Preservation Hall: The Sacred Sanctuary of Traditional Jazz

Why is it significant?

Pause on the uneven brick pavement of Saint Peter Street outside the weathered, peeling wooden door of Preservation Hall. Look inside the dim room: there is no air conditioning, no bar serving drinks, and no velvet seating.

Key Facts

Open the walk

Pause on the uneven brick pavement of Saint Peter Street outside the weathered, peeling wooden door of Preservation Hall. Look inside the dim room: there is no air conditioning, no bar serving drinks, and no velvet seating. Just a few wooden church benches, peeling plaster walls, and portraits of legendary Black jazz pioneers.

In the nineteen fifties, traditional New Orleans jazz was nearly extinct, replaced by rock and roll and modern pop. In nineteen sixty-one, art dealer Larry Borenstein and music devotees Allan and Sandra Jaffe opened this historic seventeen-fifties Creole townhouse purely to give aging pioneer jazz musicians—veterans who had played alongside Buddy Bolden and Louis Armstrong—a dignified stage to play every night.

Listen through the shutters: when the Preservation Hall Jazz Band plays Saint James Infirmary or When the Saints Go Marching In, the raw acoustic vibration of the upright bass, trombone, and clarinet reverberates straight through the floorboards into your chest. It is pure, unadulterated musical soul.

Head north along Bourbon Street toward Lafitte's Blacksmith Shop.