jazz funerals and second line parades in new orleans
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This is an encyclopedia entry for KnowLA about jazz funerals and second line parades performed by brass bands in New Orleans neighborhoods such as the Treme.TRANSCRIPT
Jazz Funerals and Second Line Parades (1,042 words) Matt Sakakeeny Section: Music
Jazz Funerals and Second Line Parades
New Orleans is a city of parades, most famously the Mardi Gras processions that
roll down the wide boulevards of St. Charles Avenue and Canal Street during Carnival
season, but in all the seasons and in every neighborhood there are jazz funerals and
parades known as second lines that fill the backstreets with a joyful noise. On Sunday
afternoons from September through May, African American forms of music, dance, and
dress are put on display in parades that have become symbolic of New Orleans and its
association with festivity and pleasure. The upbeat tone of second line parades originates
in the distinctive local tradition of jazz funerals.
The Jazz Funeral
Though funerals would seem an unlikely source for such a festive tradition, the
jazz funeral celebrates life at the moment of death—a concept common among many
cultures until the twentieth century. In New Orleans and elsewhere, Europeans and
Anglo-Americans attended funerals with music that featured a brass band playing
“solemn music on the way to the grave and happy music on the return.” There is also a
history of rejoicing at death through music in West African burial traditions. In 1819,
architect Benjamin Latrobe witnessed a continuance of this tradition at a black funeral
in New Orleans. The funeral began with the mourners making “loud lamentations” and
ended with “noise and laughter.” With the end of slavery, black funerals with brass bands
became commonplace. By the beginning of the twentieth century, the funerals had
become forums for the performance of a new style of music—jazz—eventually
becoming known as jazz funerals. Simultaneously, the popularity of funerals with brass
band music waned among white New Orleanians.
In the traditional jazz funeral, a prominent member of the community—
often a musician and nearly always a black male—is “buried with music.” Benevolent
and burial societies traditionally arranged these funerals, often offering the services of a
brass band for an extra fee. The societies collected dues throughout the year to pay for
members’ health care and burial costs. The musicians, funeral directors, family, and
friends of the dead make up what is called the first or main line, while the crowd
marching behind is collectively known as the second line. As the procession moves from
the funeral service to the burial site, the first and second lines march to the beat of a brass
band. At the beginning, the band plays dirges, somber Christian hymns performed at a
slow walking tempo. After the body is laid to rest, or “cut loose,” the band starts playing
up-tempo music, the second liners begin dancing, and the funeral transforms into a street
celebration.
Second Lines
At some point in the late nineteenth century, the second line detached from the
jazz funeral and developed its own identity. Organized by social aid and pleasure clubs,
second lines wind through the neighborhoods of club members, making designated stops
at their houses and other significant neighborhood sites, usually barrooms. From
September through May, there is at least one parade every Sunday, often held on the
anniversary of a club’s founding. Each club hosts fundraisers throughout the year and
collects dues at regular meetings in order to pay for police permits, brass bands, and the
coordinated outfits that members wear at their parade.
Anthropologist Helen Regis defines a second line parade as a public festival in
which club members, musicians, and second liners come together to create “a single
flowing movement of people unified by the rhythm.” At the head of the parade, club
members wear suits and sashes that display the club’s name, often twirling matching
umbrellas above their heads. For approximately four hours, they strut their dance moves
in front of the band while the second liners fall in behind and along the side. Many
second liners show off popular dance steps such as the high step and the buck jump.
Others make their own sounds by singing, clapping, blowing whistles, hitting cowbells
and beer bottles, and shaking tambourines.
Contemporary Parades and Jazz Funerals
Second line parades create a sense of community among participants, and the
public nature of the spectacle makes parading a powerful representation of black New
Orleans. This has led to debates among parading organizations and musicians about how
parades and funerals should be presented in public.
In recent years, the jazz funeral tradition has opened up to include, most notably,
young men and women who have died tragically young. At these funerals, the number of
dirges performed is drastically reduced, altering the transition from dirges to up-tempo
music that is the hallmark of the traditional funeral. Musicians no longer wear the
traditional uniform of black band caps, white button-down shirts, and black dress pants,
and instead dress in everyday clothes. Some tradition-minded organizations, such as the
Black Men of Labor Social Aid & Pleasure Club, bemoan these changes and have sought
to perpetuate parading traditions in an orthodox manner. Black Men of Labor organizes
funerals for families who want to honor the dead with a traditional burial, and the club
sponsors an annual second line parade in which musicians are required to dress in
uniform and perform traditional music.
The power of parading as a sign of local culture has also brought increased
attention from spectators outside the community. Brass bands have made recordings of
parade music since the 1940s and toured the globe as representatives of local culture
since the 1960s. Photographs of community parades, particularly those of Michael P.
Smith, began circulating in exhibits and books in the 1970s. Around this time, bands and
second line dancers began to be hired for the entertainment of tourists and others. Today,
these staged parades can be seen marching through the grounds of the New Orleans Jazz
& Heritage Festival and the lobbies of the Convention Center.
The rhythm of community parades may have changed pace, but they have never
skipped a beat. For every staged parade, there is a social aid and pleasure club marching
through the backstreets to the whoops and hollers of neighborhood second liners. For
every brass band that has been relegated to the halls of history, such as the Olympia or
the Eureka, there is a Rebirth Brass Band or Hot 8 to fill the void in their own way. Each
jazz funeral begins with a respectful dirge and ends with a cathartic dance. Even in a New
Orleans that habitually packages itself as entertainment, the beat of the street remains
closely tied to the rhythms of everyday life.
Suggested Reading
Latrobe, Benjamin Henry. The Journals of Benjamin Henry Latrobe, Vol. III: 1799-1820, From Philadelphia to New Orleans. New Haven, CT: Yale University, 1980.
Nine Times Social and Pleasure Club. Coming Out the Door for the Ninth Ward. New
Orleans: Neighborhood Story Project, 2006.
Regis, Helen. “Second Lines, Minstrelsy, and The Contested Landscapes of New Orleans Afro-Creole Festivals.” Cultural Anthropology Vol. 14, no. 4 (1999): 472-504.
Smith, Michael P. A Joyful Noise: A Celebration of New Orleans Music. Gretna, LA:
Pelican Publishing, 1990. Audio/Video Always for Pleasure. Directed by Les Blank. 1978. USA, 58 mins. All on a Mardi Gras Day. Directed by Royce Osborn. 2003. USA, 60 mins.