Pre-1920s - New Orleans Birthplace

Welcome to the start of the QR code tour. The first part of the tour takes you through the decades of jazz music from the pre-1920s through to today.

If you wish to hear an overview of what each decade sounded like, we invite you to listen to our Spotify playlist for each decade by clicking the button at the top of this page. As there is not a huge amount of pre-1920s recorded music available on spotify this playlist presents a small collection of recordings from Sidney Bechet and Jimmy Noone.

Jazz was born in New Orleans at the turn of the twentieth century in New Orleans Louisiana. The city was already full of the sounds of music including jazz’s forerunner – Ragtime. The first great jazz band was led by cornettist Charles ‘Buddy’ Bolden who (sadly) never recorded. But, like thousands of other soon-to-be-famous musicians, Buddy played in dance halls, honky-tonks, barrelhouses and cabarets as well as for parties, picnics, weddings, funerals, functions – anywhere where music was needed, which was everywhere! Our central picture (top left) shows Tom Anderson’s saloon at the corner of Basin and Iberville Streets in Storyville; just a few doors down from Lulu White’s ‘Mahogany Hall’ one of the most luxurious of the bordellos that flourished in ‘Storyville’; the town’s notorious ‘Red Light District’ which finally closed in 1919.

New Orleans was also famous for its brass bands –like the Onward and Tuxedo – who played for funerals and street parades and contained dozens of jazz’s later stars; among them the young Louis Armstrong, and clarinettists Jimmy Noone and Sidney Bechet all of whom would find fame after they moved on and up to Chicago.

If you wish to learn more about The Jazz Centre UK, click the button below to visit our ‘about us’ page.