The New Orleans Jazz Museum is located in the Old U.S. Mint building on 400 Esplanade Avenue, bordering the historic French Quarter neighborhood.

[2] In the early 1980s, the Louisiana State Museum's Jazz Collection exhibit opened on the second floor of the Old U.S. Mint building under the curatorship of Don Marquis.

Other artifacts in the collection include some 12,000 photographs from the early days of jazz; recordings in a wide variety of formats, including over 4,000 78 rpm records that date from 1905 to the mid- 1950s, several thousand 12-inch LPs and 45 rpm records, and approximately 1,400 reel-to-reel tapes; posters, paintings and prints; hundreds of examples of sheet music from late 19th-century ragtime to popular songs of the 1940s and 1950s - many of them first editions that became jazz standards; several hundred rolls of film featuring concert and nightclub footage, funerals, parades, and festivals; hundred of pieces of relevant ephemera; and architectural fragments from important jazz venues.

These performances educate audiences about the depth and breadth of jazz and give a live, vibrant significance to the museum’s ongoing work.

For scholars, the New Orleans Jazz Museum provides access to its world-class collection and research facilities through the Louisiana Historical Center.

For youth and families, the museum’s education programs include music lessons, instrument building workshops, appearances from guest musicians, and instruction in recording technologies.

These educational initiatives align frequently with established learning objectives of the museum and include performance and composing camps and retreats.