Everyone knows that America’s original art form, jazz, was born in New Orleans.

New Orleans, in fact, is known worldwide for its jazz and jazz musicians.

But the city is also known for many other types of music:  R&B, funk, rock, rootsy rock, “Americana,” soul, hip hop and bounce, even (and not authentically) Cajun,  zydeco, swamp pop, and more.

OffBeat, in fact, covers all of these types of music and the musicians that make the music, and we’ve been committed to doing this since the inception of the magazine. But jazz is the root; it informs much of the music for which New Orleans has become justifiably famous.

I’ve written and spoken incessantly about the need for a music museum in New Orleans. In a city that’s known for its music, and which is actually a “living museum” of music-making, there’s no central location where people (and most importantly children) can go to find out where our music came from, why it’s important to our culture and economy, and why it makes the city of New Orleans a mecca for music. This is really obscene and in my opinion is a black mark against a city whose economy is so reliant upon music, culture and food as attractions to visitors. Why isn’t there a music museum in New Orleans?

The Louisiana State Museum has an extensive collection of jazz memorabilia, a large portion of which was donated to the LSM by the New Orleans Jazz Club. It’s been sitting in storage for years.

There was a small museum at one point in time at the Old U.S. Mint to showcase part of the collection, but it was closed years ago.

There was a movement to revive the collection and to convert the Old U.S. Mint into a full-fledged music museum during the leadership of ex-director David Kahn, but he left in 2008 as a result of Louisiana political machinations.

Kahn commissioned a study with Cambridge Seven Associates, a firm that proposed a major revamp of the Old U.S. Mint physical plant, including the addition of external wings to the current plant to add much-needed space to the property that could house educational space, a cafe, an expanded museum shop and more (the Mint building is fairly small, at perhaps 30,000 square feet).

But when Kahn left in 2008, the plan was scrapped.

More recently, Louisiana State Museum director Mark Tullos, also now departed from that position, proposed a 6,000 square-foot second floor music exhibit at the Mint. The Louisiana Museum Foundation (LMF) , whose board consists primarily of well-heeled art supporters across the state, is set up to support all the state museums, including the Old U.S. Mint.   A fund-raising/development specialist was hired to raise money for the new music exhibit; but then Tullos left too when Lieutenant Governor Billy Nungesser took office, leaving the proposed music exhibit in limbo once again.  Moreover, curator Greg Lambousy leftl his 20-plus year tenure at the Mint ended when he left to join the National World War II Museum—a real loss for the jazz collection.

The LSM hired a long-time OffBeat writer and historian David Kunian as a music curator to help develop programming the Mint’s third floor high-tech performance space, and thankfully, and on a very positive note, Lambousy has now returned to the Louisiana State Museum; he’s been named “Director of the Jazz Museum.” And there’s a new effort by the LMF to raise money to create an 8,000-square foot Jazz Museum on the second floor of the Old U.S. Mint.

The efforts are to applauded. Let’s hope that politics and turfdom doesn’t get in the way of this new turn of events.

In the meantime, a group headed by Bob McIntyre and ex-New Orleans Councilperson Peggy Wilson, called “The Jazz Center” is working to obtain the funding for a operating and marketing a jazz museum, something they perceive that the state has never been able to accomplish. The content and curators are in place on the museum side, but the business side of the entity has yet to be fleshed out. The Jazz Center is proposing private-public partnership in conjunction with the Louisiana State Museum to create, fund, market and maintain a jazz museum at the Old. U.S. Mint by an outreach to potential international supporters and funders of such a project. At this writing, there’s no agreement between both parties to collaborate on the museum. But it is a possibility.

So the idea is once again fermenting: we need a museum devoted to jazz in New Orleans.

But should such a museum just be centered around jazz? Would broadening the concept to include more of our local music—which we’re also famous for—be a better idea than focusing purely on jazz?

There’s The Blues Center, a concept developed by Ric Stewart, “a New Orleans music complex, which treats music fans to a unique multimedia experience of local, state and regional music and culture.” It has a Facebook page, but nothing concrete yet.

At this writing,  there’s also still some interest in developing the Municipal Auditorium into a “Jazz Institute” that would contain a music museum (not necessarily totally jazz-oriented), performance areas, office space and more in Armstrong Park, but at this juncture, the auditorium is still a derelict structure that’s been sitting (and rotting) in Armstrong Park since Katrina. The city seems to be ready to deal with re-developing the auditorium, once vital and extensive repairs have been made using federal funds. There’s supposed to be an RFP forthcoming to develop the property (but I’ve been hearing that for several years now). And neighborhood activists like Leo Watermeier oppose the public-private partnership the city seems to be contemplating in redeveloping the auditorium. “Ray Nagin tried a similar private/public partnership scheme in the last months of his administration.  The building was being turned over to a political friend/developer who was putting up no money but was going to  use the FEMA money. My preference would be to have it operated by the city, which was done successfully for many years.”

So as of now, the museum is still a concept, and not a reality.

My opinion is that before anything real can be put into motion, the groups who are working to create a music museum need to be working together to make this happen. Whether or not this is feasible—that people and groups can actually work together for the good of the community and for the city’s music—remains to be seen. I truly think that it’s a pity that the disparate groups can’t meet in one room, get over New Orleans politics and typical “turf” mentality and work together to get something real going. The fact that we haven’t been able to get a music museum off the ground in New Orleans speaks volumes on how dysfunctional our community can be when in comes to progressive thinking.

If this city can host a National World War II Museum, and get the funding for it, we should be able to make something happen for our city’s music. We need vision, creativity, outreach, “outside world” connections, money obtained from sources outside New Orleans and competency in operating and running such an enterprise to really make this happen.

If we don’t, we’re missing the boat yet again.

Do you think we need a jazz museum or a museum about all New Orleans music? Take the poll.