Homegrown

On his first trip home after moving to Chicago in 1922, Louis Armstrong, front and center, along with his band, paid a visit to his former teacher, Peter Davis, third row right, at the Municipal Boys’ Home (formerly the Colored Waifs’ Home) in June 1931. In the background, members of the home’s band hold instruments donated to them by the Unity Industrial Life Insurance Company, the first black-owned insurance company in New Orleans. Today, organizations such as Music Rising and Roots of Music continue the tradition of exposing youth to the history and culture of New Orleans jazz through education and funding.