New Orleans Jazz Funeral Pounds Gaily for the Dead

(The author, who was born and raised in New Orleans, became interested in jazz and began playing the clarinet when he was 14. Since then, he has studied with most of the major traditional artists, including "Kid" Thomas, Billie and Dede Pierce, and the Olympic Brass Band, as well as George Lewis.

The Galvanized Washboard Band, which he joined a year ago, was formed three years ago at Yale. One of its members has since graduated and now lives in Cambridge; the others are still in New Haven. Several of the author's articles on traditional jazz have appeared in Downbeat.

This is the first in a two-part series. The second part will appear tomorrow. -- Ed. Note.)

I ARRIVED at Buster's just in time for the funeral. Some for the old musicians in their black parade hats were coming out of the little bar room and chatting excitedly with one another. There was a tremendous crowd of people out in the street--mostly black children and teen-agers. The brass instruments and little gold letters on the parade hats glistened in the bright sunshine. They seemed very jolly, and I guessed everyone had been tanking up in Buster's for a good while. Emanuel Paul grinned with a look of mock surprise when he recognized me.

"Man, where you been?" he said.

"Up north. I been missing you guys for a long time."

"Is that right? Well I'm glad you made this one, cause look at all these fine women they got out here today." He winked and chuckled softly. Then he put the mouthpiece of his tenor sax to his lips and made a sort of "zonk" deep in the lower register. Just behind Emanuel, I spotted "Booker-T" Glass, the 85-year-old bass drummer. He was standing erect behind the clumsy, weathered old drum. The painted letters on the sides were barely visible: "Olympia Brass Band of N.O., La."

"All right, junior," he smiled. "All right." He grabbed my hand in his sinewy paw and squeezed it warmly. "How you been making out?"

"Pretty good for an old man," I answered. This drew a shrill burst of laughter from him.

"You and me both," he grinned.

I saw them all as they came out of Buster's, shaking hands, exchanging greetings--Milton Battiste, Kid Sheik, Andy Anderson, Papa Glass. "Say, man," Sheik said, "this is gettin' to be more like a party or something than a funeral."

"Where that big fat lazy bastard at?" Booker-T demanded suddenly. "He still inside? Fats! Get out here, man!" Just then, Fats Houston, a tremendous man of maybe 300 pounds, waddled through the door of Buster's in his elaborate Grand Marshal's uniform and blew a burst on his silver whistle.

"All right," he yelled, "Let's go." His mouth showed a thousand huge teeth as he strutted before the band. The snare drum began its military marching tempo, then Booker-T thumped two pick-up beats on the big bass drum, and we were off. The number was "Lord, you sure been good to me," an un-tempo hymn played to the lashing syncopation which only a New Orelans brass band can achieve.

SEVERAL hundred of the blacks danced around us in a tremendous, floating wave of bodies as we slowly made our way toward Congo Square. Two hundred years ago, the local slaves were allowed by custom to dance in that square every Sunday. The slave drummers would pound out their ancestral rhythms while their brothers would chant and dance for a few hours of freedom.

Tourists walked along the sidewalk, clicking their cameras and trying to stay clear of the mass of dancing bodies and umbrellas swinging in the street. The number ended in a powerful discord of shrill brass notes, and the crowd let out a great "Whoop!" We continued marching to the beat of the snare drum.

As we pulled up to the front of the little white wooden building--Blandin Funeral Home--we played another hymn, "Just a Little While to Stay Here." Then the crowd stood around waiting for them to bring the body out so the music could start again. Most of the musicians went over to a little bar room across the street for beer and shade from the sun. The heat was almost unbearable.

I followed Kid Sheik into the bar.

"Don't look like it's gonna rain rain today," said Sheik, laying his trumpet down on the bar. "So hot today, man. We sure could use a little rain."

"If it rain while we buryin' a man," Booker-T said seriously, "that mean they washin' away the man's sins. If it be a big sinner--rain like hell!"

"I wish we was buryin' you, then," Sheik grinned. "Man, we'd have us some rain!" The old man let out a shrill laugh. I didn't even know who we were burying that day.

NEW ORLEANS still has a good number of organization--"benevolent societies"--which give brass band funerals to their departed brothers. The Olmypia Brass Band is one of the last marching jazz bands remaining in the city. Most of its members are aging black jazzmen who have played in the city's back streets, dives, honky tonks, and dance halls since the early part of this century. The brass band tradition in New Orleans goes back further than the lives of these men. Funerals and parades just like this one had been going on long before the turn of the century, possibly even before the Civil War.

Perhaps Walt Whitman observed a black brass band funeral during his stay in New Orleans in 1847. These lines from "Song of Myself" capture--though perhaps by coincidence--the spirit of a jazz funeral:

With music strong I come, with my cornets and my drums,

I play not marches for accepted victors only, I play marches for conquer'd and slain persons . . .

I beat and pound for the dead

I blow through my embouchures my loudest and gayest for them.

Loudest and gayest. Beat and pound for the dead. That is it! The New Orleans funeral has always been an occasion for rejoicing as well as sorrow, celebrating a good man's release from pain and toil, and his passing into a happier life. Even the titles of the spirituals they play express a bittersweet longing for the release: "Just a Little While to Stay Here," "My Life Will Be Sweeter Some Day," "Take My Hand, Precious Lord," "Just a Closer Walk With Thee," "Bye and Bye, When the Morning Comes."

To the slave, death was a moment of peace, dignity, and freedom which could not be known in life. Sorrow in death was always tempered by a sense of relief. This great boisterous celebration of death could only have sprung from such conditions as black men faced in America. Why it took the particular form it did in 19th-century New Orleans--the jazz funeral--is impossible to answer precisely. Black men found horns and drums and created a great music--a music that would express a powerful, heartfelt message. It was the blues, ragtime, spirituals, marching music dancing music. They lived by it; they played by it; and when death came, they bade an orgasmic farewell with their loudest and gayest music. They would march soberly to the cemetery playing dirges and hymns, and returned with jazz, shouting, and dancing.

Who the man was didn't really matter. The crowds came for the music and excitement whether they knew him or not. There was a noisy tribute to this anonymous brother just as there had been for the great trumpeter "Papa" Celestin several years before. "I play not marches for accepted victors only, I play marches for conquer'd and slain persons.

I GOT BACK over to the funeral home just in time. They were bringing the body out already. The casket was almost hidden under wreaths of flowers. As it passed by the band, we played "Just a Closer Walk with Thee," in dirge tempo. The crowd was silent as the mourners in black followed the casket. One heavy old woman with fleecy white hair was weeping into a handkerchief and singing out the words of the hymn in between sobs. Her rich voice wailed above the brass with a clear, poignant tone.

When this feeble life is o'er

Time for me will be no more.

Lead me, O Jesus, lead me to the shore,

To the Kingdom shore, yes, to the shore.

The band walked slowly in front of the hearse as it pulled away from the curb. We played "Lead Me Savior," next, moving together with slow steps, swaying from side to side to the throbs of Booker-T's big bass drum.

It was too far to walk all they way to the cemetery, so we had to "cut the body loose." The band walked over to the side of the street. Fats Houston paced soberly in front of the hearse as it crept past the band. We were playing "Nearer my God to thee." At about the middle of the block, Fats moved to the side, and bowed gracefully to the hearse. It moved on under the crossed banners of the benevolent society, picked up speed, and was soon out of sight.

The crowd got very noisy and excited now, because the funeral was over and the parade was about to begin. They shouted out for the music to start.

"Hey, Sheik! Gimme some line music, man!"

"Second Line."

"Come, on, baby, let's hear some music!"

The second line--as the crowd people dancing behind a parade is called--had grown to maybe a thousand people. It was tremendous. There was a second line stretching for three blocks behind the band. It was just like the Mardi Gras. Above the head of the people, brightly decorated umbrellas began to appear. Some were very elaborate, with fine, plush layers of feathers on them. One had a big black doll dressed up like a carnival queen fastened to the top. Tassles, fringe, sequins. Green, bright yellow, and lavender were the dominant colors. One umbrella was deep red with black and yellow trimming, like a great flaming torch. It had "Soul Brother" sprayed on it in glossy paint.

THE appearance of umbrellas at these parades is like some ancient ritual. In the beat of the music, a dance will sometimes throw his umbrella on the ground--handle pointing skywards--and writhe around it in a riotous, sensual dance. If you ask him where he learned to do that with his umbrella, he will say, "Man, they always done this at parades!" or "My daddy done that!" It is a remnant of some long-forgotten rite. An astute observer once described that scene as "some vanished ritual grandeur of humanity that has been lost in the stones, the jungle and the dust, yet lies only lightly sleeping in our blood."

The snare drummer picked up a hot shuffle; the second line cheered and lept into motion. The band broke into a riotous number called "Joe Avery's Blues" and began to march down a narrow little brick street behind the French Quarter. This was a soul neighborhood, and the people were hanging out of their sagging window sills and doorways and sitting on front porches of little splintery wooden houses. Children ran out of the alleys and into the street. The old people smiled and nodded approvingly from their rocking chairs. Scruffy little barking dogs were running all around.

It was very hot, and everybody was getting his little "taste" to cool off. Flasks, bottles, and beer cans were everywhere. Even young teenagers were sipping from foaming bottles held in one hand as they danced, head back, eyes closed. The dancing got looser and wilder and better. It went on like this for blocks and blocks, and the second line got bigger all the time. The musicians bounced along blasting out their roughest and raunchiest music, "Little Liza Jane," "Honky Tonk Town," "Shoutin' Blues." The numbers just kept coming. Battiste strutted sideways, holding his trumpet with one hand, a beer can in the other. Huge drops of sweat glistened on his face.

WE WERE just beginning another tune when I heard a muffled "Pop!" I though immediately that it was gunfire, but I wasn't sure. I looked over in the direction of the noise to see what was happening. People were crowding around some woman lying on the ground behind the band.

Kid Sheik ran over to the other side of the street as soon as he had heard the noise. He knew exactly what it was. I was right behind him. "Shit!" he said after we had crouched behind a car. "Seem like every parade there's some dude wants to play cowboy!"

Just then the shocked silence was broken by screams and everyone started to stampede away from the spot, as if the killer had gone beserk. A thousand people were running down the street at full speed. I heard another shot. Two. Three. More screams. Then the stampede stopped and people were beginning to gather around the wounded woman again. No one else had been hit. From the gestures of the people around the scene, I supposed that the gunman had run down a side street that angled off of Rampart St.

Suddenly a police car sped up to the crowd and jerked to a halt. A plump, middle-aged sergeant hopped out with his gun drawn and ran toward the crowd. Then another car drove up. Two officers got out and started running in the same direction. Then came two motorcycles, sirens wailing, two more cars, another motorcycle. Ten or fifteen policemen were running down the alley that the policemen disappeared into.

By now the crowd had recovered from the initial shock and was buzzing with excited chatter.

"Name was Shorty. I knows him."

"He just been got out of jail las' month."

"He always been mean, too. They got him, now. Back to jail."

"That girl hurt bad?"

"Got her in the leg!"

The band had moved down the street and started playing again to get the crowd away from the scene. I tried to catch up with them, but I was too exhausted to run. Then I saw a black parade cap just in front of me. It was Sammy Alcorn, calmly oiling the valves of his trumpet.

"Hey, man," I said. "I think I'm going to quit this parade. I don't like this stuff one bit."

"Don't worry 'bout that, man. They never bother with musicians."

"Yeah, but it's different with me. You know what I'm talking about."

"I know what you means, but I don't think it's that way. It ain't that way at all. I mean, this is just people fighting among themselves, you know? They get into arguments and all that foolishness. See, they got these little gangs, they always fighting one another. The guys from the ninth ward got their gang and they always splitting' skulls with the cats in this housin' project here, you know? Now, prob'ly the dude that did all the shootin' was from the projects and seen one of these ninth ward cats who'd just beat him to a pulp last week, something like that. So he goes home and gets his gun. Look like he missed, though. I don't think he meant to hit that girl."

"Yeah, and he could have hit me or you just as easily."

"Well, me, I'm used to this shit. You'll prob'ly see two or three more shootin's before this parade's over. But I grew up with this, man. It's just part of my life. There's always been shit like that going on around me. Cats gettin' cut to ribbons with knives, razors, guns, fightin.'"

"I'm not used to it at all. And I feel like a target. If some cat wants to shoot an ofey, I happen to be the only one around here. And I'm right in the middle of the parade the whole way."

"Well, I don't think it's like that at all. Besides, you just got to accept these things. For me, gettin' shot is a chance I got to take every day, the way my neighborhood is. It's a chance you got to take."

We had caught up with the band by then. Sammy started to blow his trumpet again, and the music went on. Everybody was so cool about the whole thing. It really was an everyday occurrence. Run your tail out of the way of the man with the gun, make sure he's not coming after you, then go on about your business. Today, their business was music, dancing and good times, and they went rolling right on. The second line reformed. They shouted, they danced, they bumped and ground. The trumpets blared, the clarinet soared, the bass drum throbbed, the trombones moaned. All like human voices--fine, rich human voices, singing out their eternal song of life and death as they marched on down the narrow brick street