March 12, 2009
John Quirk, Superintendent of New Orleans Jazz National Historical Park, announces he has accepted the position of Chief Operating Officer for the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center in Cincinnati and will be leaving New Orleans. Click here to read the full story in today's New Orleans Times Picayune. David Luchsinger, superintendent of Jean Lafitte National Historical Park & Preserve, will also serve as superintendent of New Orleans Jazz NHP.
April 24, 2008
First National Park centennial project
coming to New Orleans
New Orleans, LA– A world class Jazz Museum complete with performance stages will be created at the historic Old U.S. Mint as a National Park Service centennial celebration partnership project with the Louisiana State Museum. According to New Orleans Jazz National Park Superintendent John Quirk, “This project showcases what the National Park and the State Museum each do best to create a great venue and visitor experience that neither could do as well alone. The Park brings interpretive programs complete with regular musical performances while the Museum brings exhibits and curatorial knowledge. Together they offer a world class jazz museum and performance center for local residents, schools and the visiting public to enjoy.”
National Park Service Director Mary A. Bomar said, “With the nearly $25 million Congress has appropriated and nearly $27 million of matching commitments from our park partners, the Centennial Initiative today moves onto the landscape and into people’s lives. It’s a great day for the National Park Service and a great day for New Orleans Jazz National Park and the Louisiana State Museum.”
The National Park Centennial Initiative is a 10-year program to reinvigorate America’s national parks and prepare them for a second century. The initiative includes a focus on increased funding for park operations plus a President’s Challenge: up to $100 million a year in federal funds to match $100 million a year in philanthropic donations to the National Park Service.
“This is how we put our Centennial goals on the ground and it’s quite a beginning,” Bomar said. “We have 110 programs and projects involving more than 130 individual, public and non-profit partners benefiting 76 national parks in 38 states and the District of Columbia.”
The project at the iconic Mint, a gateway to the French Quarter, will involve $2 million construction of indoor and outdoor performance areas by the National Park Service and $6 million of exhibits by the State Museum. Park Service staff will move into office space at the Mint, and begin to conduct programs as early as this fall. The stage construction and exhibit design planning should also begin about that same time.
Director Bomar said, “We really have to get cracking. Many of our parks have a short construction seasons for the brick and mortar and trail projects and our rangers will need to quickly integrate new programs for the rush of summer visitors who arrive in a few short months.”
The National Park Centennial Initiative provides a framework for the National Park Service to engage the public in its mission. Its goals and strategies will embrace new constituents and gain support from a broad of public and private partners to ensure America’s national parks continue to thrive into the next 100 years.
The Mint was heavily damaged by Hurricane Katrina, but restoration efforts have been completed. At the core of the LSM’s Music Collection is its internationally known Jazz Collection, the largest and most comprehensive of its kind in the world. The exhibit has been stored since being evacuated from the storm. It will return as an integral part of the Centennial Project. The Jazz Collection chronicles the music and careers of the men and women who created, enhanced and continue in the tradition of New Orleans jazz at the local, national and international levels. It consists of instruments, pictorial sheet music, photographs, records, tapes, manuscripts and other items ranging from Louis Armstrong’s first coronet to a 1917 disc of the first jazz recording ever made. It includes the world’s largest collection of instruments owned and played by important figures in jazz – trumpets, coronets, trombones, clarinets and saxophones played by jazz greats such as Bix Beiderbecke, Edward “Kid” Ory, George Lewis, Sidney Bechet, and Dizzy Gillespie. Other artifacts in the jazz collection include some 10,000 photographs from the early days of jazz; recordings in every format ever used, including over 4,000 78 rpm records that date from 1905 to the mid-1950s, several thousand 12-inch 33-1/3 rpm LP records, hundreds of 10-inch LPs and 45 rpm records, approximately 1,400 reel-to-reel tapes, as well as piano rolls and digital tapes; posters, paintings and prints; hundreds of examples of sheet music from late 19th-century ragtime to popular songs of the 1940s and 1950s – many of them first editions that became jazz standards; several hundred rolls of film featuring concert and nightclub footage, funerals, parades, and festivals; hundreds of pieces of relevant ephemera; and architectural fragments from important jazz venues.
Centennial Challenge programs and projects for 2008 elsewhere in the United Sates include:
· Lewis and Clark National Historical Park where park rangers and staff will adopt the Class of 2016, today’s fourth-graders, and bring them into the park for special programs several times a year until they graduate from high school.
· Nine national parks across the country will embark on a national effort to discover and catalog all plant and animal life in the national parks – technically speaking, they will conduct all taxa biologic inventories.
· Padre Island National Seashore will expand its project to restore the endangered Kemps ridley sea turtle.
· Upgraded and new interpretive trails at San Antonio Missions National Historical Park, Valley Forge National Historical Park, Kennesaw Mountain National Battlefield Park, Hagerman Fossil Beds National Monument, Point Reyes National Seashore and other parks.
· Restoration of ancient redwood forest and watershed in Redwood National Park.
· Water quality enhancement, restoration of endangered mussels, reintroduction of Trumpeter Swans and wetland habitat learning experiences for visitors at Buffalo National River.
· Creation of the Institute at the Golden Gate to Advance Preservation and Global Stability, Golden Gate National Recreation Area in San Francisco.
· New or expanded Junior Ranger programs at many national parks.
· Expansion of ranger interpretation at the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal National Historical Park and the George Washington Memorial Parkway with new technology including podcasts and videocasts.
· Rejuvenate coral reefs with a community program at Biscayne National Park.
For a complete list of the 2008 National Park Service Centennial Challenge projects and programs please visit www.nps.gov/2016 .
NEW ORLEANS INTERNATIONAL MUSIC COLLOQUIUM PRESENTS
“STORYVILLE: MYTH, REALITY, AND MUSIC”
The New Orleans International Music Colloquium invites you to the 2008 Colloquium, “Storyville: Myth, Reality, and Music.” The two-day series of informal presentations, panels and presentations will take place Friday, April 11 and Saturday, April 12, 2008 in association with French Quarter Festival, Inc. All Colloquium events are free and open to the public and are funded by New Orleans Jazz National Historical Park.
Highlights of the Colloquium include presentations of original research on the history, architecture, and music of Storyville and other New Orleans red-light districts: early New Orleans recordings: and Henry Schmidt’s memories of Storyville. Put on your dancing shoes on Friday and learn a few simple steps of the early 20th century. Bring your own brown-bag lunch and enjoy Jim Hession’s informance on Storyville pianists on Friday and Melissa Smith’s photographic walk through turn-of-the-century New Orleans on Saturday.
At 11:00 on Friday, the Colloquium will present the annual Dr. Joseph Logsdon Awards. Named for historian and Professor Joseph Logsdon, the award honors contemporary contributors to New Orleans music and families whose members have been active in music for several generations. Honorees for 2008 include the Joseph and Lala families.
New Orleans International Music Colloquium events will begin at 9:00 A.M., both Friday and Saturday at the New Orleans Jazz National Historic Park Visitors; Center, 916 N. Peters St. For further information visitwww.noimc.org or contact Joy Foy at joy_foy@nps.gov
The New Orleans International Music Colloquium is presented by the National Park Service in cooperation with the Louisiana State Museum. Funding for the event is provided by the National Park Service. NOIMC wishes to thank Kristy Wallisch of the National Park Service and VIPs Bob Foy and Linda Thomas for their assistance and support.
SUPERINTENDENT’S JAZZ NOTES
January 29, 2007
There have been numerous requests for a report on where New Orleans Jazz National Historical Park is headed in this new year and beyond. I am pleased to oblige, but first I am compelled to report on where we have been. Much has transpired since I posted the Superintendent’s Katrina Message in early September of 2005. Following the storm, I do recall we proudly re-opened the visitor center in mid-November, bringing local musicians back to our stage as promised, regardless of whether any visitors were present, no matter how somber the surrounds. And, we held a grand community welcome-back party in December 2005. It resembled a family reunion, in that experiences endured bonded us more so than we might have imagined.
Early in 2006, we started expanding our interpretive performances by hiring local musicians several days a week, thanks to financial assistance from the New Orleans Musician’s Clinic. Our Oral History program continues with grant assistance, the support of the Jazz Commission, and the enthusiasm of the volunteers. The Director of the National Park Service visited in April, presenting Presidential Take Pride in America Lifetime Achievement Awards to two of our volunteers. We again hosted the Children’s Stage at the Satchmo Summerfest and the Jazz International Colloquium. We are conducting a “Music for All Ages” program with much success, bringing K-12 students together with intergenerational volunteers/mentors to foster jazz music and traditions. This effort is possible thanks to grant funding through the National Park Service Foundation’s African American Experience Fund. We are one of only seventeen national parks recognized as most opportune for sharing exemplary African American elements, stories, and histories. Partnership ties were rekindled with the Washington D.C. based Traditional Jazz Educators Network, now providing a free instructional Jazz DVD and curriculum packet to music teachers nationwide upon request. Funding has been secured, and planning is underway, to provide a downloadable, pod cast/cell phone, self-guided tour of local jazz sites. As additional funding is secured, our long-range interpretive plan calls for interactive-media exhibits, and educational research areas within the Jazz Complex, as directed through the General Management Plan and Congress. Finally, and arguably most importantly, we held a well-attended groundbreaking ceremony and second-line parade launching our Armstrong Park relocation project. This brings us back to the original question: Where we are headed?
Perseverance Hall (circa 1820) is the crown jewel of the Jazz Complex, a courtyard quadrant of historic buildings located within the City’s Louis Armstrong Memorial Park. The Jazz Complex is leased by the National Park Service for up to 99 years (renewable) for the purpose of providing a permanent home for New Orleans Jazz National Historical Park. Our current relocation project is rehabilitating the first floor of Perseverance Hall and the grounds of the Jazz Complex. In summer of 2007, our permanent home will be habitable. At that time we will establish a National Park Ranger educational presence in Armstrong Park, and begin the transition of our visitor center performance venue now temporarily housed in the French Market. The timeliness and ultimate success of this transition depends on several simultaneous courses of action.
First, there is a collaborative movement underway to assist the City of New Orleans in expediting the FEMA-reimbursable funding process, and other actions necessary to re-open the heavily storm-damaged city portion of Armstrong Park. The park needs to open as soon as possible, even as repairs are ongoing.
Second, the commitment of National Park Service staff to bring Armstrong Park alive with educational activities and performances must be embraced by neighboring businesses and civic groups. The active presence of National Park staff will be the cornerstone and catalyst for the revitalization of the larger city-operated Armstrong Park, the neighboring communities and businesses. The tentacles of these efforts will reach out to all the neighborhoods of New Orleans, preserving traditions and encouraging participation, as we work together to restore the cultural fabric of this area so rich in Jazz foundation and tradition.
Finally, Armstrong Park must be safe. Bringing the open space alive with people and programs is a solid start, but there must be a solid commitment from the New Orleans Police Department to provide community-oriented policing, and a reciprocal commitment from neighbors and merchants to provide neighborhood watch, and park watch organizations. A concentrated volunteer effort adopting Armstrong Park is absolutely necessary.
Parks are refuges vital to our physical, mental and spiritual well being, but they are not islands. New Orleans Jazz National Historical Park staff cannot undertake this journey alone. Katrina dealt us all an unwanted hardship, but in the aftermath we discovered the bonding network needed to succeed. The second-line parade we held last fall was simply a drill. For those who participated, the real journey has just begun. We hope all of you reading this will join our march, actively on the beat, or supportively off the beat.
John Quirk
Superintendent
New Orleans Jazz National Historical Park
Superintendent's Message - Hurricane Katrina
September 7, 2005
Dreams of late are wrought with strange problems of indeterminate origin. In last night's dream I attempted to play an oversized clarinet-like instrument in concert with a jazz band comprised of New Orleans musicians. Frustrated that I could make no sound, I stared downward, mortified, averting the disappointment I knew I would see in the musicians eyes. Mercifully, I awoke. Jazz musicians do not dwell upon disappointment. Their art requires the quick transformation of such emotions into recipe ingredients for new sounds. Unfortunately, as I write, our ears are full of horrible sounds from New Orleans. We hope the cries for help will quickly be silenced by rescuers, and the many vocalizations of grief will be quieted by compassionate providers. We expect a great silence will soon fall upon the city.
The silence will be short-lived. Listen carefully and you will hear the music emerge. First, it will rise from the streets. Then, in the French Quarter it will become louder. You will hear it in the visitor centers and the small clubs. Later, you will hear the parades, the jazz funerals, and the unbridled celebrations. New Orleans jazz, and all it entails, cannot be harnessed, stifled, or otherwise contained. Certainly, it cannot be destroyed.
To understand the fortitude of New Orleans music, one needs a starting point. There are many, but a good choice is Congo Square, a venerated space just outside the northern edge of the Quarter, adjacent to Treme, the African-American community dating back to the days of slavery. Slaves transported to the plantations from disparate African communities, and speaking different languages and dialects, were permitted to congregate here on Sundays. As they traded and mingled, they also danced to improvised music. Their collaborations provided the foundation for a unique form of music descriptive of their humanity, survival, and hope. The music came to encompass some traditions of local Native Americans, embracing the rhythms of Latin America brought by slaves from Haiti and Cuba, incorporating the field hollers and spirituals of the slaves coming downriver, and eventually adopting the brass instruments of European settlers. By the end of the nineteenth century there was a wondrous sound emanating from New Orleans.
The great paradox of the uniquely American art form called jazz is that it continues to progress, even as it remains rooted here in New Orleans. Somewhere each day an old jazz song is played in a new way. Somewhere each day a new jazz song, reflective of contemporary mood, emerges. And yet, the origins of traditional jazz in New Orleans remain the immutable bedrock, the substrate of the primordial ooze from which the music emerged, and to which the new artists all must pay homage.
This ooze, this gumbo of cultures and traditions, that gifted the world with Louis Armstrong, is the brew from which the eminent Wynton Marsalis launched the recently opened Jazz at Lincoln Center, and the young Irvin Mayfield founded the New Orleans Jazz Orchestra.
As the engineers and social workers go about the heroic task of rebuilding the infrastructure and support system of this great city, there will also be a layer of restorationists quietly busy below the radar. Most of us know each other by first name. We all know the commonality of our affiliation. It is the traditions, the heritage of the people, places and music of New Orleans that bind our missions. Often we meet informally in small groups, and sometimes, formally in a larger network. These are the mayor staff, the educational and preservationist groups, the small business collectives, the neighborhood alliances, the restaurant and hospitality folks, the cultural centers, and those who volunteer their time to represent the commissions and non-profits.
Engineers will rebuild the levees and physical structures to standards that will sustain the next category five onslaught. Officials will retool a police force capable of suppressing violence. Educators will restructure a school system that will be better than the one before. Louisiana will begin restoring the wetlands.
As these efforts unfold, those of us below the radar will work quietly together to assure that neighborhoods retain their character, schools have instruments and music programs, traditions are maintained, historic resources are protected, history is not forgotten, and children take pride in their cultural heritage and the diverse heritage of their city.
The instrument in my dream was not of musical origin. In the way of dreams it symbolized a pen. I was not meant to disappoint the dream band, or to play with them. My task is to introduce them. And so I will. Listen up. The band is about to play.
John Quirk
Superintendent
New Orleans Jazz National Historical Park
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