“Around the turn of the century, New Orleans became the Marseilles of America, a cosmopolitan port filled with sailors, traders, gamblers, prostitutes, thieves, con men, and gangsters of every nationality. Although every major city in America had its red-light district, New Orleans’s Storyville was the best known of all the nation’s bawdy houses for not only were the customers entertained by exotic ladies of the night, they were also treated to the strains of a new kind of music called jazz, played exclusively in these whorehouses by black musicians.”
Read more about it here:
http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/hemp/history/first12000/12.htm
Vipers and Weeds 