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New Orleans Museum of Art New Orleans, Louisiana November 11,1995-January 7,1996 Reviewed by Peggy McDowell
Last year the New Orleans Museum of Art presented the exhibition "Louis Armstrong: A Cultural Legacy," consisting of photographs, prints, paintings, drawings, sheet music, and recordings (played on vintage radio and television sets) that documented the musician's life and his impact on twentieth-century music. Complementing this display and filling several galleries was an exceptional array of African musical instruments and music-related sculptures from an exhibition titled "Roots of American Jazz: African Musical Instruments from New Orleans Collections." The diversity and quality of the eighty-nine African pieces selected by William Fagaly, Assistant Director of the Museum, revealed the discerning tastes of more than twenty local collectors. A handsome illustrated catalogue listed pieces and expanded on the objectives of the exhibition through an introduction by Fagaly and a brief essay, "The African Impact on Early Jazz," by University of Washington ethnomusicologist Christopher Waterman. Both the catalogue and the show were supported by a grant from the Lupin Foundation.
Fagaly explains the impetus for the exhibition in his introduction:
African Americans living in New Orleans during the waning years of the 19th century contributed largely to our city becoming the birthplace of jazz, the source of modern music. In tribute to this momentous contribution to the world history of music, the New Orleans Museum of Art has organized this exhibition...as part of the citywide celebration marking 1995 as the centennial of the beginnings of jazz...