All that listening to this session does is remind me of one of the places that I really want to see, but still have never seen. It makes me think of New Orleans and it makes me want to believe that there is always one main street that runs through the city's heart - an artery that spills out and in through the community - that's shut down, as if anticipation that the Rebirth Brass Band or the Preservation Hall Jazz Band might take to it at any time. The procession would just snake through the street, the sidewalks lined with all of those people hoping like me that this was going to happen. It would be seen as that time in the afternoon, or that time until the midnight light - when most are fast asleep at home - when you could consider the day fulfilled of promise, injected with the cheerfulness that everyone had been waiting for.
There would be confetti and balloons, weiner dogs and the scent of slow-cooked meat wafting through the air like a gold-leafed invitation. There would be children bursting with feelings they're not quite familiar with yet and old men and women, itchy with memories. We'd all follow the band, to wherever it was going, rain or shine and we'd take in every note they played - each one a different variation on pain and joyfulness, each one a chunk of flesh that someone gave over long ago. The Rebirth Brass Band makes you think that their feelings, the ones that they so obviously string together every time they play, are attainable, that their smiles are communal. You can just take them or take one and it's all yours.