New Orleans keeps its culture in working rooms, not vitrines: a Creole cottage where Congo Square drumming is taught, a 1791 Spanish colonial house museum, a jazz archive inside the old US Mint. Three days through the city's museums, galleries and stages.
The largest collection of Southern art anywhere — 4,000+ works from 15 states, built on Roger Ogden's private holdings. The Stephen Goldring Hall spirals up five floors of self-taught, folk and contemporary work. Open Wed-Mon 10:00-17:00, closed Tuesday.
An 1831 American-style townhouse on St Louis Street with the only working 1830s Creole kitchen in the Quarter, plus original stables and slave quarters. The tour addresses the enslaved household directly rather than glossing it.
Six blocks of contemporary galleries in restored 19th-century warehouses — Arthur Roger, Jonathan Ferrara, Callan Contemporary and Soren Christensen among them. Most open Tue-Sat 10:00-17:00 with no admission charge.
Antebellum mansions built by American newcomers shut out of Creole society — Greek Revival, Italianate and Queen Anne along Prytania, First and Third Streets. Lafayette Cemetery No. 1 anchors the route at Washington Avenue.
Housed in the 1835 Mint — the only building to have minted both US and Confederate coin — the museum holds Louis Armstrong's first cornet and the largest jazz archive in the world. Tue-Sun 10:00-16:30.
The only site in North America where enslaved Africans were permitted to gather, drum and dance on Sundays through the 1800s — the direct ancestor of jazz. Open daily; drum circles form most Sunday afternoons.
Sylvester Francis' collection of Mardi Gras Indian suits, social aid and pleasure club regalia, and second-line documentation — thousands of feathered and beaded suits that took a year each to sew. Tue-Sat 10:00-17:00.
A bare 1750s carriage house on St Peter Street with no bar, no amplification and wooden benches for about 40 people. Traditional jazz sets run 45 minutes, several nightly from 17:00, played by rotating collective members.
A restored 1828 Creole villa on Governor Nicholls Street across a campus of historic buildings, covering the free people of colour, the Haitian influx and Tremé's role as America's oldest Black neighbourhood. Wed-Sat 11:00-16:00.
The South's oldest LGBTQ bookshop, at 600 Frenchmen Street since 1977, doubling as a gallery for local painters and printmakers. Deep Louisiana literature and New Orleans music sections behind the front room.
Brandan 'BMike' Odums fills a 35,000 sq ft warehouse on Royal Street with monumental portraits of Black cultural and political figures, painted directly onto the industrial walls. Wed-Sun 14:00-20:00.
A corner wine shop on Poland Avenue whose back courtyard hosts nightly jazz and Latin sets under fig trees. You pick a bottle inside, they open it, and the kitchen upstairs sends down cheese boards and small plates.