Keeping the Beat on the Street (31 page)

The Soul Rebels had gone out to stake their own territory, with the reggae and the hip-hop thing. Then Hollywood arrived. A guy named Ron Seidelberg from Hollywood Records came in and said, “I want a band that mixes rap and brass band.” So he went and gave Coolbone a quarter of a million dollars to make a record. Historically, Coolbone was created with this guy from out of town having the concept of mixing these elements. He hired some people to rap for them. Coolbone was an offshoot of the Soul Rebels; Steve Johnson, the trombone-playing leader, and his brother Ronell, another trombone player, had both been in the Soul Rebels
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There really was a boom in the mid-nineties; it was a golden era for this new style of music. I'm wondering where we go from here. Nowadays, a lot of the bands sound the same—you take a pop tune, and you do it in brass band style. The big stylistic leap was taken by the Dirty Dozen. But where else can it possibly go?

Around there was this feeling that it was going to blow up on a national level, in media terms. People would come onto the radio station when I was doing the
Brass Band Jam
program and say, “We want brass bands to be as big as rap.” They had this hard funky street sound, more bass—it was happening to pop music all over America
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There's so much doubling up of musicians; sometimes it's as if there's just one huge band. When things happen, like three of the Rebirth leaving to join the New Birth, the whole thing starts to become pretty indistinguishable
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BORN
: Wallace, Louisiana, June 26, 1906
Provided constant work throughout the years to many young musicians

Doc Paulin, 2001
Photo by Brian Wood

Doc Paulin moved to New Orleans in the same year he started to play the trumpet, 1922. He formed his first band in 1928 and continued to lead nonunion brass bands, mainly at uptown parades, for an incredible seventy years or so. Many well-known musicians worked for Doc Paulin in their younger days: Tuba Fats, Flo Anckle, Gregg Stafford, Michael White, and Big Al Carson among them. But as time went on and Doc's six sons were able to play well enough, the band became increasingly a family affair. Edgar Smith, tuba player, recalled, “Instead of paying us twenty dollars, Doc could pay his kids ten dollars and tell them to go to bed.”

Michael White, clarinet player, said of his early introduction to brass band music:

When I first started playing, music in the brass bands was still all traditional, and you would have sometimes thousands of people following these parades for hours and hours. And there was such a tremendous spirit and sense of abandon in these parades, like you were being a part of more than just people parading and music. The only thing that I've seen that I would parallel it to is some of the things I've studied and read about in West Africa.

Strangely enough, a friend of the family had given us a few records. The first traditional record I heard was the Young Tuxedo Brass Band,
Jazz Begins
. I started playing along with that, and that was my introduction to brass band music. I had a friend at school, Big Al Carson—he was playing tuba at that time with Doc Paulin. We used to talk about it at Xavier University, and I said, “Man, I'd like to do that kind of thing. Maybe you could talk to them and see if I could get into that.”

Curtis Mitchell (bass), Michael White (clarinet)
Photo by Peter Nissen

The New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival came up. Doc Paulin's band was playing, and I met him there. I told him I was interested in playing. I gave him my phone number, and about two weeks later, he called me.

Doc Paulin's a great teacher, in the sense that he taught a lot of the musical, as well as the spiritual and professional values. A lot of guys saw him as just somebody who used to fuss all the time, and make you do stuff. They saw him just like a policeman-type character. For example, when you had a job with Doc, you didn't go to where the job was; you went to his house, and he would take you. He was guaranteeing punctuality. He demanded that, whether you were playing in the worst neighborhoods or parades on Canal Street, that you had clean and pressed clothes, black pants, clean white shirt, solid black tie (not polka-dot, not striped), white band cap, and clean shoes. He inspected you—if you weren't right, he might send you home.

You're going back to values of the music. I think for a lot of musicians (although there are a lot of examples to the contrary) playing was a way of getting people to pay attention to you—it was a step up. A lot of people were very proud to be musicians. How you dressed and how you conducted yourself reflected on you, as well as how you performed. To reflect high standards of professionalism, a lot of musicians insisted on strict uniformity.

On many jobs we went on, people would comment about how good the band looked, and that seemed to help business a lot. In pictures, bands that dressed alike just seemed to be more impressive than if they just dressed any kind of way, in different outfits. Doc Paulin inherited and passed along that ethic.

Doc Paulin's musical heritage lives on today in the New Wave Brass Band, which includes Aaron Paulin on bass drum, Phillip Paulin on trumpet, Scott and Dwayne Paulin on trombones, Ricky Paulin on clarinet, and Roddy Paulin on alto saxophone. The tuba player is Ronell Johnson, who's related to the family by marriage.

BORN
: New Orleans, October 12, 1957
Played with the Doc Paulin Brass Band and for many years with the Pinstripe Brass Band; founder and leader of the New Wave Brass Band
Interviewed at the GHB Foundation, French Market Place, October 2002

Photo by Barry Martyn

There's always been drummers in our family: my grandfather, Oscar Senior, was a drummer, and my father, Oscar Junior. Mostly they freelanced
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My uncle was a gospel drummer. That's where it started for me, when I was little. All the respect and accolades he got, that's what inspired me to start playing. He would let me get up and play in church. I wasn't any good, but my effort was there
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Before I took up drums, I had wanted to be a trumpet player. Why that was—my mother's girlfriend was also her hairdresser. I happened to go over with my mother to her house. Her name was Miss Rosalie. While my mother was having her hair done, they sent me to see “Pops,” who lived in the same building. I went back there—I was kind of scared. The whole of his room was covered with photos of different bands and people he had played with. I was fascinated. I thought, “I'm in a different world right now.” He asked, “Son, do you like music?” He grabbed his horn, played a few scales, and a little tune. And he started to show me how to blow a trumpet. I couldn't get a sound out of it. We talked a bit more; then my mother came to collect me. I found out later it was Punch Miller. That would be in the late sixties
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Percy Humphrey was my family's insurance man. When he came round, I asked him about music. He asked me what instrument I wanted to play, and I told him the drums. Next time he called he brought me a pair of sticks. I had those sticks for years, but eventually they got broken
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In elementary school, I got involved in learning the basics and reading music. Then junior high school and high school marching bands, and finally I played marching music with the Southern University band in Baton Rouge when I went to college. I played snare drum or bass drum or full drum set—I wanted to be versatile. Whenever there was a gig and they needed a drummer, I was the man for the job
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Aaron, Ricky, and Roddy Paulin
Photo by Peter Nissen

I got involved in playing drum set, for some years, in my family church, Faith in God Temple. Some of the greatest rhythm patterns come out of the church. Most drummers can attest to that—if you're a drummer and you have any kind of background in gospel music, you really have some seasoning
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As far as the brass band scene is concerned, I started after Southern University; we formed a little brass band. A couple of the guys were already experienced brass band musicians; they were Doc Paulin's sons. Ricky played clarinet, and Dwayne played trombone. Their father, Doc Paulin, was really the initiator for most of the guys in my age group
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You came under his tutelage—the Doc Paulin band was like the feeder school. A lot of people came from him. I owe him a lot of credit for getting my feet wet in the brass band world. He had three bands working—he was that big. The first band was the majority of the top players. Then in the second band, you had some good players that were trying to get in the first band, and then you had the third band—that was the hopefuls!I had to start back there, in the third band. But I wasn't there long. I was about twenty-three years old. I had promised myself I'd become some kind of professional musician. We didn't read music. If Doc wanted to do a song you didn't know, you would have to get with one of the sons—they would show you what you had to do. I started out on the bass drum with Doc. Then, when I moved up to the first band with Doc's sons, I played snare drum
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After a short tenure with Doc Paulin, I joined with some other musicians to form our own brass band, which was the Pinstripe. We got off to a hot start. We hit the street so hard and built the name so good for ourselves, we were the hottest band on the street at one time. There was only us, the Tremé Brass Band, the Dirty Dozen, and the Majestic. Most of the older bands were fading out
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We came at that time when we still had a little strength—we were young, consuming everything. There wasn't that much money—you just about broke even, everybody got something. Not like now, when money is like top demand—you want a reputable brass band today, you got to pay money for it. We went through plenty of hard knocks, and the band had some great talent, but the rewards weren't there back then. Herb McCarver was on snare drum; he became the leader of Pinstripe. We had Mark Smith on tuba, Robert Harris on trombone, we called the alto player “Monk,” Dwight Miller played tenor sax. Robert Reed on trumpet. We had some top-notch musicians who wanted to get in the band
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