Music Can Save Your Mortal Soul
My father would be 105 this year. Perspective can take you on an amazing journey into the past to understand why certain sounds, smells, and rhythms are so strong they can cause you to weep, or laugh, or dance.
On summer Sunday afternoons beginning in the early 1960âs, my father took me to the Grand Ballroom of the Royal Orleans Hotel to see performances by great traditional jazz masters. Jazz on a Sunday Afternoon was sponsored by the New Orleans Jazz Club. These jam sessions/meetings provided me a chance to hear Sweet Emma- easy to remember with her semi-toothless grin, her bell jingling garters dancing up and down as she hammered out ragtime and jazz tunes on the piano. The Original Tuxedo Brass Band, The Eureka Brass Band, whose grand marshal âFatsâ Houston led second lines around the ballroom.  Paul Barbarin and the Onward Brass Band- It was a chance for a five year old to hear Pete Fountain play âDo You Know What it Means to Miss New Orleansâ-   I would not understand the true meaning of that song until decades later.
One Sunday the Times-Picayune took a photo of the two of us, me nestled on his lap gazing directly at the stage. I was most likely the only person under the age of 20 in the crowd.
On mornings when I didnât want to get up to go to school, he would come in the bedroom and turn on my portable record player, place one of the 45âs on and leave. I would wake up to âTiger Ragâ âHindustanâ âRagg Moppâ or one of his favorites- âMuskrat Rambleâ. Â In the days before radio alarms, he understood that waking up to music was the best way to start the day. My father must have heard the power of these musicians before World War II- and he wanted to pass that legacy on to me.
Dad always tried to take me down past Jackson Avenue on Mardi Gras day so I could see, and hear, the Indians. In the late 1960âs this wasnât something most white parents did with their kids- at least not from my neck of the woods, but he was determined that I would see the beauty, hear and feel the beats of their tambourines, and the call and response as they met each other. He understood, and years later, I would too
My father died in 1970 when I was 12. It was sudden and unexpected. Everything in my life changed that Friday. But the one constant in the 45 years that followed is the music. That syncopated beat, the clear sharp trumpet or clarinet call to open the song, each player taking a solo while all the time the sousaphone and drums keeping  the backbeat, and my backfield â as Irma Thomas says â in motion.
Every year, hearing the bands at the nearby school practicing for Mardi Gras always cheered me up through the dreary winter school days. Mardi Gras itself became a contest between me and the St. Augustine Purple Knights- where would I stand to be sure I would be able to hear the Marching 100 actually play?
In the spring, the Jazz Festival â a chance to sit and soak in as much music as my heart could stand.
As time went on, traditional jazz took a back seat to the new wave of New Orleans music- The Funky Meters and Dr. John were the medicine that kept me sane through the teen angst of high school. Of course there was also Led Zeppelin, the Stones and so many others- but I knew, even then, that so many songs contained riffs and rhythms familiar to me since childhood.
I donât recall when I first heard Country Joe and the Fish sing the Vietnam song- but I immediately heard Muskrat Ramble in there somewhere. In these small ways my dad was still with me- reaching out through the music he loved so much to comfort me and help me understand more than I realized at the time.
I moved away, as so many of us do- first to Boston, then to Canada with my new husband and children. I took my music with me always. My children grew up hearing the same traditional jazz, the new beats laid down by the Dirty Dozen , the Meters, old  versions of Wade in the Water and Hound Dog by Big Mama Thornton, ballads by  Irma Thomas, funk from  Dr. John, piano from Fess and Marcia Ball, Lil Queenieââso, so manyâŠ.
The songs that carried me through those years away were the ones that spoke to me of holding on and those that released my inner joy, and pushed me through the feelings of loss and being so far away- Feet Donât Fail Me Now, Hey Pocky Way, Do Whatcha Wanna, Iko Iko, My Darlin New Orleans,.
God bless you Bo Dollis- the Wild Tchoupitoulas songs kept my Mardi Gras spirit alive and well all those long years.
Returning to home in 2002, I had no idea how dramatically my life would soon change again. After only a few short years of re-acclimating to the groove of the city, I found myself facing dark days. After Katrina, the music became a steady balm to start the healing of my devastated and depressed spirit. The albums released in the year after The Storm, Our New Orleans, Funeral for a Friend, Goinâ HomeâŠ
Oh God, To believe- believe that things could be ânormalâ again, while I drove the kids to school past the half grayed out trees of City Park, following the Black Line through Broadmoor back home- I listened.
I kept telling myself Lord,Lord,Lord- you sure been good to meâŠ. Back Water Blues- swung me far back into my childhood with memories Iâm not even sure were mine. And, once again- the Dirty Dozen- My Feet Canât Fail Me Now. That refrain held me up as I waited in the lines to fax paperwork to the insurance company, cleared out the muck and mire, and began rebuilding our lives.
And then â 2006. Mardi Gras- Hallelujah! Marching bands and backbeats- then Jazz Fest- Dukes of Dixieland, Olympia Brass Band, Lionel Ferbos, Snooks Eaglin, Rebirth, so many here- such a prayer answered. For those who were here for that Mardi Gras and Jazz Fest - yes, swaying in unison as if at church when Bruce Springsteen brought out Allen Toussaint to play-
And do you believe in rock and roll, and can music save your mortal soul?
Yes, yes it can. But maybe only if you are in New Orleans. I donât know, cause this is my bedrock, and I know where I come from. Maybe that is the saving grace of the music that lives on in this city
Laurie Dennery Molnar
