Jazz education award goes to Bruce Raeburn

Bruce Raeburn, director of Tulane University Special Collections and curator of the Hogan Jazz Archive, is a 2016 “Spirit of Satch” Jazz Education Award honoree. The award is presented during the opening ceremony of the Satchmo SummerFest in Jackson Square.

“It’s an honor,” Raeburn said. “I feel like I’ve developed very strong relationships with the people who put on Satchmo SummerFest, so to be recognized by them really is touching. It was a complete surprise.”

The Satchmo SummerFest, an event staged by French Quarter Festivals Inc., includes musical performances, lectures, panel discussions and lots of food. This is the second year that the festival has bestowed “Spirit of Satch” honors.

“Scholars are going to be working on Louis Armstrong forever because he was such a complex individual — not just as a performer, but as a human being.”

Bruce Raeburn

To Raeburn, the study of Satchmo is New Orleans’ gift to music scholarship.

“Armstrong is one of these jazz musicians who is like a growth industry,” Raeburn said, only half-kidding. “Scholars are going to be working on Louis Armstrong forever because he was such a complex individual — not just as a performer, but as a human being.”