Second to no other U.S. community New Orleans is steeped in it’s own set of cultural traditions.  Every Sunday beginning around the end of April through years-end there’s a Second Line parade in town.  Reading news of Brad Pitt’s well-publicized and strikingly sincere Lower Ninth Ward housing renewal project (go online to the Times Picayune archives and search through the week of December 3 for details) he remarked about why he and Angelina Jolie have purchased a house in the French Quarter and plan on spending significant time in the Crescent City.  He spoke of the surprise joys of a parade going by his house one Sunday — for no apparent reason he knew of — and how such occurrences help sustain his love of the community and deepen his desire to do his part for the city’s post-Katrina renewal (including putting up $5M of his own money towards his current housing development project).  This is one celebrity project that seems to be about more than self-aggrandizement.  But I digress…

One well-chronicled parade tradition is the New Orleans jazz funeral, an especially rich tradition when it honors renowned local legends.  Allow me to introduce you to Doc Paulin.  Trumpeter Ernest "Doc" Paulin was born June 22, 1907 and passed on peacefully to ancestry 100 years, five months, and 28 days later.  In between he left an indelible music legacy, which I unfortunately was only introduced to at his passing.  Raised by Haitian grandparents in rural Louisiana, Doc’s trombone playing uncle introduced him to music at a young age and encouraged him towards the cornet because he evidenced such proficiency in the art of whistling.  Young Ernest Paulin, who only later became known as "Doc", was hooked and soon became good enough to play around his area.  At 21 Doc moved to New Orleans because that was the place for serious musicians.

He soon organized a band that performed at various haunts in the legendary Storyville District and joints on South Ramparts Street.  Encouraged by his brother Doc moved to New York and once he learned the ropes he found himself on several famous bandstands, including Harlem’s Cotton Club and the Zanzibar.  Following his discharge from the Army in 1945 Doc returned to his beloved New Orleans.  Thereafter he ran numeroous brass and traditional jazz bands.  Doc and his wife Betty grew a family that included six sons who matriculated to the Paulin Brothers Brass Band, which has paraded various New Orleans functions for over 40 years, including numerous performances at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival. 

Doc Paulin considered it his mission to keep the brass band traditions of New Orleans alive and functioning and was a mentor to numerous young musicians around the Crescent City in that signature idiom.  He was also described as a community activist in his obituary, including voting rights activism.  His last official gig came at the ripe young age of 96 at the 2003 New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival.  Given such a background it was no surprise that Doc Paulin’s funeral would represent the essence of New Orleans jazz funeral tradition.

I’ve never been one to attend funerals or memorial services of those I don’t know, but persistent email messages from well-respected New Orleanians like Don Marshall, executive director of the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Foundation, jazz writer Geraldine Wycoff, and through the encouragement of our friend Nancy Oscenslager who lives the most active retirement I know after 30 years at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival and a nursing career, Suzan and I determined that this was a funeral parade not to be missed.  We were also compelled by the Thanksgiving weekend visit of our daughters and our desire to give them some "real" New Orleans experiences on their visit.  It seems that experiencing such an event is tantamount to becoming immersed in the cultural traditions of New Orleans.  And besides that, every message we received about Doc Paulin made it clear that here was a truly important figure in 20th century New Orleans music.

When we arrived at the Holy Ghost Catholic Church on Louisiana Avenue in the Uptown area of the city it became clear immediately that we weren’t alone in the curious "interloper" category as numerous folks who apparently had no deeper ties to Doc or his family than we did had gathered in anticipation of the funeral parade — which incidentally was mapped out in several emails I received, as is the case with the weekly Sunday Second Line parades.  Shortly after we arrived those who had celebrated Doc’s life at the funeral began pouring out of the church; numerous trumpets, cornets, trombones, tubas, clarinets, snare drums, and bass drums among the masses.  The brass band musicians, including the Paulin Brothers Brass Band and members of the marching Men of Labor assembled at the front of the processional.  Behind them were other gathered celebrants — later to become the Second Line — and behind the Second Line was a horse drawn hearse bearing Doc Paulin’s remains and a shiny limousine bearing Doc’s widow and some of his prodigious family (Doc and Betty gave the world 13 children).

Driven by assorted traditional dirges the likes of "The Old Rugged Cross", the musicians and traditional marchers led the police-escorted Second Line down Louisiana Avenue to St. Joseph Cemetary No. 1 at Washington Avenue and South Liberty Street.  All this transpired while numerous video cameras whirred, and assorted newspaper & art still photographers captured the moments.  Though any funeral is a somber occasion, when one lives as long and rich a life as did Doc Paulin one’s passing on to ancestry is cause to celebrate a life well-led.    New Orleans is one of the few cities in the world where cemetaries are tourist attractions, primarily because due to it’s below sea level existence those deceased who are buried in New Orleans proper are buried in crypts above ground.  This tradition gives New Orleans cemetaries a look like none other; rather than assorted low-lying plots and headstones marking below ground burials as one might see in most other locales, a New Orleans cemetary is one of vividly visible mausoleums and assorted above grounds structures marking final resting places.

Once at St. Joseph Cemetary No. 1 the processional halted as the horse drawn hearse arrived at Doc’s designated mausoleum.  The Rev. David Thereaux further eulogized Doc and a rather stentorian younger man gave remarks relative to his life well-led, including a remarkable breakdown of Doc’s life from years to months to weeks all the way down to the many million seconds of life Doc Paulin enjoyed on this plain.  The sheer mathematics of this breakdown was impressive, not to mention the breadth and depth of Doc Paulin’s life.  That was followed by a young woman facing west and delivering a beautiful muted taps, not like what one might experience at Arlington Cemetary, more Crescent City-style and quite moving.  Her performance elicited several "that girl sure can play that horn" asides from assorted celebrants within earshot.

The time had arrived to truly celebrate Doc Paulin’s life New Orleans-style.  The assembled brass and drums struck up a joyous processional that included numerous old standbys of joy mixed with some decidedly non-traditional (but perhaps soon to enter the lexicon) numbers such as strains of Herbie Hancock’s 70s hit "Chameleon", several umbrellas danced in the arms of participants, including a traditionally-garbed woman who seemed to serve as parade marshall, and steps lightened in Second Line tradition as we made our way joyously back up to Louisiana Avenue and a restaurant repast destination.  This was truly a moment to be experienced only in the Crescent City.

____________________________________________________________________________________________

In what was characterized as an unusually early press conference, the New Orleans jazz & Heritage Festival held one on November 15 to announce what was obviously big festival news: the return of the Neville Brothers.  Anyone who has experienced Jazz Fest, particularly the closing weekend, knows that traditionally the Neville Brothers have delivered the Fest benediction on the fairgrounds’ big stage.  That tradition, along with so many others, was disrupted by the catharsis of the dreaded Hurricane Katrina.  Spread far and wide — as far away as Massachusetts — by Katrina evacuations, the Nevilles have missed the last two Jazz Fests.  Invited to return in ’07 Aaron Neville, the heavenly falsetto voice and for many the signature voice of the crew, who had relocated to Nashville, angered some locals and Fest goers with his refusal to return to NOLA due to what he feared were the environmental dangers to his asthmatic conditions.  That prompted a certain curious backlash from emailers who were greeted with the news of the Neville Brothers return to the Fest in the Times Picayune.  But for most what some considered an affront to their city, the news was yet another joyous symbol of a fervently hoped-for return to normalcy for the Crescent City.  Older brother Art Neville, on the cusp of his 70th birthday, was on hand to lend some funky keyboard to a performance by the Neville youngsters, including Aaron’s guitar playing son, who comprise the burgeoning offspring unit known as Dumstaphunk. 

Art later surprised and delighted Suzan by telling her that he was eager to come by the Monk Institute’s Loyola classrooms to experience the classroom science dropped by the auspicious crew of jazz masters who are imported to teach the Monk graduate studies students.  So far those master teachers have included Ron Carter, Lewis Nash, Danilo Perez, Nnenna Freelon, and Benny Golson, with John Scofield, Jimmy Heath and Kenny Barron soon to follow.  Art Neville was particularly eager to experience the teachings of Kenny Barron, proving once again that one is always a student of one’s craft.

Peace,

Willard Jenkins

12/2007

Life in New Orleans might certainly be viewed as paradoxical.  The love/hate yin & yang of the place is as vivid as anyplace on earth I’ve ever experienced.  As some may know Suzan Jenkins was named Senior VP of the Thelonious Monk Institute last spring, in charge of the Monk’s auspicious graduate studies program which has relocated from the University of Southern California campus in Los Angeles to Loyola University on lovely St. Charles Avenue in the ever-recovering Crescent City of New Orleans.  This prompted a major relocation, which was finally achieved in October.  One of the upsides of my work is the fact that geographic locale is fairly fluid.

So off to New Orleans, loaded with curiosity, we went.  Driving back and forth from Loyola to the Monk offices, either tooling down St. Charles with its prodigious homes or driving bustling Magazine Street to our abode in the neighborhood known as the Irish Channel — adjacent to the leafy Garden District — there is scant evidence of the lingering misery legacy of Hurricane Katrina (known among the locals as The Storm or The Flood, rarely Katrina).  Skirting around those areas one sees evidence of many vigorous home reconstruction or rehab projects even in those places which suffered only wind and not water damage.  Adjacent to the more fortunate areas and homowners, every federal housing project I’ve spotted appears abandoned and it doesn’t take much to spot rows of completely abandoned homes.  We’re talking over two years later folks.  The latest post-storm population figures and increased influx of new residents announced last week in the daily Times-Picayune, have the New Orleans populace creeping towards 300,000. 

Having received a comprehensive driving tour of the devastated areas last August from musician-educator and Suzan’s colleague at the Monk Institute Jonathan Bloom, and benefiting from numerous conversations and anecdotes with various New Orleanians about the aftershocks of The Storm/Flood including musician-composer Terence Blanchard who is the artistic director of the Monk Institute grad studies program, I’ve gotten a quick education on that misery index.  Then on separate evenings the view became visceral — and in yet another paradox, it took an amazing cultural event to bring some things home.  As a good friend pointed out, out of great suffering comes great art.

Actor Wendell Pierce, who has a wealth of stage and screen credits but is likely best known currently for his ongoing cop role in the gritty HBO crime & punishment drama The Wire, grew up with Jonathan and Terence.  If you saw Spike Lee’s brilliant documentary "When the Levees Broke" you heard Wendell’s family tale of post-Katrina heartache.  Terence and Jonathan introduced us one evening at the Monk Institute student ensemble’s first of an ongoing series of performances and jam sessions at Tipitina’s.  One afternoon during visiting master educator-drummer Lewis Nash’s weeklong residency at the Monk Institute, while Bloom was giving Nash the by now de riguer tour of the devastated areas, Jonathan described Pierce as literally popping up out of the weeds in the now-infamous Lower Ninth Ward.  He handed Bloom and Suzan a flier for a forthcoming series of free, open-air performances of the famous Samuel Beckett play "Waiting For Godot."

The daily Times-Picayune ran an intriguing preview of the production.  So on a breezy Friday November 9 I picked up friend and colleague (and Katrina Fellow) writer Larry Blumenfeld to go "Waiting For Godot."  Some of you have likely read Blumenfeld’s penetrating ongoing series on the cultural significance of post-Katrina New Orleans and the recovery in the Village Voice, Salon.com, New York Times, or perhaps in Jazziz magazine.  As we crossed the St. Claude Bridge into the Lower Ninth Ward we were surrounded by the most vivid post-demolition images of post-Katrina New Orleans, a witches smorgasbord of blasted, gutted, toppled homes or concrete slabs where once stood a family dwelling alongside weedy fields where once stood a vibrant neighborhood of homeowners. 

We stood in one line for our free tickets (the turnout was impressive, a rainbow of faces that included every economic strata imaginable) then eased into another line for a free bowl of gumbo!  As the throng slaked its collective tastebuds, we joined The Big 9 Social Aid and Pleasure Club for a Second Line to the venue.  Where else on earth would this scene have evolved?  So Second Line we did, down the weedy block on pavement that had once been someone’s home street, around the vacant corner to a cryptic intersection (sign-less street poles still embedded) of two weedy fields and a temporary bleachers.  Just beyond stage left stood further reminders, a motley array of FEMA trailers.  What ensued was a powerful performance of Beckett’s "absurd take on the meaning of existence," that for this and three subsequent performances over the next two weekends, was salted with New Orleans and post-Katrina parallels and reference language in a manner that would have doubtless been greatly entertaining even for the great playwright.

Special thanks to The Classical Theater of Harlem and the Creative Time organization for mounting these incredible evenings.  Ah, but we’re not done with this one yet.  While Blumenfeld and I were enthralled by the performance, Suzan couldn’t hang due to a travel obligation.  So she determined to catch it the following weekend (11/9-10) when the setting was a storm abandoned home in the Gentilly neighborhood.  New Orleanians like nothing better than hosting good times — unless its being a guest at one.  The week preceding the Gentilly production of "Waiting for Godot" our new friend Danielle Taylor, a professor at Dillard University, hosted a pot luck supper for members of the Godot production crew and cast, including Wendell Pierce’s co-star J. Kyle Manzay.

As we drove the unfamiliar streets of Gentilly we were struck by its ghost town qualities.  Here was a middle class neighborhood whose Katrina devastation was nearly as brutal as that visited upon the Lower Ninth Ward.  Driving those streets I had a sense of deja vu; sure enough this was the same neighborhood we had once visited years ago when I conducted an extremely revealing oral history interview for the Rnythm & Blues Foundation with the great New Orleans R&B pioneer trumpeter-bandleader-arranger-songwriter Dave Bartholomew (recall all of Fats Dominoe’s greatest classics and you know the work of Mr. Bartholomew; but a small slice of his mastery).  In September ’05 when so many of us around the country were scrambling to account for the whereabouts of friends and loved ones in New Orleans, Dave Bartholomew and poet Kalamu ya Salaam were two of our major concerns.  Both had their lives ripped asunder, and though Kalamu has returned to the area, apparently Bartholomew has forged a new life in Houston.

Professor Taylor has a lovely home in Gentilly that has been thoroughly rehabbed.  As a constant reminder she keeps a framed photo collage near her front door of what she encountered when she returned to her home post-flood.  Her home took on 10 feet of water, necessitating a complete gutting and remodeling of her first floor; meanwhile she described the incredible contrast of her second floor as having been left in "pristine" condition post-flood!  That weekend’s ensuing Gentilly production of Godot took place this time in the backdrop of a devastated home and included commentary from the former resident of that home.  And the production — including hundreds of over-capacity turnaways, gumbo, Second Line and the whole bit — was described as equally incredible as the Lower Ninth Ward experience, though different based mainly on geography.

That same weekend of the Godot/Lower Nine experience Terence Blanchard brought his superb concert adaptation of the music he wrote for the "When the Levees Broke" documentary and subsequent Blue Note album "A Tale of God’s Will" (if ever there was certain Grammy material this is it) to the stage of Dixon Hall on the campus of Tulane University.  The New Orleans premier of this music with the Louisiana Philharmonic (it was also performed with orchestra on the preceding September’s 50th annual Monterey Jazz Festival) was another extremely touching post-Katrina experience — a catharsis for many New Orleanians in the packed audience, and certainly for Blanchard. 

Many recall perhaps the most heart-rending scene from "When the Levees Broke" when Terence accompanied his mother for her first look at her storm destroyed home.  That evening his mother sat front row center, her distinguished crown of white hair serving as poignant recall of the indelible images of the devastation wrought on the Gulf Coast for those of us in the ensuing rows.  While Terence and his quintet and the orchestra beautifully unwound his work, a big screen poised above the stage ran a stark series of Katrina stills in stages from pre-storm to aftermath.  Blanchard, whose trumpet playing these days continues to ripen and evolve in its mastery, blew great gusts of emotion that evening and one could see on his face what a soul checking process it must have been for him to sketch his feelings in music and subsequently perform that music.

Peace,

Willard Jenkins

New Orleans… proud to call it (new) home