Basin Street: Where Jazz Was Born and Storyville Burned

Basin Street: Where Jazz Was Born and Storyville Burned

Basin Street is one of the most legendary street names in American music. Thanks to the jazz standard "Basin Street Blues," the name evokes images of brass bands, smoky clubs, and the birth of an art form. But the real Basin Street has a far more complicated history—one that involves legal prostitution, racial segregation, the demolition of an entire neighborhood, and the creation of the most original music the world has ever heard.

History

Basin Street runs along the back edge of the French Quarter, forming the border between the Vieux Carré and Tremé. It was named for the turning basin of the Carondelet Canal, which connected the city to Bayou St. John and Lake Pontchartrain. In the late nineteenth century, Basin Street became the main drag of Storyville, the city's legally sanctioned red-light district that operated from 1897 to 1917. Storyville was the brainchild of Alderman Sidney Story, who sought to contain the sex trade to a single neighborhood—an idea that backfired spectacularly when the district became world-famous and his name became synonymous with vice.

The Birthplace of Jazz

Storyville's role in the birth of jazz cannot be overstated. The brothels, saloons, and dance halls of Basin Street and the surrounding blocks employed hundreds of musicians, creating steady work that allowed artists to develop their craft. Jelly Roll Morton played piano in the sporting houses. Buddy Bolden blew his cornet so loud they say you could hear it across the river. King Oliver, Sidney Bechet, and a young Louis Armstrong all cut their teeth in and around Storyville. When the Navy shut it down in 1917, the musicians scattered—many heading north to Chicago and New York, carrying jazz with them and changing American culture forever.

The Neighborhoods

Basin Street sits at the intersection of several neighborhoods. The French Quarter lies to the east. Tremé, the oldest African-American neighborhood in the country, is to the west. Mid-City stretches out to the north. The old Storyville district was demolished in the 1930s and replaced with the Iberville public housing project, which itself was demolished and replaced with mixed-income housing in the 2010s. The area has been in a constant state of reinvention for over a century.

Key Landmarks

St. Louis Cemetery No. 1, the oldest cemetery in the city and the reputed resting place of Voodoo Queen Marie Laveau, sits on Basin Street. The Saenger Theatre anchors the Canal Street end. The Orpheum Theater, another beautifully restored performance venue, is nearby. Congo Square—where enslaved Africans were allowed to gather on Sundays to play music and dance, creating the rhythmic foundation of jazz—is just steps away in Louis Armstrong Park. And at the foot of Basin Street, a modest marker notes where Storyville once stood, a reminder that the most American of art forms was born in the most unlikely of places.