The Big Easy and All that Jazz

Louis Armstrong International Airport is about 15 miles from the city center. A shuttle with service to many hotels is $20 one-way; taxi fares are about $35 from the airport, although fares will be a little higher than usual around town because of the annual Jazz Festival. Amtrak passengers arrive at Union Terminal, centrally located a few minutes by taxi from the Convention Center and downtown hotels.

April and May are usually mild to warm, but an umbrella would be advisable for anyone planning to be out and about this walkable city. One of the convenient Visitor Information Centers is a good first stop; the Basin Street Station Visitor Information & Cultural Center is housed in the restored Southern Railway Station, located at the edges of the French Quarter and the historic neighborhoods of Tremé and Iberville. Other French Quarter visitor centers are at 529 St. Ann St., 2020 St. Charles Ave., and the Jean Lafitte Center at 419 Decatur St.

Mobile apps devoted to the Crescent City’s attractions, nightlife, and dining spots can be downloaded from www.neworleansonline.com/tools (some free, some for a fee).

Performances

Although music is always in the air, the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival, held at the Fair Grounds Race Course north of the French Quarter, is an annual highlight, drawing huge crowds to multiple stages. This year’s festival will run during the weekends of April 25-27 and May 1-4; headliners include Eric Clapton, Bruce Springsteen, Christina Aguilera, and Santana, backed by dozens of other musicians and bands encompassing “every style associated with the city and the state”. More than 100 Louisiana-based vendors will sell restaurant-quality local delicacies. Visitors should look into tickets and transportation options as early as possible.

During and between Jazz Fest weekends, live-music choices abound. The renowned Preservation Hall offers three nightly performances for all ages, and the Louisiana Music Factory, a French Quarter music store, features live, in-store performances. The Pfister Sisters bring their traditional jazz vocal harmonies to Music at the Mint—that’s the Old U.S. Mint, part of the Jazz National Historical Park—on April 25. Progressive rock band Moe presents two performances at the Civic Theater on April 25 and 26; radio station WWOZ stages its annual benefit concert, Piano Night 2014, on April 28 at the House of Blues, which also hosts George Clinton & Parliament Funkadelic on April 27. Wednesday at the Square, a free 12-week concert series at Lafayette Square, goes on rain or shine; a special all-star line-up for April 30 includes Eric McFadden, Jerry Joseph, Norwood Fisher, and Eric Bolivar. Mardi Gras World hosts the daylong “Fiya Fest 2014 Crawfish Boil and Benefit for the Roots of Music” on May 2. To keep track of the multitude of live-music venues during the 10 days of Jazz Fest, check the “Nearly World Famous Jazz Fest Grids”, updated daily (www.jazzfestgrids.com).

Attractions

Mardi Gras will be long past by April, but a few venues celebrate year-round. The Mardi Gras World facility in the port district lets visitors watch the real artists at work on costumes and floats for next year’s parades while learning about festival history and culture. Free shuttle service is available from the central city and French Quarter. Tremé, the oldest African-American neighborhood in the United States, features the Backstreet Cultural Museum, displaying memorabilia and the city’s largest collection of elaborate and brilliantly colored Mardi Gras Indian costumes. A more high-tech historical presentation of Mardi Gras traditions can be seen in the French Quarter’s Presbytère, with an interactive permanent exhibition called “Mardi Gras: It’s Carnival Time in Louisiana”. Harrah’s New Orleans offers a “full dose of the Big Easy” in one spot: table games, poker, and slot machines surrounded by French Quarter décor, Mardi Gras floats, and strolling brass bands.

The full tableau of New Orleans history—from the Battle of New Orleans to the world of voodoo and a haunted dungeon—is presented by 154 life-size wax figures at the Musée Conti Wax Museum. The National World War II Museum, the official U.S. museum for that conflict, showcases artifacts, vehicles, oral histories, and theatrical presentations in multiple large pavilions. Historic Tremé is the setting for the New Orleans African American Museum; the New Orleans Pharmacy Museum is housed in the French Quarter apothecary of the country’s first licensed pharmacist.

The New Orleans Museum of Art and beautifully landscaped Sydney and Walda Besthoff Sculpture Garden are found in City Park. Along with its extensive collection of American, French, African, and Japanese works, the museum is showing “Photography and the American Civil War” through May 4. Closer to the center of town, the Ogden Museum of Southern Art focuses on the art, history, and culture of the American South with works by Walter Anderson, Christopher Clark, Herbert Singleton, and William Woodward. Newcomb Art Gallery, on the campus of Tulane University, is exhibiting “Early Modern Faces: European Portraits 1480-1780”—a collection of paintings on loan from Houston’s Sarah Campbell Blaffer Collection.

For a more offbeat museum outing, the French Quarter’s Historic Voodoo Museum features voodoo dolls and other artifacts, psychic readings by a voodoo priestess, and gris-gris bags (voodoo talismans, sold as “curios” only). The museum offers a Voodoo Cemetery walking tour including Congo Square and the historic St. Louis Cemetery No. 1, led by guides who can answer questions about jazz funerals, zombies, and voodoo’s influence on the local Catholic Church.

The Audubon Nature Institute operates 10 museums and parks in the area, including the Audubon Aquarium of the Americas, Audubon Butterfly Garden and Insectarium (check the website for a link to the mesmerizing “ant cam”), Audubon Park, Audubon Zoo, and Entergy IMAX Theatre, which will be showing “Penguins 3D” and “Madagascar, Island of Lemurs 3D” during the convention.

St. Louis Cathedral, a much-photographed icon on Jackson Square, is open for self-guided tours when masses or other functions are not going on. Nearby, the extensive Louisiana State Museum collection includes seven historic and iconic French Quarter buildings: 1850 House, refurbished to depict middle-class family life in the antebellum era; the Greek Revival Arsenal, built in 1839; The Cabildo, focusing on early Louisiana history; the Old U.S. Mint, now incorporating the Louisiana Historical Center, the New Orleans Jazz Club Collection, and a performing-arts center; the Presbytère; Creole House and Jackson House; and Madame John’s Legacy, one of the few major buildings that escaped the great fire of 1795.

For close-up appreciation of the region’s unique architecture, visit the 18th-century Creole colonial Pitot House, now the headquarters for the Louisiana Landmark Society. The lavish, Federal-style Hermann-Grima House was built in 1831, during the “Golden Age of New Orleans”; Gallier House, a Creole townhouse whose owner was fascinated by engineering and architectural innovation, is also in the French Quarter, as is the House of Broel Victorian Mansion. Longue Vue House and Gardens, the former Metairie residence of art collectors Edith and Edgar Stern, features 20th-century artworks by Picasso, Gabo, Laurens, Hepworth, and Soto; each exterior wall of the house is in a different style, with its own garden.

French Quarter sites and activities are so diverse that many New Orleans visitors spend their entire trips in this neighborhood (www.frenchquarter.com). Highlights for shoppers include the Cigar Factory (two locations; watch cigars being rolled at the Decatur Street shop), Erzulie’s Authentic Voodoo (handmade soaps, candles, and psychic readings), Hové Parfumeur (fine fragrances for men and women), and Kabuki Design Studio (one-of-a-kind hats for wearing and collecting). The century-old, 25,000-square-foot M.S. Rau Antiques on Royal Street is a landmark for discerning collectors worldwide.

The French Market open-air mall, the oldest public market in the country, resembles a European bazaar with its art stalls, shops, eateries, flea markets, farmers’ market, and, of course, music (take the Riverfront Streetcar from the Convention Center). Other major shopping centers include Riverwalk Market Place (with a grand reopening as The Outlet Collection scheduled for early spring) and the Shops at Canal Place (featuring Saks Fifth Avenue, Gucci, and local confectioner Blue Frog Chocolates).

Sports and Recreation

Golf fans can see Billy Horschel defend his Zurich Classic championship April 24-27 at TPC Louisiana in Avondale, 15 miles west of the city center. The Pete Dye-designed course, part of the Audubon Golf Trail, reopens to the public April 29. Other worthy courses within a reasonable distance include English Turn Golf and Country Club and the century-old Audubon Park Golf Course in the city, Stonebridge Golf Club in nearby Gretna, and Riverlands Golf & Country Club in La Place.

For cyclists, The American Bicycle Rental Company offers a nighttime bike tour of the “Wicked French Quarter”; Bike NOLA and Crescent City Bike Tours rent out bikes in the French Quarter. To apply your pedaling skills on water, take out a four-seater pedal boat and explore the bayous and lagoons of Big Lake at City Park. Chartered fishing trips over the inland waters of the Louisiana Delta, about a half-hour’s drive south of New Orleans, are offered by the well-regarded Jean Lafitte Fishing Charters and Griffin Fishing Charters; both will pick up and return guests who are staying in the city.