Michael Jackson's memorial and New Orleans second lines

July 7, 8:36 PMNew Orleans Literature ExaminerNordette Adams

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About a week ago in New Orleans, residents turned out in the 7th Ward to honor Michael Jackson the way New Orleans honors all great souls who pass on, especially the souls of musicians. They honored the King of Pop with a second line parade featuring the Rebirth Brass Band and others. Like many great entertainers, Jackson had a connection to this town. He connected to the world.

So, the city went forth June 28, before the formal memorial, with its catharsis, a mournfulness that bursts into release and joy. This is what the second line parade following a New Orleans funeral is, the rejoicing that shirks sadness.  

It is the same kind of catharsis we saw on the streets of London and New York City after Michael Jackson's death was announced June 25, and the same kind many people will experience now that the world has lived through Jackson's memorial service at the Staples Center. Some fans need the formal event more than others to make sense of his early death or grapple with conflicting emotions about the troubled life versus the genius of their idol.

Twitter, Facebook, and MySpace, possibly every social media network buzzed all day with people sharing memories of Michael. Some confess they watched the memorial and cried. Others say they were moved and have started to come to a place of reconciliation. Only the hardest heart dismissed the tears of Jackson's family members, especially Jackson's daughter Paris who said her father was the best father anyone can imagine.

The flood of Jackson news is almost over, and now the world may enjoy his music more. As novelist and cultural critic Toure suggested in an interview, it may be that people will feel freer to rejoice in Jackson's gift and genius now that his passing has separated the music from the baggage of his life drama.  Perhaps we will see more people acknowledging as Berry Gordy did at the Staples Center that they believe Jackson was the "greatest entertainer to ever live."  

We will hear more people playing Jackson's music again, his true legacy, and weighing the stories we've all heard about him, wondering which are accurate, which are out-and-out lies. Finally, we will put our misgivings, guilt, anger, and sorrow to rest and dance to the beat of a life that touched millions around the world.

The flow and purpose of the New Orleans second line parallels this kind of emotional resolution, to let go of sorrow and free the soul of the departed. First, the second line refers to the unofficial group of people who follow the parade and dance, the admirers. The first line, those sponsoring the parade, is called the main line. A second line parade has become a critical part of traditional jazz funerals. Sometimes celebrities are given such send offs as was CBS journalist Ed Bradley in 2007, but in New Orleans, anyone's death, king or commoner, may be celebrated with the thought of mourning as a soul comes into the world to face tribulation and laughing as it leaves, freed from pain.  In some ways, this rejoicing while enduring loss is exactly the sentiment of the song Jermaine Jackson sang at his brother's memorial, the Charlie Chaplin tune "Smile," said to be Michael Jackson's favorite song.  

 The following excerpt comes from Mardi Gras Digest.

In the late 1890's and the early 1900's these "Brass bands" began to be asked to perform at Jazz funerals. Jazz funerals were at the heart of an early African slave religious practice, of celebrating of the life of a deceased person.

When the church's funeral service was over, and the procession began the movement from the church to the cemetery, the band would play slow, sad, funeral hymns, known as a "dirge". Led by a "Grand Marshal", the band and mourners would move to the burial site, with the band playing a dirge to signal the struggles, the hardships, the ups and downs of life.

On the way back, the music became more joyful. The band played high-spirited tunes such as "Didn't He Ramble," and "Lil Liza Jane", amongst other tunes. This was to signal the dismissal, and interment of the physical body, and the joyous event of the release, of the soul, to heaven. Relatives, friends, and acquaintances would become the second line and dance with wild abandon. The second line, usually sporting umbrellas and handkerchiefs, became traditional at these jazz funerals. (Mardi Gras Digest, "History of the Main Line" by Willie Clark)

More history of the second line:

Whether or not they were sponsored by reformers, bands socialized young followers into the ways of both the musician and urban life. Barney Bigardee noted that "my first interest in music" came from "watching the brass bands." On Saturday parades "we would try to follow the band as far as our folks would let us ... for four blocks or so." The second line of nonplaying marchers was already a black New Orleans tradition, a marching adaption of the field holler and the ring shout, and it gained new prominence when jazz bands came to lead the children, prostitutes, gamblers, and novice musicians. The bands, like earlier marching groups, bonded these diverse groups in the second line, which shared a traditional powerlessness in urban society and provided the musicians with a community of admirers that literally followed their careers.

Some found the lines disreputable. Bigard's parents "didn't want us to get hung up in those 'second lines' because they were kind of bad." Zutty Singleton followed funeral band processionals and his mother too "caught me all engrossed and jerked me out of the parade. Mothers did not approve of it. The kids who did it were tough [such as] Louis [Armstrong]. And Bechet was a raggedy man." The New Orleans street parade was thus a special lure for young blacks, away from the sheltered world of child hood and toward the intriguing fraternities of adulthood. (from the book The Creation of Jazz by Burton W. Peretti)

While The Creation of Jazz was written pre-Katrina in 1994 details in part the evolution of the New Orleans second line, you can see the same elements discussed in the passage in the video below of the second line that took place in New Orleans on June 28 in honor of Michael Jackson, three days after his death.

Books about death and the second line experience in New Orleans.

• New Orleans Jazz and Second Line Drumming by Herlin Riley, Johnny Vidacovich, Dan Thress
• The Creation of Jazz by Burton W. Peretti
• Cities of the Dead by Joseph R. Roach

Books about death and coping with grief.

• On Death and Dying by Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, M.D., a classic.
• Water Bugs & Dragonflies: Explaining Death to Young Children by Doris Stickney
• I Wasn't Ready to Say Good-bye: Surviving, Coping, and Healing after the Sudden Death of a Loved One by Brook Noel

Visit more Examiner coverage of Michael Jackson through this link. Bloggers and others have continued to create tributes and reflections on Jackson's legacy.