STEP 5: NOTES ON LEADING A DISCUSSION ABOUT THE PHOTOGRAPHS IN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER
Page 54: A spasm band in the French Quarter, New Orleans, by Dan Leyrer, courtesy of the Hogan Jazz Archive. Circa 1910. This image accompanies an interview with the legendary jazz musician Danny Barker. In this chapter, he remembers his own youth band, the Boozan Kings. The group had a following in the French Quarter, which, at the time, was an integrated, working class neighborhood. The photograph provides early evidence of young people organizing themselves around muisc, which, according to Barker, was more popular than baseball as a pastime in his youth.
Page 83: Dodie Smith Simmons and her husband John “Kid” Simmons in front of Preservation Hall, courtesy of Simmons. Circa 1967. In their chapter, Dodie and her brother Will tell the story of Kid Simmons coming to New Orleans from England to learn New Orleans-style jazz and encountering the racism of the United States.Will and Dodie explain how at the time when Preservation Hall was one of the few integrated public establishments, their family had to learn to deal with the backlash against Dodie’s relationship with Kid.
Page 168: Trumpeter Kenneth Terry as a Mardi Gras Indian with the Yellow Pocahontas in the Seventh Ward, New Orleans, courtesy of Anthony “Meathead” Hingle. Circa late 1970s. In Kenneth Terry’s chapter, he describes his involvement in the Yellow Pocahontas and how the Mardi Gras Indian tribe was connected to the civil rights organization, Tambourine and Fan. He said, “ We were kids. We were having fun. It was more serious than we really thought. It was about our culture, and giving appreciation to the Indians for hiding the slaves through slavery time.”
Page 41: Young girls getting ready for a Tambourine and Fan parade dressed in tignons, the headwrap that free women of color in New Orleans were mandated to wear by the Spanish colonial government, and then turned into their own fashion statements, before a parade. Photograph courtesy of Jerome Smith. Circa late 1970s. The photograph is from the section of Fred Johnson’s chapter about his involvement in starting Super Sunday, Tambourine and Fan’s parade dedicated to social justice and cultural arts. In it, he explains how he learned to organize a parade, and what makes one successful. Like many African American traditions, the call and response is important. In this photograph there is a call back to history. Why were the young girls wearing it?
Page 199: Grand marshals Wesley Schmidt (front) and King Richard Matthews (back) at the leader of the Olympia Brass Band, Harold Dejan’s, funeral. Photograph by Bruce Sunpie Barnes. 2002. In Wesley’s interview about beginning a brass band with a group of white musicians, he says he learned who he knows about second lines and jazz funerals from King Richard—the grand marshal for the Olympia Brass Band. At first, he felt out of his league: “I would be like ‘Okay, Richard, go away. I don’t want you to see this.’ But over time, he realized that many bands like the Dirty Dozen got their start from learning as they went, and, “that thing I was so embarrassed about was probably the most genuine thing I’ve ever done in my life.” In this photograph, they are grand marshaling together.
Page 69: First year of the Black Men of Labor Social Aid and Pleasure Club’s annual second line parade, by Eric Waters, courtesy of the BMOL archive. 1994. This photograph is part of the history of the organization, which traces its roots back to the Yellow Pocahontas, Tambourine and Fan, and Danny Barker’s jazz funeral. The organization is an all male, African American club that began on Labor Day to combat the stereotypes of Black men. Fred Johnson says in the chapter, “black men always get a bad rap about how they don’t care of their business or their house…[but] that’s not true for most of us.” The club also honored the African roots of parading traditions in New Orleans by their choice of fabric, which is also on the cover of the book and at the beginning of each chapter.
Page 2: The New Orleans Young Traditional Brass Band at the beginning of the Black Men of Labor parade at Sweet Lorraine’s Jazz Club, Seventh Ward, New Orleans. Photograph by Eric Waters circa 2008: The New Orleans Jazz National Historical Park’s Music for All Ages Program started this band under the direction of interpretive park ranger Bruce Sunpie Barnes. The program was open to all young people who were interested in learning to play traditional brass band music by sitting in with profesisonal musicians. Each year, their own band played at the Black Men of Labor Social Aid and Pleasure Club’s second line parade. They joined a long legacy of young people taking to the streets of the city. The diversity of the young people is a testament to the Park Service’s mission to be open to the general public. After generations of preventing integration, the federal government is now mandated not to discriminate.
Page 135: Dancing to the Tremé Brass Band at the Candle Light Lounge in Tremé, New Orleans, by Bruce Sunpie Barnes. 2012. One of the bartenders at the Candlelight dances with a customer on a Wednesday night. The photograph complements a conversation that Anthony Bennett, a musician from the Tremé, has with one of his students’ mother about visiting the local bar. Pat Besselman, a white woman who raised her family in the suburbs, said she would never have thought it safe to go to a predominantly black bar before getting involved with music, but she is glad she got to know it.
Page 284: Doyle Cooper and Mark Smith playing a dirge for Julius Lewis’ jazz funeral. Photogaph by Rachel Breunlin. 2012. The images from this chapter are woven through an edited transcript of Julius’ funeral. On the following pages, the pastor talks about Julius’ commitment to teaching music and calls out Doyle for being one of his students.In his eulogy, you can tell the pastor is a bit surprised (“a brother from another mother”) but proud of the connection between the two musiicans. Doyle graduated from college with a degree in music education, and continues to work with young people and runs his own band, the Red Hot Brass Band.
