Dumaine Street History
The World’s First Jazz Museum
November 12, 1961: The World's First Jazz Museum Opens
The dream of a permanent jazz museum in New Orleans took thirteen years to build.
The New Orleans Jazz Club was founded on Mardi Gras, 1948, by a group of local jazz enthusiasts and musicians dedicated to preserving the music and its history. Key figures included Edmond "Doc" Souchon - surgeon, guitarist, jazz historian, and longtime club president - alongside Myra Menville and Helen Arlt, who edited The Second Line magazine and served in club leadership for decades.
In 1961, Mayor Vic Schiro declared November 12–19 New Orleans Jazz Week. Opening day began in Armstrong Park with the mayor's speech and live performances — then concluded the way most things do in New Orleans: with a second line.
The Eureka Brass Band led the crowd weaving through the French Quarter to the doors of 1017 Dumaine. Two thousand people filled the street as Eureka played on. Couples danced. Harry Souchon, one of the museum's founders, captured the moment in a single sentence published in The Second Line that November: "Jazz has come home to roost in its own birthplace!"
The museum opened with 2,000 items — photographs, recordings, Pete Fountain's first clarinet, a bowler hat belonging to trumpeter Sharkey Bonano, and a bass drum of "Papa" Jack Laine, the pioneering bandleader Britannica calls the father of white jazz.
In 1965, jazz guitarist, historian, and New Orleans music legend Danny Barker joined the museum as assistant curator - a position he held for ten years. During that decade he wrote two foundational books of jazz history and founded the Fairview Baptist Church Marching Band in 1972, the youth brass band widely credited with reviving the New Orleans brass band tradition. That same year, Louis Armstrong returned to New Orleans for the first time in a decade, going straight to the museum at 1017 Dumaine. Helen Arlt, who co-hosted the visit, later recalled: "He went straight to the museum and we hosted the visit. You live for moments like that." - Times-Picayune, 1998.
The museum outgrew the Dumaine cottage and relocated in 1969. When that collection was subsequently donated to the state, the name "New Orleans Jazz Museum" was not transferred with it. The building at 1017 Dumaine still carries the commemorative plaques marking the site of the world's first jazz museum!
