‘It makes it all worth it’

For 140 years, members of Mobile’s Excelsior Band have marched in heat, cold, rain and whatever else came their way. Recently a few members marched onto a stage in Washington, D.C., as the nation honored recipients of its highest honor in folk and traditional arts.

For the first time in three years, the National Endowment for the Arts recently held a gathering for recent recipients of the National Heritage Fellowship. The Excelsior Band, which was among the class of 2022 honorees, didn’t just attend the elite convocation held the weekend of Oct. 1. They shared the music that earned them their place.

“We opened up the first day, we opened up that with a second line and this was at the National Museum of the American Indian [a part of the Smithsonian Institution],” said bandleader Hosea London. “We opened up that Thursday with a second line, that was the beginning of the event.” The group went on to perform in the Coolidge Auditorium at the Library of Congress, in a video shared on the band’s Facebook page.

The band, which traces its history back to 1883, is a marching group that has appeared at countless Mardi Gras and civic events. The NEA describes it as “a Black brass marching band that has, for generations, embodied the culture of the city of Mobile and its beloved Mardi Gras celebrations.”

For the seven members of the band who traveled to Washington, D.C., for the event, the weight of it is still sinking in. They’re among the many who’ve paid their dues, keeping a musical tradition alive while marching in Mobile’s Mardi Gras parades. But they’re among the few to receive this once-in-a-lifetime honor.

London and three bandmates recently met up to share their takeaways from the experience, and to talk about what the honor might mean for the future of the Excelsior Band.

London said one thing that made the moment special was the fact that it was unusually large, because it was the first such gathering of National Heritage Fellows held since the COVID-19 pandemic. That made for an unusually large gathering of exceptional creative people, each of whom has dedicated his or her life to preserving a distinctive cultural tradition or art form.

London said he was blown away by the work of TahNibaa Naataanii, for example. A Navajo/Dine textile artist from Shiprock, N.M., she raises the sheep that produce the wool she uses and shears them, harvesting her own raw material. He was similarly impressed by Roen Halley Kahalewai McDonald Hufford of Hawaii, he said. She’s a 2023 honoree honored for preserving the traditional art of ka hana kapa barkcloth weaving, but what caught his eye – and his nose – was the handmaid lei she wore, produced from flowers she’d grown. It was something different from what he’d received as a tourist arriving in Hawaii.

“She had a farm. So she grew her own plants and then from those plants, she made her own wreaths and it smelled so good,” London said. “She gave it to me. I said, ‘I sure would like to have that,’ she took it off and gave it to me. I was like, ‘This ain’t the kind I got when I got off the plane. That must have been a fake one.’”

“It was a great, great experience, a great opportunity for something that we, you know, it’s just something you just dream of,” said London. “You just, you just never imagine that you’re going to be in the midst of that many [exceptional] people.

Drummer Leon Rhoden said visiting the nation’s capital was a treat in itself.

“When he first told us we were visiting Washington D.C., I had never been there when I got there,” said Rhoden. “When I got there it opened my eyes. I said, ‘Wow, this is a city in a city.’ And looking at all the government buildings, that was very exciting.”

“I mean, you’re there at a museum in Washington, D.C. doing a second line,” he said. “You’re at the Library of Congress being honored. That was very exciting when we came out on stage doing the second line and when we visited the Library of Congress, oh that was very exciting. To see books Jefferson had.”

For alto saxophonist Herbert Nelson III, the experience brought him full circle in more than one way. A native of Mobile, he lived and performed in D.C. for a time in the 1970s.

“Well, I lived in D.C. during the Bicentennial celebration,” he said, describing activites that included work with a theater company, a radio drama produced by Howard University and even occasional street busking. “So, I lived there and I played in most places, the Kennedy Center for the performing Arts, Gallaudet’s School for the Deaf, the Senate building on Capitol Hill, the Washington Monument, all the universities, Georgetown, George Washington, libraries, embassies on Embassy Row. So it was like a second home for me.

“I was excited to get back there because I love D.C.,” Nelson said. “I lived 16 blocks from the White House at 16th and T streets. So I love D.C. and I was so happy to be back there and I looked around where everything is changing. … I love DC. I could talk about, I could tell you much more,” he said.

As for the honor, he described it as one “of many that I’ve been fortunate enough to receive and be a part of. I feel extremely, extremely blessed to be able to walk the path of my life that I’ve walked because I could go on and on about my musical history as far as playing and touring around the world.”

He never expected that path to bring him back to Mobile, let alone to the Excelsior Band. But around 1999 he moved back after residing in Los Angeles. He’s been an Excelsior member for about three years now.

“I was born here,” he said. “I made a 360, which I never knew would happen. I never would think that I would be in this band. I saw this band when I was, God, 10-11 years old, in the early ‘60s on Davis Avenue. So I’m in the band now.”

Tubist Sean Thomas said the event brought a certain sense of validation. “The whole experience, all of it all together is nostalgic for me, being a part of the band and being able to go to D.C. and just to be able to receive this national award is very nostalgic,” he said. “It makes the work that you put in as a musician, all the time you put in with all the practice, the long nights, the rain, the cold, it makes it all worth it. Just being in D.C. and just being in that atmosphere is a golden opportunity.”

London agreed that the honor has brought a sense of opportunity with it, thanks in part to the associated funding. “The award came with like a $20,000 check,” he said. “The Excelsior Band surely has never had that kind of money. Most bands probably don’t. But it enabled us.”

The band has been working to secure copyrights that will help it protect its name and likeness and profit from the fruits of its labors.

It also puts the band on a footing to think of solidifying its long-term legacy.

“I want people to know that now we have a separate entity called Excelsior Band Preservation,” London said. It’s a nonprofit separate from the entity that handles the band’s day-to-day business affairs. There’s also an educational arm, the Jazz Studio, which has been operating for several years to help young musicians develop jazz knowledge and skill.

One thing London dreams of is establishing a physical home for the band, a place that could serve as both a performance space and a museum.

“We have so much material, we have so much memorabilia and my goal is to get it on the one roof,” he said. “We have some stuff at [the University of] South Alabama. I have some stuff in my house. We have some stuff at the Carnival Museum. We have a little stuff at the History Museum.” and I’ve been talking to some people who I think could help with the financing part of it.”

It’s a big project, which will require some big fundraising to accomplish. But London said he thinks the NEA honor will help the band pursue grants and other sources for the money required.

A dedicated performance space would give the public a chance to see the band without having to depend on the vagaries of Mardi Gras parades and other typical bookings. That’s another way of preserving the music – though Excelsior is and always will be ready to perform on the move. And it will always be looking for the next generation of members who are ready to hit the street.

“We are a walking band,” he said. “We’re not a float band, we’re not a truck band.”

“You’ve got to have somebody who’s willing to take it over and put in the work and recruit people, recruit band members because, you know, nobody’s going to stay in there forever,” he said. “So that’s where I am. That’s my efforts. And you’ve got to bring in the right people.”

“That’s been one of my efforts because I don’t want to see it die out,” London said of plans for a band museum. “You know, I want to have something that I feel good about for maybe the next 100 years. And if you don’t prepare for that, if you don’t do the right thing, you know, it’s not hard for a tradition to fade out. All you need is somebody to say, ‘Well, I’m not gonna do it, I don’t want to do it,’ and it dies.”