As a longtime student of African American music history, John Davis came to New Orleans in search of the sound that came before jazz.<\/p>\n
He had virtually no knowledge of south Louisiana other than of composer and pianist Louis Moreau Gottschalk.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI remember going to the Hogan Jazz Archive, and this guy Lynn Abbott\u00a0\u2014 who’s a very well-known guy in the world of jazz scholarship and the early history of Black American music\u00a0\u2014 comes out and he said, \u2018So what do you want to see?\u2019 And I said, \u2018Well, how about box No. 1? Let’s start there.\u2019”\u00a0<\/p>\n
After his second choice was box No. 2, Abbott started to get the picture.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI could see the consternation on his face because he knew I was going to want to see everything, probably.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
Three decades later \u2014 after examining more than 30,000 pieces of music archived at the now-Hogan Archive of New Orleans Music and New Orleans Jazz, as well as the New Orleans Jazz Museum, The Historic New Orleans Collection and other repositories\u00a0\u2014 the exhibition \u201cThe First Piano Professors and Lost Music of Early New Orleans\u201d is now on view at the jazz museum.<\/p>\n
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<\/p>\n Sheet music by 19th century New Orleans composers are projected on the walls of the exhibit \u201cThe First Piano Professors and Lost Music of Early New Orleans\u201d at the New Orleans Jazz Museum.<\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n Pre-jazz compositions<\/strong><\/p>\n New Orleans music of the 19th century was performed in opera houses, concert halls, churches, clubhouses of mutual aid societies and in private homes. Some of its creators were \u00e9migr\u00e9s from Europe, while some were Louisiana-born Creoles. They combined European influences with pieces informed by African, Afro-Caribbean and Latin cultures.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Sheet music was the delivery medium for popular music, most often performed on pianos in private homes. Canal Street-based music publishers brought the music to market.<\/p>\n Built of first-edition sheet music unearthed by Davis, \u201cThe First Piano Professors\u201d resurrects pre-jazz compositions that have been seldom heard since their creation.<\/p>\n \u201cThe music has been kind of out there in plain sight,\u201d said David Kunian, jazz museum music curator and co-curator of the exhibit. \u201cBecause the other forms of music in New Orleans overwhelm everything else, maybe people haven’t quite looked to this yet.<\/p>\n There’s a longstanding prejudice against American classical music compared to European pieces, he pointed out.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n “I also think that the fact that some of the composers were Black probably figured into that in terms of the way people think about it,\u201d Kunian said.\u00a0<\/p>\n A world before recorded sound<\/strong><\/p>\n Through two large rooms, the exhibit walks visitors through a world before recorded sound and into music drawn from cultural influences that infused New Orleans music in the 20th century.<\/p>\n Through advertisements, photos and illustrations, the first room introduces the musicians and venues where they performed. In the second room, publishers, engravers and lithographers who illustrated the covers of the sheet music are introduced.<\/p>\n The printed music is arrayed in cases around the outside of the room, organized by topic (\u201cCreoles of Culture,\u201d \u201cWomen and Love,\u201d \u201cMardi Gras,\u201d \u201cAfro-Caribbean and Voodoo Culture,\u201d \u201cThe Confederacy\u201d).<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Super-sized versions of the sheet music covers are projected, which is credited to the principals of 2×4 Design, whom Davis met by chance in Rome. They worked with the museum\u2019s curatorial and archival teams to complete the exhibit’s stellar look.\u00a0<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Canal Street’s bustling community of music publishers distributed the compositions of 19th century New Orleans composers.<\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n
\n Photo by Dave Walker<\/span>
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