Bourbon Street Blues

Bourbon Street was laid out in the early 1720s by the French engineer Adrien de Pauger, a few years after New Orleans was founded in 1718, and it was named for the House of Bourbon, the ruling family of France. The whiskey takes its name from Kentucky's Bourbon County, which honors the same family.

The balconies came later. After the Great New Orleans Fire of 1788 the Spanish rebuilt much of the Quarter, which is why its streets look more Spanish than French, with iron balconies over the sidewalks.

Jazz grew up in the city around the turn of the twentieth century, in dance halls, parades and the clubs near Storyville. Louis Armstrong, born in New Orleans and believed to have been born in 1901, learned cornet in a boys' home band, then moved to Chicago in 1922 to play with King Oliver, and the sound traveled with him.

A trumpet player stands in silhouette at the left edge, hat brim low, leaning into his horn. An iron balcony glows amber behind him, and from the bell of the horn a burst of pink, orange, cyan and gold sprays up into a deep blue night. The surface is thick and textured, so the notes look like sparks thrown off by the street.