Since it is Memorial Day weekend, we wanted to offer something appropriate in this week’s podcast.
Of course, in the Floodisphere, our spiritual inclinations generally lean more toward a rambunctious New Orleans jazz funeral than to a little church in the wildwood. So, here’s jubilant little hymn from your friends in The Flood.
The Jazz Funeral Tradition
Blending strong European and African cultural influences, the jazz funeral predates the birth of jazz itself. The tradition traces hundreds of years further back to Louisiana’s colonial era when military-style brass bands often were hired to play during funeral processions.
This European element merged with West African spiritual practices, incorporating the belief that celebrating after death pleases the spirits who protect the dead.
Jazz joined the mix at the beginning of the 20th century, and by mid-century the jazz funeral was crossing ethnic and religious boundaries in New Orleans.
How It Happens
Marching from the church or funeral home to the cemetery, the band initially plays somber dirges and hymns.
A dramatic shift in tone occurs after the deceased is entombed and the hearse departs. That symbolic moment “cuts the body loose” and the music quickly becomes more upbeat and swinging, featuring lively, raucous tunes (like another Flood favorite, “Didn’t He Ramble?”)
This final phase brings on cathartic dancing as attendees celebrate the life of the deceased. Onlookers form the famous “second line,” twirling parasols and handkerchiefs in the air as they step off to the band’s rousing cadence.
About the Song
This week’s song — “Just a Closer Walk wirh Thee” — is often associated with jazz funerals, but, as we reported here earlier, this custom actually is a relatively recent development.
New Orleans’ legendary clarinetist George Lewis, the jazzman most associated with this beautiful song, told his biographer, “The first time I played it was in the The Eureka Band” in 1942. “We heard it on a music box, and a woman asked us to play it for a funeral” for her murdered husband.
When the widow learned that the song her husband wanted to hear on a jukebox the night he died was the new Sister Rosetta Tharpe recording of “Just a Closer Walk with Thee,” she asked George’s band to play it at his funeral.
Before that time, Lewis said, the tune was not known in New Orleans; however, after The Eureka Brass Band’s performance, bands have been playing “Closer Walk” at funerals ever since.
And the song itself is surprisingly modern, published in 1940 in Chicago. Click here to read more about the song’s curious back story.
More Gospel from The Flood?
If all this has you craving a little gospelizing by the boys in the band, remember The Gospel Hour playlist in The Flood’s free Radio Floodango music streaming service. To read all about it, click the link below.
