“There is a real mania in this city for horn and trumpet playing,” remarked the New Orleans Daily Picayune in 1838. “You can hardly turn a corner,” it lamented, without hearing brass players, quoting a local who said he “earnestly desired to hear the last trumpet.” We are coming upon 200 years later, and the situation hasn’t changed much. On my bike rides home through the French Quarter, I often get caught behind a second-line parade, usually for a wedding, the band belting out “L’il Liza Jane” or “Hey Baby.” Then there are the regular Sunday parades put on by the Social Aid and Pleasure clubs, with names like the Men & Lady Buckjumpers, the Uptown Swingers, the Dumaine Street Gang, the Pigeon Town Steppers, the Valley of Silent Men, and the Black Men of Labor. They snake through neighborhoods, with the brass bands blaring for hours at a stretch and the whole community coming out to dance.

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