music festivals

Louis Armstrong, perhaps the most famous jazz musician to come from New Orleans, said “If you have to ask what jazz is, you'll never know.” Jazz is the human experience. Jazz is change and adaptation, cooperation and battle. Jazz is joy and pain and everything in between. But, most truly, jazz is indescribable. It is, however, experienceable, and one of the best places to soak it in is the very place it was born: New Orleans, Louisiana. History of NOLA Jazz“The memory of things gone is important to a jazz musician.”—Louis ArmstrongNew Orleans, Louisiana. NOLA. The Crescent City. This territory ruled by France, Spain, and France again was eventually incorporated into the United States with the Louisiana purchase. By this time people from the city’s three founding countries—as well as immigrants from Cuba, Germany, Haiti, Italy, Ireland, England, and enslaved persons from Africa—had gathered in New Orleans.

Some say that music has the power to move the soul. But in a more literal sense, music can move its listeners great distances—just consider the flocks of fans who travel many miles to see their favorite music artists. The stats don’t lie: according to Billboard, thirty-two million people attend at least one music festival yearly and travel an average of 903 miles to do so.