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(November 17, 2005)

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     We might be broke down, with one good leg, eye black, nerves bad, living in government trailers, but one thing New Orleans still got, ‘baaaybie…’, and that’s that MUSIC!  After everything we’ve been through - still going through, you’d think we’d be too depressed to dance, would at least be off-beat, dancing on the three and the five…  But let some live music commence in this town…people erupt into ass-shaking and testifying like “Katrina what?  Who?”

 

     Halloween weekend, two months after the Big ‘K’leanser’s landfall, New Orleans hosted parties all over town, the most talked about still being the concert at Tipitina's.  It was the club's first night open since the hurricane and one of New Orleans most beloved bands, the Rebirth Brass Band, was the headliner.  The band came out, all young black brothers, wearing sweats, old jeans, shorts, wife beaters, white t-shirts…just whatever.  I don't think I even saw one gold chain.  But they came gunning!  Horns, drums, cowbells, rocking African percussive jazz-funk.  And the crowd lost it. 

 

     One of the band’s frontmen, trumpeter Shamar Allen, shouted, “Show your hands if you got your FEMA number!”  The entire room's hands shot up.

 

     “Show your hand if you lost your house and your car!"  I think I was the only one who took my hand down. 

 

     “We've been living in cities all across the country, New York, Baltimore, L.A.  They was trying to get us to stay in their cities, play in their clubs.  We played, and it was cool, but we told ‘em ‘We gotta go home!’”  The crowd applauded, laughing, nodding their heads. 

 

      “Yeah, before Katrina, we couldn’t get no good jobs, no food stamps, no rental assistance.”  Then he broke down a Mike Jones remix, “Back then, they didn’t want us - now we homeless, they all up on us!!" 

 

     The chorus leapt off the stage and blew up the room, people jumping and singing like we were in a gospel tent revival, everybody coming back from someone else's house or city with food stamps, gift cards, government assistance…but what we all really wanted was to be ‘home’.  The crowd broke loose, climbing over barriers, dancing on the stage with the band - and security stopped no one.  This was our band, our club, our town, and our night. 
 
     They segued into ‘Its So Hard to Say Goodbye to Yesterday', which could have been a clichéd tear jerker, but no one cried.  Instead, we sang together, saying goodbye to homes, to pets, to neighborhoods the way they used to be, to elders that passed on cause the event was too hard on them, and to friends and families that have left New Orleans for good. 

 

     Then the band broke into their signature cut 'Rebirth', with Allen shouting, "Not everyone made it.  We're the ones who made it!  We are the ones who survived the storm!"  Baby, you never saw more sweating, more grinding, more loosing, dance partner swapping...  There was so much soul power in that club, it made the party in the Ernie Barnes’ ‘Sugar Shack’ painting look jus' 'ahw-ight'. 

 

     The following week, I visited the Greater St. Stephen’s Full Gospel Church uptown.  Now I don’t know what the term ‘Full Gospel’ means, but I suspect it’s a fancy name for ‘chuch’, cause that’s what they’re serving in this place.  The choir was way past krunk, people were speaking in tongues, men were holding their kids and crying – and this was BEFORE the pastor came out!  The crowd surpassed ‘standing room only’, filled with members, civic leaders, and visitors who’ve lost their own church and ministers in the flood.   

 

     Then a man in a grand cream colored robe with crimson lace clasps came on stage, singing so good I thought to myself, ‘Well, he can’t possibly be the preacher’.  It’s been my experience that good preachers are generally just okay singers.  Or they’re a bomb singer but the message is kind of tired and predictable.  But this man, Reverend Morton, was singing, then preaching, then sing-preaching and dancing, then another song – it was like musical theatre.  His voice, like Reverend James Cleveland with a little Brian McKnight glaze on top.  And his ministry – when he finished redefining our tragedy, he had the congregation high-five-ing Katrina, pumped to go out and rebuild our ‘new’ New Orleans! 

 

     Now I’ve never been one for rowdy church expression, but this minister had me crying, shouting, waving, and leaping in my stilettos.  When he invited people to join the church, I peeled down that aisle so fast I left my sponsor, who was supposed to walk me down to the front, way in the back of the church!  It was so completely unlike me!  But baaybie, as they say here in New Orleans, that man is so anointed, I wanted some of what he’s got going on in my own life!

 

     So the next Sunday, I put on my best dancing church shoes, just knowing I’m about to get lifted up by Pastor Morton.  Arrived at the ‘chuch’ and discovered that his wife, co-pastor Debra, was preaching that day, her husband away at another church.  Now I’d heard she was really gifted, but I was a little disappointed because it just isn’t humanly possible for two people, especially married to each other, to be equally as talented, inspirational and gifted.  Well, she got up there and commenced to doing THE MOST!  She’s preaching and signifying, the congregation is riding the wave, going up and down in the pews, and I’m getting lifted too, but I’m still skeptical, thinking, ‘alright, she CAN preach...but she can’t possibly blow like her husband.’  And that is when Miss Debra opened her mouth, I swear to y’all Gladys Knight came out!  She had me wanting to join church all over again! 

 

     Now I remember when I was a little girl and there was trouble in the family, my grandmother would clean the house and sing church hymns.  When I asked why she did that, she told me, “Music chases the devil away”.  Back then I thought, ‘That’s just superstition.’  Now, I realize Black people just know instinctively the power of music, its ability to transform what’s wrong into right.  It is a sort of black magic.  And I’m here to tell you all that our magic and our music is still alive and very well here in N’awlins...     

 

 

 

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