New Orleans has the only national park dedicated to music, and its rangers make sure kids feel the beat: the New Orleans Jazz National Historical Park hosts free ranger-led concerts, talks and sing-alongs in the French Quarter and at the Old U.S. Mint.
Young musicians can earn Junior Ranger badges by exploring jazz history, trying rhythm activities and tracing how African, Caribbean and European sounds cooked together into America’s original music.
Free, joyful and right in the Quarter, it’s the happiest civics lesson in Louisiana: this is where jazz was born, and the Park Service throws it a party every week.
