New Orleans Jazz Fest

Top-notch bands play the clubs of New Orleans year-round, but it's hard to beat the lineup and festivities surrounding the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, held April 25-27 and May 1-4. Performers will include Stevie Wonder, Billy Joel, Jimmy Buffet, The Neville Brothers, Santana, Sheryl Crow, Al Green, and thousands more (yes, you read that correctly). "N'awlins" food specialties served on the grounds feature crawfish, andouille gumbo, and alligator pie.

From Primedia Publications

Let the Good Times Roll: The French Quarter
There's still nothing else like it.

	The mix of colorful buildings, cobblestones and courtyards provide a unique backdrop for the Vieux Carré.

Who says you can't mix a little fun with your history? New Orleans' French Quarter—the Vieux Carré—offers a little of both. Here you can seek traces of Andrew Jackson, Jean LaFitte, Louis Armstrong, Tennessee Williams, and even Napoleon Bonaparte. There's nothing else in the United States quite like New Orleans and its Old World charm.

The French founded New Orleans in 1717 with plans to create a shipping center near the Mississippi's mouth. France ceded the territory to Spain in 1763 and got it back in 1800. Napoleon Bonaparte sold the entire Louisiana Territory to the United States in 1803. All those changes of ownership helped New Orleans gain a distinctly cosmopolitan aura.

An army under Andrew Jackson defeated the British just outside New Orleans in 1815, turning Jackson into a national hero. You can find his statue in Jackson Square in front of the St. Louis Cathedral, the oldest cathedral in the U.S. Another hero during the Battle of New Orleans was pirate leader Jean LaFitte, who met with Jackson in the Vieux Carré (the exact site is still under debate) and offered his pirate army to the Americans.

New Orleans is also recognized as the birthplace of jazz, a musical gumbo of influences ranging from West Indian to European classical music. Louis Armstrong was born here, and visitors love to hear old-style jazz at Preservation Hall or at any of the lively venues along Bourbon Street. New Orleans has had an impact on other arts too. Playwright Tennessee Williams found inspiration here, and his A Streetcar Named Desire is a classic evocation of the city.

And what about Napoleon? The man who sold New Orleans to the United States never saw it for himself. Loyalists did hatch plans, however, to spirit the Little Emperor from his exile on the island of St. Helena and set him up in the French Quarter. But Napoleon died before he could be rescued. The house prepared for him is now the Napoleon House tavern.

For more information about New Orleans, call the city's Convention and Visitors Bureau at (504) 566-5011. The Jazz and Heritage Festival runs from the last weekend in April to the first weekend in May. The date for Mardi Gras varies from year to year—"Fat Tuesday" falls just before Ash Wednesday and the start of Lent.