R.I.P. Tuba Fats.

[John Doheny]

I stopped in at the Hogan Jazz Archive on tuesday and was informed that Anthony "Tuba Fats" Lacen passed away at his home Jan. 11th of an apparent heart attack. He was only 53, but he was carrying a lot of weight and his family had a history of heart disease.

Tuba was born in New Orleans and attended McDonogh 36 grade school, where he aspired to play trumpet, but band director Clyde Kerr Sr. (father of straight ahead trumpeter and NOCCA faculty member Clyde Kerr Jr.) steered him toward the tuba.

Tuba was among the young performers recruited for the Fairview Baptist Church band in the 1960s by guitarist-banjoist Danny Barker. The schooling Mr. Lacen and his peers recieved from Barker helped rekindle interest in traditional New Orleans brass band music and it's historic role in jazz funerals, second line parades and other cultural traditions.

Mr. Lacen honed his traditional jazz chops working with Sweet Emma, Kid Thomas Valentine and other band leaders at Preservation Hall. He later served in the Gibson, Olympia, Doc Paulin, Onward and Tuxedo brass bands, as well as "masking" as a wildman in a number of Mardi Gras Indian tribes.

Despite his tutelage in tradition (or perhaps because of it) Mr. Lacen helped usher in the modern era of brass band music by developing the Tuba's role as a solo instrument, as well as adding funk and hip hop influenced bass phrases. Every modern brass band tubist, from "new traditionalists" like the Rebirth Band's Philip Frasier to hard core avante guardist Michael Foster owe a debt to Fats.

I saw Tuba in the French Quarter just before Christmas with his band The Chosen Few. Even though he could do pretty well playing concerts and club gigs, Tuba always tried to play at least one set a day outdoors. When he found out I was going to be in Vancouver over the holidays he insisted I give his regards to all his friends up there (Jeff, I'm sorry. I forgot to call when I was up. But Tuba says hey.) He looked fine to me. But people say he hadn't been taking care of himself since his wife, gospel-blues singer Linda Lacen, died of cancer in 1997. I guess it caught up with him.

Rest in peace Mr. Lacen.

[John Doheny]

Tuba Fats will be honored in traditional New Orleans fashion with a second line parade this Sunday, January 18th. The parade will start at 12 noon at Gallier Hall, St. Charles Avenue between Lafayette and Poydras streets, and end in Jackson Square. If by some amazing coincidence any Vancouverites are in New Orleans that day, please come and join us. I'll be the one dancing with a big smile on his face, because Fats would have wanted it that way.




"In New Orleans, the jazz funerals of important members of the black community are shining models of respect and remembrance. The deceased are seen off by musical bands, followed by dancing friends, acquaintances, and strangers...Surely, people who show their affection in this way have a friend in the next world."

Andrei Codrescu, in : Elysium, A Gathering of Souls. 1997.

[John Doheny]

With thoughts of my own mortality in my head I rushed out the door to catch the Freret Street bus down to Anthony "Tuba Fats" Lacen's last party on this earth.

Right off the bat I realized that all this angsty white-boy depression I've been dealing with since I've been back in New Orleans ain't worth a pinch of coon shit. Because really, I ain't doin too bad. My wife loves me, even if she's 3 thousand miles away. I've got my health (sort of) and the things I do for a living don't involve picking up a shovel. And, as Agnes on the Freret Street bus informes me (more on her in a minute) "it's TUBA DAY, CHILE!"

The quickest way to get from my pad to Gallier Hall is the Freret Street bus which, once it gets onto the downtown side of Louisiana Avenue, passes through one of the most fucked up, run down, neglected neighborhoods in New Orleans, the dreaded "Central City." And yet the bus drivers are almost always cheerful goodnatured guys, and the passengers are the friendliest folks on earth. I am usually the only white person aboard, and yet I'm never made to feel like an outsider,nor am I excluded from the many conversations that inevitably break out from one end of the bus to the other.

Today for instance, I overheard a man two seats up from me talking about how Tuba Fat's funeral was scheduled for 11:oo a.m. tommorow. "You mean I've got the wrong day?" I said. "Naw", the man said. " Today's the parade downtown. But the fam'ly viewing tomorrow up by the Charrbonett Fun'ral home." And then the conversation flew. Turns out this guy's brother "married to Tuba's on-tee." By now the bus is passing by the Dew Drop Inn on Lasalle Street. This is Tuba Fat's old neighboorhood.

I start talking to the woman across the aisle, whose name is Agnes, about former citycouncil woman Jackie Clarkeson's plans to use Tuba's funeral as a photo op. (Clarkeson headed a group of realtors and wealthy condo owners attempts to rid the French Quarter of street musicians). I repeated my friend quiet_life's line about politicians talking out of both sides of their mouths. She LOVES this." UH HUH!" she says. "TELL it!" Then she starts going on about how badly the local pols have stuck it to this neighborhood and I find myself unconciously slipping into a preacherly call and response conversational style, as I often do with African American women of a certain age."Uh Huh!" I say, when she leans hard on a point." I Hear ya!" By the time we get to Poydras Street we're all friends.

Any fears I had about being late prove groundless. This is New Orleans after all. Finally, two hours after the scheduled starting time, we're under way. It looks like every brass band musician in town is there with his horn. I see guys from the Treme, Onward, Rebirth and Tuxedo bands, as well as Tuba's band the Chosen Few. I say hello to Elliot "Stackman" Callier, who, even though he's not a brass band player, has brought his sax anyway. "If Tuba had a dollar, he'd give you 90 cents," says Stackman. It's true. I remember the first words Tuba Fats ever said to me were, "You look hungry. Have a piece of this chicken."

There's so many musicians that the band is 50 yards long. I count 12 tubas in the mix. Sometimes the hugeness of the ensemble causes problems, like during "Just A Little While To Stay Here" the back end of the band is two bars out of sync with the front half. But nobody really gives a shit, and when the musicians start kickin it with some of the new school funk stuff like "Do What You Wanna" and "Feets Don't Fail Me Now" and especially Tuba's own signature lick "Tuba Fat's" the crowd went crazy. When the parade swung onto Rampart past the Iberville projects we must have picked up another 500 people easy. They came piling out of those buildings like they were on fire. By this time I'd cut ahead paralell so I was out front with the cops and the Parade Marshall, and when we turned down St. Ann street into the Quarter, where all the white tourists are, man that was something to see. The looks on their faces. Half of them knew what it was right away and were absolutely delighted (look honey! A jazz funeral) but the other half seemed momentarily flummoxed by the sight of 2 or 3 thousand leaping, dancing black folks. But they soon got with the program. Some of them even joined in (although ,in the words of the immortal Chuck Carbo, "Everything shakin BUT their behind). And we all steamed into Jackson square. I guess that's where Clarkeson and the other political weasels got up on their hind legs and said nice things about Tuba Fats. I couldn't tell you for sure though, cause I went and had lunch at Angelli's. When I came back all was quiet. There weren't any dead politicians sprawled on the ground, so I guess everybody minded their manners.

[John Doheny]

I left this parade briefly when it stopped in the Treme and did not join it again until just before it made the turn at St. Anne Street. I was informed today by UNO Professor and "American Routes" NPR Radio host Nick Spitzer (who was there) that a dispute erupted between the proprietor of Joe's Cozy Corner and an illegal street beer vendor over the vendor's right to sell beer in front of Joe's tavern, resulting in Joe shooting the vendor dead. Last Nick heard, Joe was being held without bail in the city jail, Orleans Parish.