Photographer Michael P. Smith (1937–2008) captured the heart and soul of New Orleans’s music, culture, and folkways. He documented the physical and social structures that helped shape the unique cultural identity of his native New Orleans. In 2007, The Collection acquired Smith’s body of work, ensuring both its long-term preservation and ultimate public access.

The moments captured in Michael P. Smith music photographs are as familiar to the people of New Orleans as they are enthralling to Jazz Fest visitors. Since the first edition of the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival in 1970 until 2005, Smith documented the annual music, culinary and crafts bonanza that has become one of the city's signature events, and his photographs annually line the Gospel, Blues, and Jazz tents, paying witness to past performances in those same tents. In fact, the visual iconography of Jazz Fest as a showcase for legendary musical performance must be at least partly credited to Smith's images, which have been captured in two full-length Jazz Fest books that helped spread the word to fans around the world.

This exhibition will bring together one hundred twenty-five photographs taken at Jazz Fest during a twenty-five year period, from its inception in 1970 to 1995. All works come from the Michael P. Smith Archive of the Historic New Orleans Collection (HNOC), who have graciously lent objects from their collection, as well as allowing many new prints to be made of some Jazz Fest images that have never been exhibited. On view in the first floor galleries. Admission: FREE through July 12