Editor’s note: We’ve added the label “Op-Ed” to this piece to reflect its editorial perspective. While the New Orleans Jazz Museum is a major focus, the intent here isn’t to criticize the museum or its staff. This article aims to raise bigger questions about how Louisiana funds culture and the arts and whether that support is being distributed fairly.
On a muggy Tuesday night in the Marigny, a jazz trumpeter stood on the corner outside a bar playing for tips. The crowd was thin, the pay thinner—maybe $80 if the night was kind. This musician had once played at Louis Armstrong’s funeral procession. Now he was hustling for dollar bills outside a venue that wouldn’t even cover the cost of his horn repair.
Just a couple miles away, the state-run New Orleans Jazz Museum sits inside the historic Old U.S. Mint, enjoying the benefits of millions in public and private funding. In 2022 alone, the museum received $900,000 in federal grant money to build an outdoor stage and upgrade its café. The funding was part of a much larger pattern—state appropriations, pandemic relief, and donations from major foundations like Herb Alpert’s and Ruth Fertel’s have all flowed steadily into the institution since 2020.
Yet when that same musician was asked if he’d ever performed at the museum, he simply shook his head.
“They say they’re preserving jazz,” he told Big Easy Magazine. “But I haven’t seen any of that money. We’re still hustling like it’s 1955.”
A Public Museum with Private Privileges
From 2020 to 2022, the Office of State Museum, which oversees the Jazz Museum and eight other sites, operated with an annual budget ranging from $6.7 to $7.7 million. Over 70 percent of that came from the State General Fund, with the rest coming through interagency transfers and earned income from tickets or rentals.
But the pandemic didn’t slow funding—it amplified it. In addition to the $900,000 from the American Rescue Plan, the Jazz Museum also received a Shuttered Venue Operators Grant from the SBA and a Culture Care Fund grant via the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities.
Meanwhile, private donors stepped up. The Herb Alpert Foundation supported the development of new exhibitions. The Fertel Foundation funded construction of a Jazz Education Center and recording lab. Dozens of other donations and small grants flowed through as well.
According to the 2023 Louisiana Legislative Auditor’s report, more than half of all private donations raised through the Louisiana Museum Foundation between 2019 and 2021—about $1 million out of $2 million total—went directly to the Jazz Museum. That alone raised eyebrows. But what really caught attention was the fact that nearly all of that money was raised not by the foundation, but by the Jazz Museum’s own director.
A Missing Link in Oversight
Unlike most high-profile museums, the New Orleans Jazz Museum does not have a dedicated, independent nonprofit overseeing its fundraising and operations. While a group called Friends of the New Orleans Jazz Museum at the Old U.S. Mint exists on paper, it does not publish IRS Form 990s or appear to manage any significant financial activity.
Instead, almost all major grants and private donations are funneled through the Louisiana Museum Foundation, which supports the entire state museum system. But a 2021 governance study found that the foundation was largely passive, with museum staff—not foundation leadership—doing the bulk of the fundraising. In fact, the Jazz Museum’s director alone raised over $2.3 million in private support, according to the state audit.
That independence has had costs. Over twenty funding streams were flowing through the Jazz Museum between 2020 and 2022, many of them lacking clear documentation or tracking systems. In one case, an ATM was installed in the museum’s lobby without a signed contract, which meant the museum couldn’t legally collect its share of the profits.
But the ATM was just the tip of the iceberg. According to the state audit, the Jazz Museum entered into contracts with more than twenty different funding streams between 2020 and 2022. These included agreements with guest curators, production vendors, and festival partners. Yet there was no centralized tracking system in place. Deliverables weren’t always recorded, contracts weren’t always signed; and the state had no unified oversight to ensure that public dollars were being spent as promised.
Much of this fundraising and spending occurs under the terms of Cooperative Endeavor Agreements—legal partnerships that allow nonprofits like the Louisiana Museum Foundation to manage programming and finances on behalf of state-run museums. While CEAs can streamline operations, they also allow public institutions to operate with private discretion—often with less transparency, bypassing typical procurement processes and sidestepping layers of government accountability. The result, as both the audit and the governance study note, is a fractured system where it’s often unclear who’s responsible for what—and who, ultimately, is accountable to the public.
All this money has certainly bought activity. But has it bought equity?
Plenty of Programs—but Who Benefits?
To the public eye, the Jazz Museum looks like a powerhouse of programming. In 2020 alone, it hosted over 200 virtual events, two digital festivals, and new exhibits—all despite the pandemic. The following year saw the opening of the Ruth U. Fertel Jazz Lab and Education Center, expanded hybrid events, and partnerships with organizations like the Jazz Foundation of America.
The museum also distributed hurricane supplies after Ida, launched health-centered events like “Music for Mental Health”, and continued daily concert offerings by 2023.
But programming volume is not the same as cultural equity. Behind the scenes, local musicians say the pay is low, the booking opaque, and the pipeline narrow. Though the museum has partnered with the Musicians’ Council on Fair Wages and supported legal aid groups like The ELLA Project, many artists still struggle to understand how opportunities are assigned—and whether those most rooted in the culture are truly being prioritized.
This sentiment echoes broader concerns within the New Orleans music community. As detailed in Big Easy Magazine, many musicians find themselves underpaid and marginalized, even as the city profits from their cultural contributions.
The Jazz Museum has no publicly shared guidelines for artist compensation or community advisory input on programming. In a city like New Orleans—where the line between exploitation and celebration is razor-thin—that absence can feel like a silence louder than the music itself.
No Captain at the Helm
Leadership has also played a role. As of 2023, the Louisiana State Museum system had not had a permanent director since 2016. Nearly a decade of interim administrators and political appointees have filled the void, according to the state audit.
Since 2016, the state has failed to fill this role with a permanent appointee, despite repeated warnings from both internal stakeholders and outside consultants. The absence of consistent leadership has stalled long-term planning, weakened internal coordination, and left individual museums to operate in silos—some thriving through hustle, others withering from neglect.
As of May 2025, the position remains unfilled. Becky Mackie continues to serve as acting director, a role she has held since at least August 2024. In response to growing concern, lawmakers introduced House Bill 692 during the 2025 legislative session. The bill would require the lieutenant governor to appoint a permanent director from a list of nominees selected by a board-appointed search committee, with a final appointment deadline set at 60 days. It’s a legislative fix to what has become a chronic failure of executive oversight.
This leadership vacuum has left strategic planning delayed, staff roles ambiguous, and governance fractured. The Jazz Museum, meanwhile, has operated with unusual autonomy, its director exercising broad discretion over exhibitions, grants, and partnerships.
That autonomy has also come with disproportionate benefits. Despite being only one of nine sites within the Louisiana State Museum system, the Jazz Museum received over half of all private financial support raised by the Louisiana Museum Foundation between 2019 and 2021. Meanwhile, museums in Baton Rouge, Patterson, and Thibodaux continue to operate with limited programming and aging infrastructure—deepening the divide between New Orleans and the rest of the state’s cultural institutions.
Millions in public and private funds are flowing through an institution without a clear or consistent accountability structure. Public trust, community involvement, and cultural ownership all hang in the balance.
What Story Is Being Told—and Who’s Telling It?
New Orleans gave the world jazz, but the story of that gift—how it was born, who sustained it, and who still lives it—is often controlled by institutions that are more accountable to donors than to neighborhoods.
The New Orleans Jazz Museum has the potential to be different. It has the funding, the facilities, and the visibility to serve as a national model. It can be a space that pays artists fairly, centers Black cultural leadership, and tells the story of jazz from the inside out, not just for tourists or VIP galas.
But that future depends on action. Transparency is not optional, and equitable access must be more than rhetoric. The museum’s public mission must come before its institutional prestige.
That also means confronting the systemic barriers faced by working musicians citywide—barriers that persist even as their music remains the lifeblood of New Orleans culture. As Big Easy Magazine reported in The Fight to Keep New Orleans Music Alive (and Affordable), many musicians continue to rely on tips and one-off gigs while their neighborhoods gentrify and cultural institutions grow more corporate.
Strikingly, despite all the activity, the Jazz Museum still lacks a permanent exhibition chronicling the history of jazz. Plans for a flagship exhibit were announced years ago and partially funded by private donors, but remain unrealized. Temporary shows rotate in and out, but the museum has yet to install a dedicated, immersive experience that walks visitors through the music’s origins, evolution, and cultural weight. In the birthplace of jazz, that absence speaks volumes.
Because in a city where too many culture-bearers still play for tips while their image adorns tourism campaigns, the real question isn’t how much the museum programs—it’s who the programming is for.
Until that’s answered, the trumpeters on street corners will keep playing for tips, while the museum meant to honor them keeps cashing the checks.
