"Let's Get This Gig Going!"

On Saturday, November 24, I attended the funeral of the man who had been, up til a week or so ago, the oldest living jazz musician in the city, Ernest "Doc" Paulin. We had two special family connections to Doc Paulin and his brass band. The first goes back to my first ministry outside New Orleans, in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and the second is quite recent.

Back in 1993, when I was first called to the church in Chattanooga, my son and I were pretty homesick. We missed our family back home, but we also sorely missed our New Orleans food and holidays and traditions and especially our music. When we learned that the National Folk Festival was to be held in Chattanooga for the next two years, we were excited -- but we were even more elated to find out that the festival would be kicked off with a New Orleans-style parade led by the Doc Paulin Brass Band! On that evening, we gathered our secondline umbrellas, our handkerchieves, and our dancing shoes, and drove downtown to be a part of it. We met up with Doc Paulin and his sons and the other musicians in the band, told them we were from home, and let them know we were their secondline! (A couple of the musicians actually recognized me, and said, "Didn't we play your going-away party at a church?" Brass bands in New Orleans being what they are, some musicians from the Paulin band had played with the Treme Brass Band the night of my farewell party.)

Stevie and I swung into action as the band got started, tossing our handkerchieves and lifting our umbrellas, and to our surprise and not a little embarrassment, we were the ONLY secondliners in the parade! Folks in Chattanooga had never heard of secondlining before and watched us in amazement (and possibly disbelief). Our photograph appeared on the front page of the Chattanooga Times, and we were interviewed on local TV. We couldn't have been more surprised -- wasn't secondlining a brass band the most natural thing in the world? (Interestingly, the second year of the National Folk Festival, we two secondliners were joined by a host of people who had picked it up from us the year before. Stevie and I are proud to take credit for teaching Chattanooga this great tradition.)

The second connection to Doc Paulin is through Big Man in our new life in New Orleans post-Katrina. The band Big Man plays with on Bourbon Street (the Blues Club, across from Galatoire's, in case you want to go) is called Category 5, and from the first night he played, Big Man was coming home and talking about this great trombone player in the band called "Doc." In fact, Big Man said, the band had at least two members who went by that appellation, and, this being New Orleans, I didn't think anything of it. Then I finally went down to the club myself and Big Man introduced me to the trombone player, saying, "This is Doc Paulin, who I've been telling you about." And I blurted out, "You're not Doc Paulin, he must be your daddy!"

That's when "young" Doc told me that his dad would celebrate his 100th birthday in a few weeks, and that since he was the oldest son, he was named after his dad, complete with nickname. We talked a bit, and I recalled the Chattanooga story, and wished old Doc a great birthday. A few days after the big celebration birthday, Doc told Big Man that the family didn't expect his dad to live much longer, and sure enough, he passed close to Thanksgiving.

The funeral was held at Holy Ghost Church on Louisiana Avenue. When I arrived, the historic glass horse-drawn funeral carriage was outside, and the visitation and recitation of the rosary was still going on inside. (I haven't been anywhere close to a rosary service in decades and I found the repetition of the prayers meditative and calming.) Crowds of musicians of all ages were coming in, many holding the traditional jazz caps emblazoned with "Doc Paulin Brass Band." There were many extended family members (Doc and his wife had 13 children, so do the math with the kids, grandkids, nieces, nephews and so on), and jazz afficionados. It was a lovely service. The St. Francis de Sales Golden Voices choir sang, there was lots of emotional music, and spoken tributes that made you laugh and tugged at your heart.

Hearing Doc's life story being shared in the eulogy, I realized that even at 100 he was too young to have ever known jazz progenitor Buddy Bolden, who was institutionalized in 1907, never to play again. But Doc did know the men who knew Bolden, who heard him play and who played with him, who were inspired directly by his loud and wild horn. So now with Doc's death, we lose the last of the generation of musicians who were once removed from King Bolden. The oldest among us now is too young to have known anyone who knew Bolden or who played with him. It was a melancholy thought.

Other sharing made us laugh. Doc was punctilious to a fault, and demanded discipline of all the younger musicians who played with him. Being neat, well-dressed, and on time was almost a religion for him. Going on a Doc Paulin gig meant showing up at his HOUSE, so he could look you over first and make changes and improvements when necessary. Doc also couldn't abide fooling around on a stage, wasting time. He was a consummate professional. His perennial expression was, "Let's get this gig going!"

At one point near the close of the service, all the musicians present were invited to join in a rendition of "I'll Fly Away." The music was heart-felt and powerful -- so powerful, in fact, that the 4th Station of the Cross was jarred loose from the wall and crashed to the floor, shattering it into pieces. Hardly anyone noticed, and the improvised band played on.

Toward the end of his life, suffering the ravages of Alzheimer's, being unable to play his beloved cornet for 4 years (his last gig was at age 96!), he began to wish for it to be all over. In those last weeks, he was heard to tell his daughter, "Let's get this body in the ground!" And on Saturday, that's what they did.