Brass Band Music from New Orleans

I'm a Northern "girl" who has never been to New Orleans or any other part of Louisiana. So I've never seen a New Orleans brass band parade.

But I grew up in Atlantic City, New Jersey in the 1950s and lived very near the Soldier's Home. That center had a marching band & majorettes. Sometimes the band and the majorettes would practice outside. I'd hear the drums early some mornings or some afternoons & evenings and want to rush outside to see them perform. I loved it!

I vaguely remember when I was a very young child walking on the sidewal following a parade while it marched far from my home until somebody brought me back home. (Or maybe I just remember being told about this).

I also remember my beloved grandfather (who was a wall paper hanger in the weekdays and head deacon of our Baptist church on Sundays) carrying a large ladder and setting in up on the street so me or one of my sisters could watch a parade. I remember one time my grandfather putting me on top of his shoulders so I could see a parade, and other people being mad at him because he was blocking the view. (If I recall correctly, my grandfather didn't let those people bother him. He just stood his ground-which unconsciously taught me a valuable lesson).

Those parades associated in my mind with my grandfather may have been the annual fireman's parade. My memories of that parade was the different fire trucks blasting their sirens and the firemen (if I recall correctly, they were all White men) throwing out pieces of wrapped candy to the onlookers.

The most important parades in Atlantic City was the ones associated with the Miss America pagent. My sisters and I were lucky. For a period of years we had "ring side seats" to watch this parade as my father worked at the old Convention Center. He slipped us in to the convention center and-as I recall-we went on a roof (which was probably a balcony) high above the people standing on the Boadwalk. One time we threw paper out a window down to the crowd. I remember someone fussing at my father for this, Maybe that's why we weren't allowed to see the parade from that vantage point in subsequent years.

The Miss America parades and the firemen parades weren't my favorite Atlantic City parades. By far my favorite parades were when Black chapters of the Elks held their convention in that resort town and paraded in units down a main street in one of the Black sections of AC. I loved watching those Black teens and Black men perform their intricate drill team routines to the percussive beat of the drums. I really miss that. There are far too few parade groups like that where I live now.