Mondays with Mike: A night to remember

Last night Beth and I joined friends for a celebratory picnic on the lawn of the Pritzker Pavilion at Millennium Park. The occasion: Our friend Janet just became a full professor at the University of Illinois-Chicago, a testament to her brains and fortitude. As we noshed, we listened to jazz—it was the final night of this year’s Jazz Festival—and the evening was capped by a performance by The Rebirth Brass Band.

High school kids from Joseph Clark Senior High School in New Orleans’ Tremé neighborhood founded Rebirth in 1983. Members have come and gone, but the second line tradition, the raucous, powerfully rhythmic music that makes you move whether you want to or not, goes on.

Beth and I lived in Urbana in the early 90s, and it must have been 1992 when the two of us began planning a trip to New Orleans. When we struck up a conversation with Jon—who booked bands for a music club in downtown Champaign called The Blind Pig—and asked for recommendations. He didn’t hesitate: “There’s a band you absolutely have to see,” he said. “It’s called Rebirth Brass Band. It’s not like anything you’ve heard, and promise me you’ll go.”

We found care for Gus through a Respite program, and we flew on Thanksgiving day because it was cheap. We headed to a touristy place called Seven Sisters in the Quarter for dinner and picked up the local weekly. Sure enough, Rebirth was playing that night at a place called Kemp’s.

It’s not the Rebirth we saw at Kemp’s, but here’s a nice taste:

I asked the waitress if she knew anything about Kemp’s. Never heard of it. Back to the hotel we asked at the desk. Nothing. Finally, we just headed outside with the address and found a cab.

The driver didn’t know the name but he knew the area. Sure you wanna go there? Yep.

The listing said the show started at 9, and me being me, we got there like an hour early. Kemp’s was a ramshackle one-story building that looked like a house more than a club, replete with bars on the windows.

“Let me check it out for you,” the driver said. He left us in the cab, walked into the place and a few minutes later said, all right, if you’re sure. We paid the fare and headed in.

On the inside it looked like it did on the outside—a functional dive. There were a couple bartenders with not enough to do. There were maybe two or three other people. We took seats at the bar. I ordered a beer, and the bartender asked if I wanted a straw. It was a thing there.

Time passed and by 9, well, there were maybe 10 people there, all from the neighborhood and known to the bartenders. No sign of any performance on the horizon.

Then, a slim but muscular guy in black jeans and a tight, white T-shirt—think a young Bruce Springsteen—walked through the front door.

“Johnny!” shouted the locals at the top of their lungs. Johnny swaggered to the jukebox, took out a ring of keys—the kind you see maintenance guys carrying—stuck one into a recess in the front of the juke box, and motioned to the patrons. They ran up and started making selections—while Johnny was in the house, the jukebox was free.

As we neared 11:00 p.m., the place got very crowded. And then around 11:15 one of the bartenders yelled, “Everybody out, pay your cover and come back in.” One of the bartenders went to the restrooms—they found a kid standing on the toilet in the stall of the women’s bathroom trying to sneak in free.

Because of Beth’s blindness, they let us pay at the bar and hold our seats.

After a chaotic re-entry and more people filing in, the place was absolutely crammed. Somehow, though, as soon as we heard the first notes from a tuba, a path was cleared and Rebirth marched in. There was no amplification, but I’ve never been in a more electric space.

The band somehow fit themselves onto a tiny platform that could hardly be a stage. I should say they were on and around it.

It’s cliché, but you could feel the music. All those young kids pushing air out of all those horns and a bass drum beating a rhythm that could make Elaine from Seinfeld look good dancing.

I know, because Beth and I danced for hours, and we did it like no one was watching. We danced with each other, with the people next to us; we were just one big, ecstatic, sweaty, undulating mass of people having the best possible time humans can have.

I don’t know how many sets they played, but I know they didn’t quit until after 4:00 a.m., because we were still there.

That’s when things got dicey. The bartenders called us a cab. None showed up. The bartender then suggested that they give me the phone—that if they heard a white guy calling for a cab from this address, a cab might show up.

No luck.

Beth and I were, in fact, in a very small minority of white people at Kemp’s. In the beginning we were the only white people. After it filled, I’d say there were maybe 10 white people.

I’ll confess: especially back then, I saw color. I was self-conscious at first. But by the time we left, I couldn’t have cared less. We were treated like gold by everybody there.

I did some research and found that Kemp’s—no longer in existence—was owned by a musician named Fred Kemp, who was a horn player with Fats Domino’s band. It was at the corner of LaSalle and Washington, in the midst of a giant public housing project—which also no longer exists. (You can read more about the area and its history here.)

So it was rugged.

But still.

We were exhausted, no cabs coming, and so we did about the stupidest thing we could do—we began walking. Especially stupid because Dora was back at the hotel—we knew it wouldn’t work to have her in a crowded place. Dora was hardly a killer, but people don’t know that.

Within a couple blocks, I saw a phone booth. I dropped in the change, called a number on a card I’d gotten at Kemp’s. The voice asked where I was—“Where?” was the incredulous reply.

OK, we’ll get someone there.

Minutes later a taxi showed and not long after that, we retired, just before dawn.

The next day we quizzed each other to make sure all that really happened. We had a great time. We learned some things and lost another bit of naiveté.

And we thought, how lucky we are.