New Orlean sin the summer of 1922
New Orleans was quite an unusual place to be. On one hand, that spring brought much to celebrate. The Lincoln Memorial was dedicated in Washington D.C. We were at the dawn of the Jazz Age, and New Orleans's first radio station, WWL, began broadcasting. On the other hand, the city had its 9th driest year on record—narrowly escaping flooding by the Mississippi, thanks to a breaching of the natural crevasse down river in Poydras. Further, this was the beginning of Prohibition and the summer that Louis Armstrong left New Orleans for Chicago—for good. That crazy summer in 1922 certainly was one of extremes and tensions between the two New Orleans.
Storyville in New Orleans
Why did Satchmo leave and never return this year, despite knowing so well what it means to miss New Orleans? To understand, we have to look at the history of jazz and systemic racism in the city. Many believe that Storyville was the primary birthplace of New Orleans. It is true that clients in the red-light district would most certainly be treated to live jazz performances, but jazz was also performed in Congo Square (now Louis Armstrong Park) as well as bars, cabarets, and dance halls throughout the city, and even steamboats. That said, the closing of Storyville in 1917 was the beginning of a series of political efforts to force segregation and target, or create situations, to incarcerate African Americans and Afro-Creoles in New Orleans.
Sex and Alcohol in New Orleans
The federal government played a major role in closing Storyville. World War I Navy soldiers were stationed nearby, and many of those young men could be found drinking and taking advantage of the services offered in brothels. The military was not only concerned about their men taking on such vices, but also complained that they lost 142,000 days of labor as a result of sexually transmitted infections. Sure, it was nearly impossible to enforce Prohibition in the district—but this applied equally to speakeasies scattered all around town that famously remained in operation throughout Prohibition.
The lesser known but equally relevant part of Storyville's history is that it was only after a failed attempt to racially segregate the brothels—a legislative effort deemed unconstitutional by the Louisiana Supreme Court because the women lived in the brothels—and the federal government realized they could not keep their soldiers from frequenting these multiracial business establishments that the War Department and U.S. Navy forcibly closed Storyville. Similar business continued in cabarets around town, but those were also "profiled" and quickly shut down in 1918. It's significant to note that even after Storyville was shut down in 1917, illegal casinos, bars, and brothels continued to flourish in what is now Old Arabi.
Jazz in New Orleans
But during the summer of 1922, 100 years ago, when the city made its final attacks on jazz and New Orleans's African American and Afro-Creole communities. The police department began raiding and rounding up patrons at dance halls, under the pretense that they needed to be searched for arms. Earlier in that year, a newspaper had printed an offensive caricature of Louis Armstrong and other jazz musicians performing at Tom Anderson's on Rampart Street, and the accompanying article included a demeaning depiction of their dialect and conversation. The final blow, just maybe, was the passing of a law that made the playing of jazz music and dancing illegal in schools.
That summer, Satchmo accepted an invitation from "King Oliver" to play music in Chicago, and he never returned. Yet it could be argued that New Orleans' jazz would have never realized such far-reaching influences and world renown if Armstrong had stayed in the city, playing on steamboats and in dance halls. Then, 1922 saw the very first recording of a Black New Orleans jazz band, that of Kid Ory's Creole Jazz Band. This was also the time of the "Renaissance of the Vieux Carré," when New Orleans became famous as a Bohemian paradise for artists and writers-a movement kick started when Sherwood Anderson, a prolific and acclaimed author, moved to the city.
The Arts in New Orleans
The scene had already been set. Le Petit Theater had just relocated in 1919 to its present location in the French Quarter. The Pontalba buildings at Jackson Square began to be converted into studios and apartments for artists, also in 1919. Architectural students and art students at Tulane University (students who had far-reaching connections) had become enamored with the Quarter's picturesque and peerless façade. And The Double Dealer, a magazine catering strictly to writers that ran from 1921 to 1926, began touting this emerging culture, promoting this Bohemian Renaissance. In Rising Tide, John Barry describes the city of this time from this romantic perspective: "a gritty working-class slum where people spoke French as often as English. Women lowered baskets to the street to grocers who loaded them with food and added a pint of gin. The smells of the docks hung over the whole area: sickly sweet rotting bananas—and the more intimate smell of the dozens of bakeries making bread."
Louis Armstrong's New Orleans Now
100 years later, many of the same restaurants remain: Antoine's, Galatoire's, Broussard's. And perhaps there are still two New Orleans. But 100 years later, things have also changed. Satchmo Fest has brought our Jazz King back to New Orleans—and in March of this year, the Orleans Parish School Board finally repealed its ban on jazz music and dancing in schools. Segregation has long been rejected, and New Orleans has returned to its pre-1922 status as a place where people of all shapes, colors, and creeds can get together—vices or not—and celebrate the rich diverse multi-ethnic culture that is its roots.
