New Orleans Music Heritage Tour: 300 years of jazz, blues & rock

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Free cancellation

1/7

Duration2h

GroupUp to 28

LanguagesEN

Mobile ticketAccepted

A record store owner takes you through the streets where the music actually happened.

A 2-hour walking tour through the Marigny, French Quarter and Treme neighborhoods of New Orleans, led by Keith, a Louisiana record expert, with songs and stories spanning 300 years of blues, jazz, gospel and rock n'roll. The tour includes stops at Preservation Hall, Louis Armstrong Park, Congo Square, Bourbon Street and J&M Studios — the birthplace of rock and roll — with Bluetooth speaker accompaniment of the artists and locations you visit.

Step-by-step itinerary

Explore New Orleans music heritage

Meet guide at Louisiana Music Factory
Walk through Marigny, French Quarter, Treme
Listen to songs with Bluetooth speaker
Cross Esplanade and visit Danny Parker's home
Stop at Place de Armes and Preservation Jazz Hall
Stroll down Bourbon Street
Visit J&M Studios
Visit Preservation Hall gift shop and take photo
Hear Basin Street Blues on Bourbon Street
See Louis Armstrong statue in Treme
Visit Congo Square in Armstrong Park

The Experience

You meet Keith at the Louisiana Music Factory on Frenchmen Street, the most musical street in New Orleans, and spend two hours walking through the neighborhoods where the music was born. Keith brings a record store's depth to the tour — everything discussed, you can find in the shop behind you. The walk moves through Marigny, the French Quarter and Treme, stopping at the places where Louis Armstrong, Fats Domino, James Booker, Mahalia Jackson, Professor Longhair and others lived and worked. A Bluetooth speaker carries the actual songs along with you, so you hear the music in the streets where it was made.

The route takes you to Preservation Hall, where Sandra and Allan Jaffe found their life's work on a honeymoon visit, and to the boyhood home of Danny Parker, whose wife Blue Lu sang the bawdy songs that kept the Brass Band tradition alive. You walk Bourbon Street when it was the most musical street in the world — hearing about Louis Prima, Al Hirt and Pete Fountain blaring jazz through the night — and stand at the Louis Armstrong statue in Treme, America's first African-American neighborhood. Congo Square, where enslaved people gathered to play music on Sundays, sits inside Armstrong Park. J&M Studios, marked as the Home of Rock N' Roll, closes the loop from the earliest African traditions through the genres that changed America.

The tour runs two hours and covers the ground on foot through the French Quarter's narrow streets and the wider avenues of Treme. Keith speaks English and knows the record business inside out, so the stories connect the music to the people who made it, not just the landmarks themselves. The walk is accessible to all fitness levels, and the neighborhoods are flat and manageable for most walkers.

What’s included

A 2-hour guided walking tour with Keith, a record business expert.
Bluetooth speaker accompaniment of songs and artists along the route.
stops at Preservation Hall, Louis Armstrong Park, Congo Square, Bourbon Street and J&M Studios.
and access to the Louisiana Music Factory before and after the tour.

Good to know

Easy physical levelWheelchair accessibleAccessible transportStroller friendlyPets welcomePublic transport nearby

Operated by New Orleans Music & Heritage Tour

Is this one for you?Book the 10am or 1pm departure if you want the neighborhoods quieter and the stories easier to hear; the 6pm tour moves through busier streets. All three departures cover the same route and stories — the time you choose depends on whether you prefer walking in daylight or early evening.