All Saints’ Day in the Tremé

All Saints Day in New Orleans November 1st 2010 and a typically humid afternoon saw me crawling out of bed with the sort of hangover that only a celebration as enthusiastically observed as Halloween on Frenchmen St. can produce. After a few moments of complete disorientation, a swift check of the time reveals that it’s nearly 2pm. This wouldn’t usually be an issue for a man as adverse to early morning starts as me, however I have a rare chance to catch a spectacle endemic to New Orleans and it begins at the D.W. Rhodes Funeral Home on North Claiborne in an hour.

A frankly shambolic attempt to wash myself and a ride down the St. Charles streetcar line later and I hit Canal St. with ten minutes to spare. With the majority of the Tremé still to traverse, I double checked the address on the route sheet given to me a few days before by Sylvester Jr. at the Backstreet Cultural Museum and picked up the pace. This was not the first time I had been through the Tremé but Annette St. shows a different and probably ‘truer’ side to this predominantly black area of the city. While the likes of St. Claude Avenue still have homes damaged from ‘the storm’ many have been beautifully restored, somewhat pulling a veil over the reality that many areas of this great American City remain shamelessly neglected by both state and national governments. While the 9th Ward (from what I was told in my time in NOLA), is still the worst affected area in the city, this hurried journey through the Tremé certainly awakens you to the reality of a community still rebuilding.

As I turned onto North Claiborne in the distance I could just about make out the white shirt and black hat outfit of the Tremé Brass Band, led by the iconic Uncle Lionel Batiste as the sound of them warming up burst into the muggy mid-afternoon air. Almost the moment that I arrived and came to a stop to pull my camera out of my bag we were away, a crowd of around 40 people so gloriously cosmopolitan that you could only be in NOLA for them to congregate under a common purpose. As the second line fired up, the Indian Tribe members head out front and soon everyone was grooving along the street as the flag boys and the wild man payed homage to Ernest Skipper, the creator of ‘Shot Gun Joe’ and Al Morris, the Big Chief of the Northside Skull and Bone Gang.

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The vibe was upbeat with NOLA classics being hammered out by Batiste’s nonchalant but brilliant crew but in a moment indescribably beautiful, as we approach the next funeral home the procession comes to a halt before the unmistakable sound of ‘A Closer Walk With Thee’ strikes up and the traditional slow sway became the universal movement of the ever increasing crowd. A couple of minutes later and the pace quickened with the police escort almost getting caught out as the route took us back towards Louis Armstrong Park. By the time we headed down St. Philip, joined by everyone waiting out on their stoop who could hear the second line approaching, calls of “FIIIIIIYYYYAAAAA” worked their way from front to back. Heads turned excitedly as the word spread, something seemed to be on the horizon, all of a sudden the crowd parted……The Big Chief had arrived.

With the Chief only adding to the celebratory feel of this precession, it seemed odd that this is a means of remembering the dead. With the traditionally sombre angle that is commonplace when honouring those passed, it was quite incredible to experience a little pocket of culture within which mourning is expressed through such uplifting means. As we turned right off Ursulines and on to St. Claude the band fired up the Tremé song and the Big Chief cleared a way through the jubilant crowd with a final dance that drew the parade to a close. The barbecue was already going, beers were being passed around and everyone started to ponder where this blissful evening would take them next.

For a wonderfully written history on the Tremé, I have to recommend Michael E. Crutcher Jr’s Tremé: Race and Place in a New Orleans Neighbourhood. Georgia: University of Georgia Press. Finally, for those of you interested in getting a taste of what the experience sounded like, here is the Dirty Dozen Brass Band’s sublime arrangement of ‘Just A Closer Walk With Thee’.