Visiting the spirits of jazz past in New Orleans

/Home/New Orleans Music and Musicians

Visiting the spirits of jazz past in New Orleans
October 30, 2010
By Helen Anders
Statesman.com

NEW ORLEANS More than anywhere else in the U.S., this city honors death as a part of life. Jazz-infused services and second-line funeral parades celebrate the lives of those who've departed, and final resting places are chosen carefully because a New Orleanian wants to rest with those closest to him or her.

And when I say "with," I mean, literally, with. In New Orleans, it's legal to put numerous remains in the same grave, so it's not unusual to find members of the same family — or even close friends — interred together.

I decided to spend an afternoon communing with the ghosts of New Orleans jazz greats. New Orleans has 42 cemeteries, including the famous St. Louis No. 1 behind the French Quarter, which houses the body of voodoo queen Marie Laveau. But because I was searching for musicians specifically, I headed for Mount Olivet, an African American cemetery established in 1918 at the edge of the Gentilly neighborhood. Most of Mount Olivet's graves are coping graves framed by stone or brick and built several feet up from the ground. (New Orleans has a high water table, but it's tradition, as much as anything, that has kept most of the city's graves above ground.)

The cemetery is filled with jazz musicians. There's Oscar "Papa" Celestin, the trumpet and cornet player and band leader who prided himself on having played at more than 1,000 funerals. There's Avery "Kid" Howard, who started as a drummer but wound up on the trumpet. He's buried with trumpet and clarinet player Louis Prevost . These musicians frequently played with Louis Armstrong. (Armstrong is buried in Flushing, N.Y., although his native New Orleans gave him one heck of a second-line sendoff when he died.)

"All these cats jammed together," cemetery manager P.D. Bryan said as he showed me the graves.

We stopped at the cemetery's mausoleum, built in the 1970s, to visit the remains of beloved piano man H.R. Byrd , better known as Professor Longhair. The popular jazz venue Tipitina's was established in 1977 specifically as a place for him to play in his last years. Someone had tucked an ace of spades into his mausoleum nameplate.

"People put stuff up there all the time," said Saundra Richardson, a service counselor at the cemetery. "I have to take it down."

Unlike some others, this cemetery didn't flood during Hurricane Katrina. It's on a ridge, and some neighbors took shelter inside its offices. The hurricane of five years ago is still on the mind in this part of New Orleans, where some houses still carry marks noting the number of bodies found inside.

"People are still suffering from post-Katrina depression," Bryan said. "It was horrific. But in this job, you can give people comfort. You want to assure them things will be better."

Five miles away, near the New Orleans Country Club, is Metairie Lake Lawn Cemetery, another final resting place of many famous people. It's a completely different sort of cemetery — huge and fabulously landscaped, with many elaborate tombs. Within the complex, historic Metairie Cemetery is built on the elliptical site of a former racetrack. Here, at the intersection of avenues B and N, I found the tomb of singer, trumpeter and band leader Louis Prima, who had moved back to his native New Orleans from Los Angeles in his later years. His tomb, topped by a trumpet-playing angel, bears the inscription: "A Legend: When the end comes I know they'll say, 'Just a Gigolo' as life goes on without me."

Prima is entombed with three relatives . Even inside these ornate tombs, it's common to find the remains of numerous people. After a person has been dead for two years, his or her remains are placed in a pouch and another person can be placed in the tomb, either in the same casket or in a new one.

Lake Lawn Metairie has a huge indoor mausoleum where, inside a glass case in a drawer decorated with a small gold trumpet, rest the cremated remains of trumpeter Al Hirt. A fan had left a stack of albums lying against a vase of flowers. Such tributes are common, sales director Richard Briede said, noting, "Cemeteries are not just for the dead. They're for the living and for history."

If you go ...

Mount Olivet Cemetery and Mausoleum, 4000 Norman Mayer Ave. 504-283-4358. P.D. Bryan is happy to show you around, but call first.

Lakelawn Metairie Funeral Home and Cemeteries, 5100 Pontchartrain Blvd. 504-486-6331. Metairie Lake Lawn has several 45-minute self-guided tours, depending on whom you're looking for. Give them your driver's license and they'll give you a CD and player telling how to find the graves and tombs.

For more on New Orleans cemeteries, go to bit.ly/
bizSgM.