Benny Jones founded the Treme Brass Band in 1993. Elliot W. Callier, a.k.a. Stackman, and the incomparable Lionel Baptist are the only founding members of The Treme Brass Band who remain with the band today. Stackman who can give Lionel a run for his money as a raconteur, chose not to talk with this reporter and said, “I get paid to tell stories.” If you have the money or he is in the mood, he has got some good ones.

Stackman wouldn’t say how he got his nickname. Lionel Baptist, who is many people’s uncle in spirit only, said, “Everybody who plays music in Treme got an alias.”

Benny comes from a musical family and his father Milton was a noted drummer. Benny has been involved in music all of his life. His most memorable moment was playing the Hollywood Bowl in the 1980s with The Dirty Dozen Brass Band, who were at the peak of their popularity. Benny said, “I had some serious flutterings in my stomach looking out over that crowd, but I played anyway. I hadn’t ever been nervous at a crowd since then.”

Benny feels that leading a brass band requires as much business acumen as it does musical ability. It is indisputable that Benny’s ability to “handle up on the business” has made the Treme Brass band one of the most successful brass bands in the city. Benny feels his social connections in the sixth ward help his band’s bookings. Some of those connections were forged in New Orleans most prominent social and pleasure clubs. He said, “In the fifties, I belonged to the Sixth Ward Diamonds, and in the sixties, the Sixth Ward Highsteppers, and now I belong to the Black Men of Labor.”

Although Benny takes responsibility for the bands business decisions, he shares musical and creative ones. The Treme Brass Band is recording its third disk and according to both Uncle Lionel and Benny, all the band members are contributing “a little this or that” to the songs. Both Lionel and Benny were close mouthed about the as yet unnamed disk, which will be coming out sometime this year. Benny expects the disk to be popular with both current Treme Brass Band fans and the new ones he hopes to make in our event: A Jazz Funeral for Democracy.

Carnival season has begun, and despite portrayals in the media to the contrary, Mardi Gras is not solely about flashing body parts and rowdy and lascivious behavior. For locals, Mardi Gras is about the music, the skirl of the trumpet, the thump of the bass drum, the oomph of the tuba; it is an ebullient ramble through streets cloaked in temporary mystery. Mardi Gras is certainly not about being the stationary target for some rich Republican on a float.

Brass Band music at its purest is street music and is the heart of the carnival sound. Brass Band music celebrates the ritual egalitarian revelry of carnival and the Treme Brass Band plays it as well as anyone.

Despite the Carnival season, we must mourn the death of our eight Louisiana brothers, indeed the death of all who have died in the Iraq war. Brass band music allows mourners to confront death head on without artifice or banality. It encourages grief, which in time allows healing. Unfortunately this funeral is a symbol of many funerals. If each funeral cortege from this war was linked end to end, the procession would encircle the world.

It is traditional to dance and celebrate after a jazz funeral, particularly during carnival. But at the end of the day on 20 January, the parade must transform into a march: a march to uphold our laws, preserve our civil rights, end the illegal war and restore honor to our country.

Different occasions call for different dress. A Jazz funeral is no different. How do you dress for one? If you take your cue from the musicians that participate you can’t go wrong.

Musicians wear comfortable black shoes with white socks or spats. Check out Treme bass drummer and local heartthrob Uncle Lionel Baptist and his styling spats. They wear black trousers, a white shirt or blouse, a black sports coat and a cap emblazoned with a band name. It is not unusual for a player to belong to several different bands simultaneously, and to have affiliations with a quite a few over the course of a lifetime. Players regard their caps with reverence and if you are ever given one you will know you have arrived.

On the day of the funeral, musicians and mourners gather at the church. In our case we will meet at Louis Armstrong Park at 10:00 a.m. If you play a brass band instrument, and are properly dressed and prepared to play dirges, you are welcome to march and play with the band. The instruments commonly used in a brass band are snare drum, bass drum, trumpet, tuba, sousaphone, saxophone, clarinet and trombone. The band will depart from the park at 11:00 a.m. sharp, heading to the river.

If you are not a brass band player, then you essentially have two options, you can either second line or pick a spot along the parade route and watch from there. Second-lining is a term which encompasses all the different ways you can follow a parade by foot: a mournful walk, a happy stroll, a spirited dance or as part of a frenzied undulating mass. Until we reach the riverside, we hope people will honor our wish for a solemn occasion. There will be times as the band plays that they will walk very slowly: one foot is placed forward and sideways, the other moves to join it, then that foot moves forward and the step repeats again. Practice at home, get the feel if doing it right and when you get here you will know more than many of the locals.

The cardinal rule a second-liner must follow is never get among the official procession. Careers have been cut short and avocations have been lost because a players’ horn got hit and busted his lip or knocked out a tooth. You must be respectful of them and give them space to play. All other rules are somewhat optional, this one is not. This rule is not only for the musicians’ safety, but for yours. Nobody wants to get a tuba up side the head. This rule also applies to those standing and watching the band pass by.

In a jazz funeral following the release of the departed’s body, the band begins to swing in a celebration of their comrade’s life. The signal is given by the snare drummer, whose drum is muffled with a rag inside; he will wave the rag and the band will launch into Didn’t he Ramble. The entire procession will then begin a tour of the deceased’s favorite haunts: bars, lounges, pool halls, restaurants and bordellos. In our case, we will adjourn to Washington Park on Frenchmen street where there will be more music, beer and food. (The trinity of New Orleans’ delights.)

It is not unusual for a brass band player to have a pre-march cocktail. It is almost obligatory to have one after the procession. We certainly don’t discourage that tradition but we ask that you mindful of your safety, and drink responsibly. You do not want you to conclude your visit to New Orleans with a trip to Central Lock-up. Have fun!

New Orleans is generally acknowledged as the birthplace of jazz. Buddy Bolden, Sidney Bechet, Kid Ory, King Oliver and the inimitable Louis Armstrong practiced their craft in the Crescent City. In the early twentieth century jazz musicians didn’t rate very high on the actuarial table, so not many years after the birth of jazz a curious custom arose-the jazz funeral.

Jazz funerals follow a tradition which is rooted in the beginnings of the Anglo-American slave trade. Slaves saw death as freedom. As Simon Schama wrote, “To die in the Carribean was to go home.” Funerals were therefore seen as an occasion for joy as well as sadness.

Musicians of all races and ethnicity have told me the most important criteria for inclusion into the jazz community is not the color of your skin, but how well you play. Jazz funerals are multiracial events and have been for some time. There is no question, however, that at least in its inception, the jazz funeral was a ceremony defiant of the white oligarchy of Jim Crow and a way to celebrate the lives of some of the heroes of African-American culture.

The funerals were a moving tribute to the deceased. They also allowed participants to be involved in something culturally significant and escape the persona of their everyday, often menial job. The Mardi Gras Indians and Social Aid and Pleasure Clubs were other ways that people of color, who were pushed to the economic and social margins, asserted their cultural identity. All of these customs and traditions struggle to evolve, and many are in danger of being relegated to a museum.

This danger is occurring not only because of lack interest in jazz funerals, but because of a lack of respect for the participant musicians and lack of knowledge of their wishes. Their wishes deserve to be respected because many of these people create music revered around the world. Brass band and jazz music, which has always been intertwined in New Orleans, is a vital part of American and Louisiana culture. The traditions, the ground on which the music stands, are eroding, just like our barrier islands.

Two jazz funerals in 2004 showed the beautiful and the ugly, the sublime and the surreal, and the best and the worst of this changing ceremony. Tuba Fats was emblematic of the brass band musicians in this city. He scrambled to make a living, including a sidewalk gig working for tips every Saturday in front of Saint Louis Cathedral. He had poor health-care benefits and made poor life-style choices. He endured countless drudgeries just to keep going. Yet Tuba was one of the most popular musicians to ever play in this city. Joe Torregano, a fine clarinet and saxophone player, said, “Tuba was probably the second most photographed musician to ever come from New Orleans. Only Louis Armstrong was photographed more.” Tuba was also the composer of the oft-covered brass band staple Food Stamp Blues. With all his talent, charisma and goodwill going for him, Tuba should have done well. But he passed on before his time, dying at fifty-three.

Perhaps because he was so revered, Tuba’s jazz funeral drew more people than any in recent memory. The procession traversed the middle of the French Quarter and several thousand people, many from the music community and many more who were not, played, watched or second-lined. From the outset the funeral was disorganized. There was no designated leader, and no command hierarchy, which with that many people was a recipe for disaster. The musicians didn’t stay together, and at times those in the vanguard were separated by several blocks and a milling crowd from those behind them. Nobody was on the same page musically, and only one or two songs were played as a group. Instead of dirges there were only fast-paced songs, most of which could barely be heard. Vendors in trucks trolled for customers, pushing beer and hot sausage po-boys on the crowd. A man jumped up on the horse-drawn casket, and sat between sprays of flower videotaping the chaotic mess. It was more like a wild Mardi Gras day than a funeral.

Frog Joseph’s funeral was dramatically different. Frog was one of the greatest trombone players to come from this city. After a beautiful service, which featured the performance by three trombones of a haunting rendition of The Wabash Blues (one of Frog’s signature tunes), people assembled in front of the church. The funeral route was in a more sedate area of New Orleans than Tuba’s, between St. Bernard and Esplanade, and the procession was mostly comprised of family and old friends. Members of the procession knew where they should be, bystanders stood solemnly on the curb, and the procession wound to the graveyard without any problem. The cream of New Orleans brass band and jazz players were there. The old dirges they played were moving and cathartic.

The difference between the two funerals is directly related to their organization. Three of Frog’s sons are prominent New Orleans musicians and they were friends with many of the musicians who played. Kirk Joseph, a big man who is a wonderful tuba and sousaphone player, spoke to the crowd at the church service. He promised, “As long as I’m alive my family will be involved in New Orleans music.” (Kirk has a son who is a budding musician.)

Kirk lived up to his statement and his father’s memory. He was absolutely in charge at his father’s funeral (with lots of subtle help by his family), and his determination that there not be any silliness was respected. He helped prove that New Orleans’ residents could respect family and tradition and the inherent beauty and grace of a jazz funeral and still have a good time.

Music city jazz fest will start in Louis Armstrong Park, which is in the Treme neighborhood. It was there that many of the first notes of jazz were played. Fittingly, the Treme Brass Band will be the lead brass band for the Music city jazz fest, though many of the city’s other fine musicians are expected to participate.

The funeral will be a symbol of a city’s mourning: mourning for our dead and wounded in Iraq, mourning for the countless innocent lives that have been lost, mourning, most of all, for those lost civil liberties that used to define being an American. The organizers intend to exercise control over this event, just like Kirk Joseph did for his father’s funeral: there will be dirges until the Patriot Act is buried in the river, there will be no people stumbling among the band, there will be no grandstanding to get on television, and parade marshals and police will be in charge.

Together we can show that the jazz funeral has new and vital meaning. Together we can send a signal of unity in our sorrow. Together we can adhere to the traditions of this very solemn occasion. Together we can say some people in our nation still care.

As a young man, trumpeter Clive Smith was a regular on the London scene in the ‘60s. Later he became internationally recognised as a dancer and choreographer. A search for a quieter life led him to the sleepy town of Axminster in rural Devon.

His retirement from showbiz went smoothly enough until Kathy Stobart of the Humphrey Lyttelton Band visited his shop one day. The two became firm friends.

Clive was subsequently bullied into retrieving his trumpet from the attic and getting involved in the local jazz scene. Clive was soon leading the East Devon Jazz Orchestra, and the smaller professional band that emerged from that became known as the Arcadia Jazz Band.

The strong connection with Humphrey Lytleton has been maintained. The line-up of two saxes, trumpet and trombone plus rhythm section reflects that of Humph’s band in recent years, and Pete Strange, Humph’s arranger/trombonist, has written several arrangements especially for Arcadia.

Seven years on, Clive has managed to attract some of the best jazz musicians in the SouthWest to Arcadia. With quality musicians, and the eight-piece line-up, the band can effortlessly recreate the sounds of the Big Band era one minute, and take you back to New Orleans the next.
In recent years the band has shared stages with Kenny Ball, Don Lusher’s “Best Of British”, George Melly, Helen Shapiro, Marion Montgomery, Laurie Holloway, John Critchenson, and of course, Humphrey Lytleton.