New Orleans Second-lines and Jazz Funerals
New Orleans Second-Lines and Jazz Funerals. These parades are called “second-lines’ because back in the day of Jim Crow, the parades in New Orleans were separated in two halves – the whites up front, and the blacks in the back. Well, the real party was clearly in the back, and the negro musicians developed a unique beat that has been immortalized their position in those parades – to this day it is referred to as a ’second-line beat’ and all New Orleans funk is based upon it. While raucous second-line parades with hip-hop rhyming brass bands with names like The Rebirth Brass Band and The Soul Rebels are held by ‘Social and Pleasure Clubs’ on every Sunday of ‘Second-Line season’ (Labor day Weekend till early summer hen it gets too hot), a Jazz Funeral is a different kind of second-line that is held in honor of beloved New Orleans musicians when they die. They always start with a slow funeral dirge and then burst into a wild expression of joy and can be remarkable musical experiences since virtually all of New Orleans jazz musicians (and especially the horn players) will come out for a big second-line, and there is nothing like the sound of dozens and dozens of tubas, trumpets, trombones, saxaphones, alto and baritone, blasting down the cobbled narrow streets of the French Quarter. A number of the b/w photos included in this gallery are from the first major Jazz Funeral after Hurricane Katrina, for the Preservation Hall Jazz band trumpeter and band leader, John Brunious.
