Keeping the Beat on the Street (33 page)

We play conventions, wedding receptions, clubs around town. We used to do the Sunday night at Donna's Bar and Grill—it gave us some exposure, kept the band tight, and kept our chops up. The whole social and pleasure scene has changed over the years, and we only do about three second line jobs each year. The whole society of the people participating in the second lines has got much younger—they're not looking for the traditional music anymore. They're looking for that shake, sweat, dance, and jump music. The Dirty Dozen brought their own identity, their energy, their rebellion. I respect that band so much
.

When I say traditional, some people think we're trying to hold on to something that's gone, but that's not it. We're bringing our own identity to it. I've always been an individual; I play my own way. Musical education is important—not only am I a teacher, but I'm a music teacher. As a matter of fact, I'm the jazz studies coordinator for the school board
.

This city isn't the best city to live in; it's not the most profitable city, it certainly isn't the safest, but the music has held me here
.

Interviewed at 3621 Burgundy Street, October 2002

Norman Dixon
Photo by Barry Martyn

I have been doing the coordination of brass bands and social and pleasure clubs for Jazz Festival for thirty-two years now
.

When I started, it was 1972. That was the first time they had it at the Fairgrounds. It happened through Doc Paulin's band. He was playing at the Jazz Festival, and he introduced me to Quint Davis, because I'm chairman of the board of the Young Men Olympian Junior Benevolent Association. We're not a social and pleasure club; we're a benevolent association. We did Jazz Fest at first with only two clubs: there was the Young Men Olympian and the Scene Boosters. They're the two oldest clubs out there. We take it in turns to open. For two or three years, Doc Paulin was the only brass band they had
.

Then the crowd started to get so large Quint Davis and I had a meeting and decided to have some of the other social and pleasure clubs out there. Quint asked me to coordinate it. Now, today, from starting thirty years ago with just two clubs, I have fifty-five out there. We have three parades a day. For the last three years, I've had the Indians on the ground with me—whatever tribes Quint's having on stage
.

We started with the younger brass bands around ten years ago. The Dirty Dozen came out there. I had the Pinstripe, the Majestic with Flo, The New Wave Brass Band, the Original Thunderstorm (that's Eddie Bo Parish's band), the Lil' Stooges. I'll take them, and the Hot 8 Brass Band, and I'll put them up against the Rebirth any day of the week
.

We got the Mahogany Brass Band, led by Brice Miller (he's my cousin). They were the original band for the Young Men Olympian. Then there's the New Birth band with Tanio. And the Storyville Stompers—that's a white band. The Chosen Few with Anthony Lacen. The Tremé with Benny Jones. Steve Johnson's Coolbone. The Pinettes, that's a girl band. Oh, man, they're good. And you got the Tornado Brass Band—that's Greg Davis. There's still the Olympia, the Lil' Rascals, the Algiers. Altogether, I have seventeen bands to coordinate, but there's more than that
.

I do it because it's like rheumatism or arthritis—it's in my bones. I been doing it so long. Right now, they're hooked on the funk thing, because that's what the kids like to dance to, but people our age are more for the traditional
.

Anyhow, come down to the parade on Sunday. Get your walking shoes on—you're going to be walking for four hours. When you get out there Sunday, you can get anything you want to eat. Red beans, hot sausage—and a beer's only going to cost you a dollar. Smoked sausage sandwich, only three dollars. The police will be in line before you!

The leaders of the Social Aid and Pleasure Clubs, embodying local notions of respectability and order, become the people who are in control of the street and take hold of the public imagination. All those who join in the second-line parade can partake in this order, this joyous space of power, dignity, self-reliance, and freedom.

—
HELEN REGIS
, “Second Lines, Minstrelsy, and the Contested Landscapes of New Orleans Afro-Creole Festivals”

People here can't get jobs, and it's hard. So people need to come together, and work together. We want that. We want the communication and we want happiness between the brothers and the sisters.
—
UNNAMED ZULU CLUB OFFICIAL
,
Jazz Parades: Feet Don't Fail Me Now

The hand-lettered notice painted on the side of the grocery store reads:

NO DRUGS
NO WEAPONS
NO LOITERING
NO SHOTGUNS

It's a bleak reminder of the negative aspects of urban life in the Sixth Ward. But the weather is fine, the barbecue smells good, and the crowd beginning to arrive at the street corner seems to be in a holiday mood. The Sudan Social and Pleasure Club (established 1984, proclaims their banner) is parading today at twelve noon—or sometime around then—after all, this
is
New Orleans.

Starting point is the Tremé community center, opposite Craig School, on the corner of St. Philip and Villere. Musicians arrive on foot or pick-up truck, in twos and threes, calling greetings across the street “Hey, Mr. Jones! Mr. Benny Jones!” “Hey, Tuba, where y'at?”

Two or three pickup trucks parked at the street junction already have barbecue cooking up in the back, with smells of charcoal, hot sausage, and pork chops to drive you crazy. On a couple of vacant lots, there are little white tents also selling barbecue. And you can get beer, cold from the bin full of ice, to wash it down.

As my companion, Anthony “Tuba Fats” Lacen, observes, “Everybody got a little hustle.” We sit on the steps at the back of Joe's Cozy Corner, a block away, while musicians, club members, and potential second liners mill around the Tremé Center—it looks a bit aimless, but everything will probably get started soon.

Up comes a lady with a little hustle—she's selling small pumpkin pies from a basket. She spots us as likely customers, and it goes like this:

LADY
: Hey baby, how about one of these pies? Made them myself, just this morning.

TUBA
: Naw, can't eat them pies, ain't got the teeth.

LADY
: Well, how about your friend? [indicating me]

TUBA
: Naw, he's worse than me.

LADY
: Well, how about buying one anyway, for a tip?

TUBA
: Naw.

LADY
:
Well, fuck
y'all!

We retire into Joe's Cozy Corner (headquarters of the Jolly Bunch Ladies, says a sign on the wall) for a cold Bud and a sociable reception from the mainly elderly customers, inspired by courteous and friendly curiosity. Then out of the semidarkness of the bar, into the glare of the street, and back to the St. Philip corner: maybe there's something happening by now.

There is. At the end of the walkway into the Tremé center, right by the entrance, Benny Jones and the Tremé Brass Band are playing the spiritual “I'll Fly Away.” Benny's playing bass drum today and has a big band with him. There's Roger Lewis on alto sax, Elliott “Stackman” Callier on tenor. Mervyn “Kid Merv” Campbell and William Smith on trumpets, Charles Joseph and Eddie “Bo” Parish on trombones, and—surprise!—Kirk Joseph and Julius “Jap” McKee
and
Jeffrey Hills: three sousaphones in one band!

Already on the street, dancing in formation, is the children's division of the Sudan, maybe twenty of them, the boys wearing the same outfits as their fathers—and holding unlit cigars. According to Helen Regis, “The cigar-chewing six-year-old boy in the Sudan's youth division is not just learning to participate in community tradition: he signifies the club's (and no doubt his own parent's) hopes for the financial success of their youth.”
³¹
As one club member noted in the TV documentary
Jazz Parades: Feet Don't Fail Me Now,
the social and pleasure clubs help keep kids out of serious trouble: “Some of these kids want so bad to be a part of that life. The parents will spend their last dime just so's a son or daughter can be involved in this. Some of the kids may get into a little trouble—they get into one of these clubs, they know that if they get into too much stuff, they can't belong. So that kind of keeps them straight.”
³²

One by one, out of the center, down the walkway by the side of the police barrier, comes the membership of the Sudan Social and Pleasure Club. The crowd, by now a couple of hundred strong, gives each of them a big individual reception. And each of them responds with their best moves—this is
their
day; they've been saving and planning for it for months, and as they would say, “If you ain't gonna shake it, why did you bring it?”

Meanwhile, “Uncle” Lionel Batiste, super-dignified in black homburg and coat, unimpressed by the shenanigans and impatient to be away, starts leading the parade—on his own. The police escort get themselves together, the Tremé band falls into place at the head of the procession, followed by a division—about thirty or so—of the Sudan, a few hundred second liners form up, and the whole thing starts moving along Villere towards Ursuline.

The Sudan members look great—pale blue suits made out of some kind of satin material, white shirts, dark blue derby hats, white gloves. In the left hand, an unlit “big shot” cigar, and in the right hand, well, there may be a word for it, but I've no idea what it is. Imagine a walking stick, painted white, with most of the stick part enclosed in a sort of decorative box, made out of polystyrene, painted light and dark blue, and with glitter lettering—“Sudan” and “1984-2002.” A sort of “walking box.”

From time to time, the head of the procession stops to let the rest catch up. The walking boxes are rested on the ground, and the Sudan dance in the roadway—one of them is hit by cramp in both legs and falls to the ground laughing.

The Tremé is playing wonderfully, and the unconventional three-part bass horn section sounds great. The drummers have been joined by a tambourine player and a guy hitting a bottle with a drumstick. Although Benny's always very insistent that he sticks to the traditional music, it's a fairly loose interpretation of the traditional repertoire—after all, these second liners are from all age groups. By now, there are maybe a couple of thousand following the parade, and the energy and adrenaline are picking up.

The band plays “Hi Heel Sneakers,” “When My Dreamboat Comes Home,” “Blackbird Special,” “Iko Iko,” “Second Line,” “Food Stamp Blues,” and “Gimme My Money Back”—it has all the wildness and excitement I remember from the Olympia in the late eighties.

Hard on their heels, just behind the first division of the Sudan, comes the New Birth Brass Band, which includes leader Tanio Hingle on bass drum, his usual sidekick Kerry “Fatman” Hunter on snare and some other percussion including cowbell and tambourine, Kenneth Terry on trumpet, Kerwin James on sousaphone, and the incredible Frederick Shepherd (Fred Shep) on tenor saxophone, parade cap on backwards as usual, blowing his ass off, as usual. I don't know which band is better—they both sound fabulous to me.

Bringing up the rear is the Lil' Rascals, but I never dropped back far enough to hear them. The vibe from the crowd is sheer joy, the energy is as tangible as the electrical charge before a thunderstorm, and the mood is forward—to try and drop back down the line would be to defy the impetus.

One woman tries to go against the flow, and is rewarded by a chant from the crowd, “Mooove, bitch, git out the way! Mooove, bitch, git out the way! Mooove, bitch….” So she does.

The barbecue vendors have kept pace with the parade, and so, incredibly, have the cold beer salesmen. Over on the neutral ground (what those outside New Orleans would call the “median”), a couple of operators are splitting cigars and adding herb to make “blunts.” Soon, the sweet smell of skunk weed, protected by the sheer density of the crowd, winds up the euphoria another couple of notches.

By now the parade has been joined by around ten men on beautiful chestnut horses, riding western saddles—the Seventh Ward Cowboys.

The bands and the crowd, the music and the dancing, feed off each other—I don't know where else you could experience this sense of movement and purpose and elation.

There's about half an hour to go before the city permit runs out and the police disperse the crowd, when we pass Dooky Chase's restaurant. Hunger and fatigue strike like lightning, and the prospect of a seafood platter, a cold beer, a comfortable chair, and air conditioning is irresistible. So we go for it.

“It is only by plunging into the crowd that one can begin to apprehend the complex experiential reality of ‘the line,'” writes Helen Regis.
³³
In other words, you really had to be there.