[Dixielandjazz] Do You Know What It Means To Miss New Orleans?

[Steve barbone]

A Closer Walk With Thee

NY TIMES MAGAZINE  By SARAH M. BROOM - January 22, 2006

Before Aug. 29, my Creole mother, Ivory, six siblings and 13 nieces and
nephews lived in my hometown, New Orleans. Today I have two brothers left in
all of Louisiana. In New York, where I live, I've been homesick down to my
gut and susceptible to every feeling of helplessness. So when I heard about
a street parade in New Orleans on the Saturday after Thanksgiving - a parade
to give thanks - I booked a ticket right then. But I was afraid of what I
would find, and of what I might not be able to find anymore.

I'm in my rented S.U.V., coming from the airport on Friday afternoon, when I
see the first wrecked house. I am less shocked by the car in someone's
living room, or by the abundance of tennis shoes and boats on the tops of
bent fences, than I am by the absence of people. I notice that the tires are
too damn loud. Why am I driving on pebbles?

I tour the streets - Marigny, Roman, Burgundy, Mirabeau - with John
Coltrane. He is chanting, "A love supreme, a love supreme. . .," when I see
two people in masks and blue bodysuits cleaning out their homes. They wave,
and I return the gesture. The only other movement that day is from a pack of
scraggly dogs fighting over a plastic-foam to-go plate. When my car
approaches, they don't bother to look up. They're hungry.

There's an evening curfew in the city, and with the encouragement of the
patrolling National Guard, I head for Saint Rose, La., to my dead
grandmother Amelia's house, 24 miles away, where my brother Carl now lives.
I have to pass along St. Charles Avenue, where MTV's Real World was filmed
and where most of the old-money mansions appear unscathed. I notice that one
family is having a tea party on their porch. I feel an abiding sadness at my
core. 

The next day is the parade. I show up alone at 10 a.m. in front of Sweet
Lorraine's, the jazz club, to join the crowds, some dressed to the nines in
gold suits with shiny mahogany shoes. I spend an hour talking smack: "Where
y'at?" "How's your mom and them?" "You gone cut up out here or what?" But
soon the band chants, "Feet can't fail me now." And I don't believe they
can. The tuba player is in front of me; I clap hard to match his beat. Then,
after we have danced wild, the Hot 8 Brass Band plays "Just a Closer Walk
With Thee": Daily walking close to Thee/Let it be, dear Lord, let it be.

The trumpet wails its slow, sweet and with-plenty rhythm, just as Jelly Roll
Morton once directed. It is a funeral dirge, and on the street we're swaying
through there is barely a house standing. My heart is breaking into slivers.
I fall off beat because I have to navigate piles of belongings: a moldy
shoe, a brightly-dressed Barbie doll, a sewing machine.

At 1 p.m. we are three hours into a parade that will leave us at the foot of
the Mississippi River. To break up the dancing, and to help the economy, we
stop at bars along the parade route. By the time we make it to the river, I
have had three rum-and-Cokes, which I drink out of plastic cups. I have also
had a bowl of red beans and rice, which someone in a house with electricity
has cooked for passers-by. At 3 in the afternoon, for the first time today,
we start to feel our tired feet. So we limp. But it is worth it.

And I want more. A native has whispered that the Mardi Gras Indians, who
dress regal in hand-sewn Indian costumes during Mardi Gras, are practicing
their chants the next day. The location is Tchoupitoulas and Napoleon
Avenue, at a bar called Tipitina's. The Indians are mostly African-American
working people; there's a Big Chief, and young boys in clean sneakers with
drums and tambourines play the beat. Imagine 15 sweating men with hard
voices standing in a semi-circle, singing bare-bones songs. I think of the
Haitian, the Creole, the Spanish, the voodoo, the Italian, in New Orleans
history. It's as if I am at Congo Square in 1865, watching Marie Laveau,
voodoo priestess, twirl in a spirit dance.

Near curfew, one man begins to sing. "Mighty cooty-fiyo," he calls.
Tambourines rattle out a snake hiss. And then they chant in unison: "We are
Indians/Indians of the nation/The wild, wild creation/We won't kneel down,
not on the ground."

As they sing, they change the words: "We won't kneel down" becomes "We won't
bow down." "The ground" becomes "the dirty ground."

I call my brother Michael in Texas and leave a taste of drum music on his
voice mail. Outside it is pitch black - because it's night, but also because
the electricity is still out. Out there is an awful quiet.

On my flight back to New York, I hum.

Sarah M. Broom is on the editorial staff of O magazine.