Louisiana
Independent New Orleans: Jazz, Jambalaya and Joie de Vivre
Program No. 21665RJ
Get to know New Orleans as you explore the French Quarter and Garden District, take in a jazz performance, learn to cook Cajun-style and enjoy plenty of time to explore on your own.
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6 days
5 nights
10 meals
4B 1BR 2L 3D
1
Check-in, Program Registration & Orientation, Welcome Dinner
New Orleans, LA
2
Architecture Lecture, Garden District, Sazerac House
New Orleans, LA
3
New Orleans History, City Tour, Sculpture Garden, Free time
New Orleans, LA
4
WWII Museum, Jazz Lecture, Free Time, Cooking School
New Orleans, LA
5
French Quarter, Hermann-Grima, Free Time, Farewell Dinner
New Orleans, LA
6
Jazz Brunch, Program Concludes
New Orleans, LA
At a Glance
It’s the New Orleans of your imagination: the sound of Jazz drifting up Bourbon Street, a nearly miraculous bowl of gumbo, the charm of a Garden District mansion. Join us for an unforgettable stay in the Crescent City as you hear, taste and see all that New Orleans is famous for and learn about the intriguing side of the city that few outsiders know. Discover the literary landmarks of Tennessee Williams, visit the World War II Museum, learn the secrets of creole cooking from a local chef and much more. You’ll have plenty of time on your own to stroll Bourbon Street, walk the levee, eat beignets and Muffaletta sandwiches or ride a streetcar named Desire.
Activity Level
Keep the Pace
Amount of walking and standing varies with your level of exploration. Walking is on city streets and uneven surfaces such as cobblestones.
Independent City Discoveries
Learn with a Group Leader and enjoy educational programming while also getting substantial independent time to explore on your own. Most Independent City Discoveries include lectures, self-guided excursions and passes for public transit and museums.
Best of all, you’ll…
- Walk with an expert through the Garden District, then delve deeper into locales of your choosing via streetcar.
- Enjoy a performance at a New Orleans jazz club as a primer on the city’s world-famous music scene.
- Watch a cooking demonstration as you dine at the New Orleans School of Cooking, and get recommendations for further culinary explorations from experts and longtime residents.
General Notes
Program includes independent time to explore the city. Group Leaders will provide directions for self-directed excursions. Suggestions for free-time activities provided in preparatory materials. You may enjoy a more inclusive, easier-paced "Signature City New Orleans" (#2856) or "New Orleans at a Slower Pace: A City of History, Culture and Celebration" (#1475).
Featured Expert
All trip experts
Brian Altobello
Brian Altobello is a native of New Orleans with a Master’s degree in U.S. History and 29 years of teaching experience. He is an Army veteran and author of three books, most recently “Whiskey, Women, and War: How World War I Shaped Jim Crow New Orleans” (University Press of Mississippi, 2021). Married to a travel writing teacher, Brian currently works as a curriculum specialist in the New Orleans area.
Please note: This expert may not be available for every date of this program.
Brian Altobello
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Brian Altobello is a native of New Orleans with a Master’s degree in U.S. History and 29 years of teaching experience. He is an Army veteran and author of three books, most recently “Whiskey, Women, and War: How World War I Shaped Jim Crow New Orleans” (University Press of Mississippi, 2021). Married to a travel writing teacher, Brian currently works as a curriculum specialist in the New Orleans area.
Milton J. Carr
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Milton Carr was born in Tremé, a cultural center of New Orleans. After studying in San Diego, Milton returned home to New Orleans where he worked for Domino Sugars. During his 33 years at Domino, he became interested in sugar cane’s connections to slavery and the economic history of the city. Milton has been a licensed New Orleans guide since 2001, and is a one-of-a-kind expert on the city's unique music, history, culture and heritage.
Dave Roberts
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Dave Roberts was born in New Orleans and baptized in the same church as Louis Armstrong. He received his B.B.A. from Loyola University (New Orleans) and his M.B.A. from the University of New Orleans. For many years he worked at Loyola University as the director of student finance. Dave started working as a New Orleans group leader in 1997. His expeditions are a blend of history, architecture, food, music, writers, movies, and current events.
Doreen Ketchens
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Doreen Ketchens is a musician whose primary interest lies in spreading the culture and traditional music of New Orleans all over the world through performances and education. As the leader of the jazz band Doreen’s Jazz New Orleans, she has been called "Queen Clarinet," "The Female Louis Armstrong," and “Lady Louie” by critics who have heard her perform. Doreen's Jazz New Orleans has represented New Orleans around the world, performing in Africa, Asia, Canada, Europe, South America, Russia and the U.S.
Nellie Watson
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Nellie Watson, a native New Orleanian, has always had a deep passion for the local environment. She has enjoyed sharing stories with Road Scholar for over 20 years, and is also a provider for aerial flightseeing tours of the endangered wetlands. With a background in architecture and a B.F.A. in environmental design, she began her career at two large international architectural firms, had her own residential design firm, and is currently is a professional model maker for major film productions like Marvel and Disney.
Angela Carll
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Angela Carll is a native New Orleanian who was a writer for “The Times-Picayune” for 30 years. She holds a master’s degree in English with an emphasis on Southern Literature, and is the author of “Where Writers Wrote,” a book about writers in New Orleans. She has taught at Tulane University, is a graduate of ITMI, and is a licensed New Orleans exploration leader. Angela has been a group leader for Road Scholar since 2016 and brings a wide variety of experiences to her groups.
Lyndel Brauninger
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Lyndel Brauninger, a native New Orleanian, is a retired educator who taught in the metropolitan New Orleans area for more than 30 years. Besides leading Road Scholar groups, she leads walking “foodie” groups in the French Quarter, where she has been a licensed exploration leader since 1996. Lyndel enjoys experiencing and learning everything the Crescent City has to offer, particularly the architecture, history, music, food, and amazing theater. She is thrilled to share her passion for New Orleans with people from all over the world.
Suggested Reading List
(8 books)
Visit the Road Scholar Bookshop
You can find many of the books we recommend at the Road Scholar store on bookshop.org, a website that supports local bookstores.
Independent New Orleans: Jazz, Jambalaya and Joie de Vivre
Program Number: 21665
Why New Orleans Matters
In the aftermath of Katrina and the disaster that followed, promises were made, forgotten, and renewed. Now what will become of New Orleans in the years ahead? What do this proud, battered city and its people mean to America and the world?
Award-winning author and longtime New Orleans resident Tom Piazza illuminates the storied culture and uncertain future of this great and neglected American metropolis by evoking the sensuous rapture of the city that gave us jazz music and Creole cooking; examining its deep undercurrents of corruption, racism, and injustice; and explaining how its people endure and transcend those conditions. And, perhaps most important, he asks us all to consider the spirit of this place and all the things it has shared with the world: its grace and beauty, resilience and soul.
Creole New Orleans Race and Americanization
This collection of six original essays explores the peculiar ethnic composition and history of New Orleans, which the authors persuasively argue is unique among American cities. The focus of Creole New Orleans is on the development of a colonial Franco-African culture in the city, the ways that culture was influenced by the arrival of later immigrants, and the processes that led to the eventual dominance of the Anglo-American community.
The Haunted History of New Orleans: Ghosts of the French Quarter
This book chronicles one writer's journey to New Orleans, LA, and his quest to find the most haunted locations in the French Quarter. Tag along as he interviews eyewitnesses, historians, and tour guides in one of the most haunted cities in America, What mysterious secrets did he dig up in the dusty archives? Uncover some shocking facts about the Crescent City: how he encountered the wrath of a long-dead Voodoo Queen, had an amazing revelation about one of New Orleans' most famous haunted spots while standing at a Bourbon Street crossroads, and even got to experience his very own haunting, right in the middle of an interview. The Haunted History of New Orleans is not simply a collection of ghost stories, but instead is an experiential search for truth: a quest which will take you into the darker side of history. This book examines the amazing amounts of tragedy in the Crescent City, from the founding right up to present day. Over 35 photos and illustrations!
Confederacy of Dunces
A Confederacy of Dunces is a picaresque novel written by American novelist John Kennedy Toole, published by Louisiana State University Press in 1980, eleven years after the author's suicide. The book, published through the efforts of writer Walker Percy (who also contributed a revealing foreword) and Toole's mother Thelma Toole, quickly became a cult classic, and later a mainstream success. Toole posthumously won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1981. It is now considered a canonical work of modern Southern literature, in the USA. The title derives from the epigraph by Jonathan Swift: "When a true genius appears in the world, you may know him by this sign, that the dunces are all in confederacy against him." The story is set in New Orleans in the early 1960s. The central character is Ignatius J. Reilly, an educated but slothful 30-year-old man still living with his mother in the city's Uptown neighborhood, who, due to an incident early in the book, must set out to get a job. In his quest for employment he has various adventures with colorful French Quarter characters.
Accidental City: Improvising New Orleans
"This is the story of a city that shouldn't exist. In the seventeenth century, what is now America's most beguiling metropolis was nothing more than a swamp: prone to flooding, infested with snakes, battered by hurricanes. But through the intense imperial rivalries of Spain, France, and England, and the ambitious, entrepreneurial merchants and settlers from four continents who risked their lives to succeed in colonial America, this unpromising site became a crossroads for the whole Atlantic world.
Lawrence N. Powell, a decades-long resident and observer of New Orleans, gives us the full sweep of the city's history from its founding through Louisiana statehood in 1812. We see the Crescent City evolve from a French village, to an African market town, to a Spanish fortress, and finally to an Anglo-American center of trade and commerce. We hear and feel the mix of peoples, religions, and languages from four continents that make the place electric-and always on the verge of unraveling. The Accidental City is the story of land-jobbing schemes, stock market crashes, and nonstop squabbles over status, power, and position, with enough rogues, smugglers, and self-fashioners to fill a picaresque novel.
Powell's tale underscores the fluidity and contingency of the past, revealing a place where people made their own history. This is a city, and a history, marked by challenges and perpetual shifts in shape and direction, like the sinuous river on which it is perched."
The French Quarter: An Informal History of the New Orleans Underworld
Home to the notorious "Blue Book," which listed the names and addresses of every prostitute living in the city, New Orleans's infamous red-light district gained a reputation as one of the most raucous in the world. But the New Orleans underworld consisted of much more than the local bordellos. It was also well known as the early gambling capital of the United States, and sported one of the most violent records of street crime in the country. In The French Quarter, Herbert Asbury, author of The Gangs of New York, chronicles this rather immense underbelly of "The Big Easy." From the murderous exploits of Mary Jane "Bricktop" Jackson and Bridget Fury, two prostitutes who became famous after murdering a number of their associates, to the faux-revolutionary "filibusters" who, backed by hundreds of thousands of dollars of public support—though without official governmental approval—undertook military missions to take over the bordering Spanish regions in Texas, the French Quarter had it all. Once again, Asbury takes the reader on an intriguing, photograph-filled journey through a unique version of the American underworld.
Louis Armstrong: An American Genius
Louis Armstrong. "Satchmo." To millions of fans, he was just a great entertainer. But to jazz aficionados, he was one of the most important musicians of our times--not only a key figure in the history of jazz but a formative influence on all of 20th-century popular music. Set against the backdrop of New Orleans, Chicago, and New York during the "jazz age", Collier re-creates the saga of an old-fashioned black man making it in a white world. He chronicles Armstrong's rise as a musician, his scrapes with the law, his relationships with four wives, and his frequent feuds with fellow musicians Earl Hines and Zutty Singleton. He also sheds new light on Armstrong's endless need for approval, his streak of jealousy, and perhaps most important, what some consider his betrayal of his gift as he opted for commercial success and stardom. A unique biography, knowledgeable, insightful, and packed with information, it ends with Armstrong's death in 1971 as one of the best-known figures in American entertainment.
A Streetcar Named Desire
This classic drama follows Blanche DuBois and the issues that arise when she moves to New Orleans to live with her sister and her husband.