Block Party: A Touch of New Orleans on Pearl Street

Saturday, May 18, 2019, Watertown, MA

4:30 PM – 8:30 PM

The Hawthorne/Oliver/Palfrey/Pearl Street Neighborhood Block Party was a Saturday afternoon blockbuster in all the right ways.

This was the great grandmother of all block parties. All the right stuff: high-grade potluck food, both sweet and savory, covered the tables set up on Pearl Street (closed to traffic between Fayette and Palfrey). The desserts donated by resident Nobuko Maruyama from her bakery Koko were a big hit.

Little kids were playing games and drawing on the pavement with huge stubby pieces of chalk, while their parents were chilling alongside them. And neighbors cheerfully chatted on this, the most gloriously sunny and warm spring day of the year after a brutally cold, rainy,  blustery stretch of days since Spring officially began on March 20.

I had no idea what was in store for us later in the afternoon when it rolled from a sedate gathering to a rollicking Second Line street dance to the hot-as-boiled-crawfish sounds of The Second Line Social Aid and Pleasure Club of Somerville, MA… but I'm getting a bit ahead of myself.

On the social side of things…

Libby Shaw, President of “Trees for Watertown,” the thriving, green, non-profit organization founded by my Oliver Street neighbor, the late Adelaide Sproul, delivered an update of the organization's work. Another neighbor, David Meshoulam, Director of Teens for Trees, recognized teens who volunteer for the program. I don’t have to tell you what an investment it is for the kids of Watertown to become stakeholders in the organization.

The organizers asked us to bring non-perishable items for the Watertown Food Pantry…we did.

 At 5:15 PM Neighbor Richard Herman stepped up to the mic, banjo in hand, playing sing-alongs for the kids, joined by Carole Tierney on the accordion.

At 6:00 PM  The Great Hawthorne/Oliver/Palfrey/Pearl Street block party is cruising right along. A bunch of festively dressed men and women walk up the street. Is that a tuba? No, two tubas! And they’re breaking out trombones, saxophones, and a big ‘ol bass drum emblazoned with “Second Line Social Aid and Pleasure Club” on its side.

Whoa, Mama! Am I dreaming? A brass band...on Pearl Street?

They bolt out of the gate with a New Orleans rolling thunder brass band classic “Do Whatcha Wanna” and are airborne for the next hour. My neighbors do what any self-respecting New Orleaneans would do...they break out their second line moves.  

If I close my eyes, I could be standing in front St. Louis Cathedral in Jackson Square where brass bands play with joyful abandon from morn till night. This band is out of the same mold. They got swagger! Directed by the spirited sax player, trombone, saxophones and trumpets blast full-tilt funky brass band solos. Bass and snare drums pound out rhythms that translate immediately to the feet of everyone within earshot. 

Swingin', swayin' and occasionally singin', the band is having fun. I am in a delicious near out-of-body experience,  reveling in the midst of authentic, honest-to-goodness brass band playing and second-line style dancing I usually travel thousands of miles to New Orleans to savor. I AM A FIVE-MINUTE WALK FROM MY HOUSE!!! 

My neighbors - people I see walking their dogs, pushing their kids up the street in carriages, gardening - become transformed and are stylin’ with improvised moves I see in the Tremé or the Marigny or at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival. I REPEAT…FIVE MINUTES FROM MY HOUSE!

New Orleans music, brass bands and all, is a multi-cultural, multi-ethnic gumbo that combines music played and sung by slaves in Congo Square in the late 1800s with European military band music, rhythms from Cuba and the Caribbean, and music made by black and white musicians from way before Louis Armstrong till today. There is no music on earth quite like it.

Music, second-line dancing, and food are the H the 2 and the O of New Orleans culture. When you hear a brass band, you know there’s a funeral, a wedding, or a spontaneous ignition of joy coming down the street.

As of today, I'll have to add a Watertown neighborhood block party to that list.

Big props to the Watertown Community Foundation for covering some of the costs and to our block party hosts: Eileen Ryan, Heather Caldwell, Lisa Cole, and David Meshoulam. Their brilliant idea to invite The Second Line Social Aid and Pleasure Club Brass Band helped us reconnect after a long winter and listen and dance to the uplifting music of a brass band…social aid and pleasure indeed!

Photos by Paul A.Tamburello, Jr.

Video above by Dan Usher

 

Hawthorne/Oliver/Palfrey/Pearl Street Neighborhood Block Party

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Hawthorne/Oliver/Palfrey/Pearl Street Neighborhood Block Party

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Comments

[Sarah B]

Sitting here grinning from ear to ear as I did during the whole block party as I watch the videos. It was truly a peak experience here in our neighborhood!

[Sharon Bauer]

What an amazing reporter you, are, Paul! Your writing plus the videos rekindled the astonishment of our New-Orleans-on-Pearl-Street extravaganza. We are lucky to have you as our neighborhood archivist and appreciator (and dancer! Too bad you are not in the videos.)

Sharon Bauer

[David Meshoulam]

Wish we had been there for the band! Thanks for the recording. There's always next year, right?

[Kathy and David Dahl]

Terrific write-up, photos, and video, Paul! Sounds like we missed an unforgettable event and a great chance to connect with others in the 'hood. Hope we can make the next one!