Zulu Social Aid and Pleasure Club

March 7, 2020March 7, 2020

All On A Mardi-Gras Day: Breakfast and Zulu Parade Uptown

I was awakened by children’s laughter. My friend Darren Towns’ four daughters were as excited by Mardi Gras morning as kids usually are on Christmas Day. Their mother had stayed up late making them special screen-printed shirts to wear, and Darren was soon up as well, playing a recording of Kermit Ruffin’s reading of the Dr. John classic “All On A Mardi Gras Day.” Most people in New Orleans, if they are in a hurry to get to the parades, skip breakfast, but that was not an option for me, so I told Darren I would catch up with them uptown, and then headed out to look for breakfast. I didn’t have to look far this year, because Coffee & in Marrero was not only open but packed from wall to wall. I could only sit at the bar, but that was fine, while the TV screens showed the people already gathered along St. Charles Avenue for the day’s parades. Although the weather was grey, it was quite warm, and the forecast had been revised, reducing the chance of rain. The man sitting at the bar beside me said “I hate Mardi Gras,” and I had to ask him why. It turned out that he was retired from law enforcement and had worked the holiday for eighteen years. I could somewhat understand. He also indicated that people were not supposed to be throwing cups from floats, like the one that hit me in face the day before. By ordinance, they are supposed to hand them to people in the crowd.

I had meant to go across the Huey P. Long Bridge, fearing that the Crescent City Connector would be gridlocked by the parade crowds, but it was surprisingly easy to get across, and I exited at Magazine and Camp streets. Staying between the river and St. Charles, I was easily able to make my way to Sixth street, and found that I had no problem finding a place to park. But Zulu does not go down that end of St. Charles, and though there were crowds around, they were largely waiting for the Rex parade. I also did not find Darren and his family at Sixth and St. Charles, so I had to call him, and I found that they had gone to Washington Avenue in order to catch the end of the Zulu parade. It took some walking, but I soon made it there, and had no trouble meeting up with them. Here the crowds were thick indeed, everyone in a festive mood. I need not have worried about missing Zulu, for I caught the vast majority of it. What I didn’t catch was any coconuts. They are actually quite stingy with them, and I had noticed that in previous years as well. I also found that the drastic press of crowds made filming the various marching bands difficult. But the weather was great, and everyone had a good time.

August 13, 2018August 13, 2018

Spending A Day with the TBC Brass Band in New Orleans

There are no second-lines during the summer, at least not the large, official ones sponsored by social aid and pleasure clubs, but that doesn’t mean that brass band activity dies down during the summer. If anything, the bands are busier than ever, due to weddings, birthdays and family reunions, as well as club dates and outdoor music festivals, so I usually try to make it to New Orleans at least once during the summer to hang out with my friends in To Be Continued Brass Band, and this year was no exception, as I made my way down on July 20th, stopping in Covington, Louisiana for a dinner at The Chimes, an excellent seafood restaurant along the scenic Tchefuncte River. But it was after midnight when I arrived in New Orleans, and my TBC Brass Band friends were gathered outside of a place called Jokers Wyld and Mickey’s Playhouse (the former Ooh Pooh Pa Dooh) where they were supposed to be playing for some sort of party. After I parked and pulled around the corner, I found them engaged in a friendly but vigorous band argument of some sort, which is often the case in New Orleans, as band is a competitive sport in that musical city. Unfortunately, the man who had engaged the band “went off to get the money” and never returned, so they didn’t play, and I instead grabbed a cafe-au-lait and some beignets and made my way to the West Bank and to bed.

The next morning, my homeboy Darren Towns, the bass drummer for TBC, his two young daughters and I headed into the Bywater neighborhood to have breakfast at a bright and cheerful new spot on St. Claude Avenue called Polly’s Bywater Cafe, which had not been there when I was last in the city at Mardi Gras. In one sense, Polly’s takes a page from other typical New Orleans breakfast spots, with local artwork on the walls, and a bright color scheme, and cheerful, sun-catching windows and decor. But we greatly appreciated the private parking lot (a rarity in New Orleans), the pleasant, efficient service, and the extremely high-quality food. Thoroughly satisfied, we were soon on our way to a recording studio in Mid-City, where TBC was to record a commercial with the legendary Kermit Ruffins.

After the studio session, it was largely gigs all day, with the first one being a wedding reception at an event venue in Jefferson Parish. From there I ran Darren by Guitar Center so he could buy a new cymbal for his bass drum, and then we headed to Legacy Kitchen, a new local chain of restaurants that I had been eager to try. We found the food excellent (I had the chicken and waffles), and we liked the upbeat vibe of the place, although prices were fairly steep. From there we had to head to the arena on the Xavier University campus, where a family reunion was taking place. Like the earlier wedding reception, the organizers had hired both the TBC Brass Band and some of the Zulus to be there in costume, and the attendees seemed to enjoy it.

The next stop was another wedding reception, this one at the Veterans of Foreign Wars Post in Algiers, right at the border with Gretna, and at that particular location, the crowd had gotten rather rowdy, and some men were trying to calm down a man who was obviously intoxicated. But the performance went well, and the crowd seemed to enjoy TBC greatly, and again, there were members of the Zulus in costume there as well, which apparently is the current trend in New Orleans events.

Our final destination was a birthday party in the Seventeenth Ward at a place called the Broadway Bar, where a large crowd was gathered out in the street, at tables and chairs in front of the club, and inside. The place was so crowded that it was hard for TBC to get into the club, but the Broadway is the type of hood club where the band and the crowd feed off of each other, and their performance was the hypest of the whole day. After TBC came back out of the truly tiny club, the band and members of the crowd began a sort of second-line around the neighborhood, and were not ready to break up when we made it back around to the club entrance. So TBC played for another twenty minutes or so while the man whose birthday it was, and his father danced in the street, along with some other people from the crowd. Finally, about 1 in the morning or so, we finally left the area. After one of these serendipitous New Orleans moments, the mood is usually exhaustion but exhilaration too, and this night was no different.

September 10, 2014

The TBC Brass Band Live at Le Maison Creole in Harvey, and the Zulu Club in New Orleans @TBCBand @TBC_BrassBand

I had heard from friends in the TBC Brass Band that they were playing for some event at a place called Le Maison Creole in Harvey, a town on the West Bank, so when I left the Midsummer Mardi-Gras, I headed over there and caught up with them. I never could determine whether the event was a birthday party or a wedding reception, but the TBC band played for about 20 rousing minutes of second-lining and partying, and then headed back across the river to the Zulu Social Aid and Pleasure Club for another gig at a party. Although it was nearly midnight, there was a fairly large crowd along Broad Street in front of the Zulu Club, and I was really quite excited. The Zulu organization, although called a social aid and pleasure club, functions more as a Mardi Gras krewe, and now I was getting to witness a party there for the first time. The band members started playing on the sidewalk in front of the club, and then we all marched into the clubhouse, which was already quite crowded with people. Perhaps because of the late hour, the TBC played a shorter set than they had at Harvey, but the crowd seemed excited nonetheless.

June 3, 2013

The Money Wasters Meeting The Zulus on Broad Street

As we approached the Zulu Social Aid and Pleasure Club’s headquarters on Broad Street,we ran into a huge crowd of people standing on the median near the club. Tents had been set up, and campaign signs were everywhere, as the Zulu club was having apparently both a festival and an election for their officers. They welcomed our second-line enthusiastically, but we stopped only briefly there before continuing along Broad Street to the northeast.