Companies in the city offered opera, plays, and concerts. And even then New Orleans was the home of world class hotels and some of the best restaurants in the Western Hemisphere. The city's cosmopolitan exotic semi-Latin atmosphere attracted artists and writers. The city also boasted museums and libraries and the very popular horse racing. Other public sports contests that became available were boxing, baseball and college football.
Jazz is described as a combination of black folk tunes, brass band marches and ragtime.
Jazz developed in the seedy parts of New Orleans about 1900. The Bad New Orleans was the last major city in the entire country to get a sewer system. The filth was unimaginable to those of us used to sewer and water systems. By 1910, however, New Orleans was able to construct both a water and sewer system with drainage improvements to the city. With less stagnant water in which mosquitoes could breed, malaria and yellow fever wee reduced.