Young Memphis Musicians at @DowntownBleu at the Westin Hotel

The Bleu Restaurant in the Westin Hotel in downtown Memphis is really the only place in the city that regularly features live jazz. Jazz groups play on Friday and Saturday nights, and on the last Sunday of every month. The young Memphis musicians above came down to sit in this past Friday night, and it is always encouraging to see them, because this is what keeps the music going.

Rara Lakay- Rara Procession in Little Haiti

Rara Lakay leads the weekly Friday night rara procession through the neighborhood streets of Miami’s Little Haiti community.

Rara Procession in Little Haiti with Rara Lakay

Each week on Friday night, Rara Lakay leads a rara prcoession through the streets of Little Haiti in Miami. The band of tin horns and drums attracts a large crowd of marchers/dancers that follow the band along the parade route. In Haiti, such processions occur during Lent, from Ash Wednesday until Easter.

Beginning a Friday Night Rara Procession in Little Haiti with Rara Lakay

Rara Lakay leads a rara procession through the residential streets of Little Haiti on each Friday night, beginning from the murals on the wall at the corner of NE 2nd Avenue and NE 60th Street. The processions pick up participants as they go, eventually returning to the spot where they began.

Walking Behind A Rara Procession Through Little Haiti

The start of the Friday night rara procession on the week that I was in Miami was delayed because of the Miami Heat’s playoff game, and so the procession really didn’t get underway until around 9:30. Led by the musicians, it picked up participants as it proceeded through the residential streets of Little Haiti. Some of the more enthusiastic dancers ran a block ahead of the musicians to do dance poses low to the ground. People came outside on their porches and gathered along the sidewalks in some areas, and the whole scene became very familiar to me (aside from it being night), for this was very much like a New Orleans second-line. Even the vendors and food trucks that pulled up along the route were exactly like what one would have seen in New Orleans. Actually I shouldn’t have been surprised, since the Haitian Revolution of 1804 brought a number of French loyalists to New Orleans from Haiti, and also since many of the Africans brought to Louisiana were from the same regions of West Africa as those brought to Haiti. The rara bands share some aspects of the second-line tradition, such as using horns as well as drums, and leading the processions in which dancers and celebrants parade behind. But the raras also have points in common with Mardi Gras Indian practices, including the importance of drums and percussion, and also (at least in Haiti) the ritualized confrontations between different rara bands when they meet in the streets.
By the time we crossed over North Miami Avenue, we had assembled a fairly good-sized crowd, but my friend Jackson stated that the crowd was much smaller than average due to the ball game. Suddenly, all too soon, we arrived back at the corner of Northeast 2nd and 60th Street where it had all begun. I had not eaten since about 4 PM, so as everyone started to go their separate ways, I started trying to find a restaurant that wasn’t already closed, as it was almost 11 PM.

Rara Lakay Rehearsal

The members of Rara Lakay rehearse before the weekly Friday night rara procession in Miami’s Little Haiti neighborhood.

Rara Lakay-Rehearsing Before A Procession in Little Haiti

The Rara Lakay band rehearses in their neighborhood prior to the weekly Friday night rara procession in Little Haiti. These processions, common in Haiti during the period of Lent up until Easter, serve to promote Haitian culture in Miami.

Rara Lakay Rehearsing Before The Friday Night Procession

Although the joyful music of a Haitian rara procession might seem spontaneous, a considerable amount of rehearsal is actually necessary, as the musicians showed me as they rehearsed in an outdoor courtyard behind a house in their neighborhood. Rara bands consist of a number of drums, some from the western tradition, like snares and tenors, as well as bongos,scrapers, cymbals and Haitian kongo drums, as well as the large bamboo trumpets called vaksen (now often made out of plumbers’ pipe) and valveless tin horns, often fashioned out of old coffee cans. The latter instruments require the most rehearsal, since each horn is fashioned to play only in one key, and, having no valves, can only play one set of open notes or partials. This means that it takes a group of men working together each with one horn to play a melody, much like handbell ringers in a church. The melodies of rara music have words in Kreyol, and they are sung before they are played. A musician with an electric keyboard will often play the melody first on the board to help the tin horn players get it in their heads, and then they practice it until they have the note sequences and rhythms down. I was also thrilled to see small children pick up one of the drums and play the rhythms with a great deal of familiarity and accuracy. I was told that these children were sons of some of the musicians in the group, and so are growing up around the culture of rara music.

Another Funky Drummer on Austin’s 6th Street @SXSW 2013

Up the street at the corner of Red River and 6th, another young drummer had set up and was soloing, drawing a brief interest from a passing rapper.

Street Jazz @SXSW 2013

Busking jazz musicians are common on Sixth Street in Austin during SXSW. Most of them seem to be extremely talented.