 'n' roll. In the late 1940s, Cosmo Matassa, then a teenager, opened J&M Studios, which created the New Orleans sound and recorded early rock pioneers such as Lloyd Price, Ray Charles, Lee Dorsey, Dr. John, Earl Palmer and Fats Domino.

Among the records laid down at J&M were "Tutti Frutti" and "Ready Teddy" by Little Richard and "Blue Monday" and "The Fat Man" by Fats Domino. In 1954, four out of 10 of the top rhythm and blues songs on the Billboard charts were recorded at J&M Studios.

Today, J&M Studios is a laundromat. Beyond the washing machines and folding tables are some placards indicating the great history of the place, but it's an embarrassment for the city that this important building hasn't been restored.

WHEN YOU GO

I stayed at the Bourbon Orleans (www.bourbonorleans.com) in the heart of the French Quarter and the Hotel New Orleans, near to the Warehouse District and Convention Center (www.hotelneworleansconventioncenter.com).

Nita Hemeter gives a fabulous, fun tour of New Orleans' historic music locations. Contact her at nhemeter@gmail.com.

Steve Bergsman is a freelance travel writer. To read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

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