R.I.P. Dan Ellis

Just for fun, Eurekan plans his own jazz funeral

Dan Ellis, pictured here among the jazz greats of New Orleans, will stage his own jazz funeral tonight in Eureka Springs — assuming the Mayans were wrong.
Dan Ellis, pictured here among the jazz greats of New Orleans, will stage his own jazz funeral tonight in Eureka Springs — assuming the Mayans were wrong.

— Jazz funerals are “peculiar to New Orleans alone among all American cities,” architect Benjamin Henry Latrobe noted in 1819.

Dan Ellis intends to prove history wrong.

Transplanted to Eureka Springs after Hurricane Katrina in 2005, Ellis has carefully tended his New Orleans roots. He’s brought the celebration of Mardi Gras to the mountains of the Ozarks and turned St. Patrick’s Day into another occasion for parades, parties and the tossing of beads.

“I was very interested in having a jazz funeral for myself when I was in New Orleans,” Ellis says. “Of course, I was going to be dead, not alive.

“When I got to Eureka, I made a commitment to my friends that I’d do the same thing - again, dead not alive. But with the end of the world being 12/21/12, I decided I was going to have a jazz funeral, one way or another.”

A “jazz funeral,” for the non-New Orleanian, is described this way in Eileen Southern’s “The Music of Black Americans”:

“On the way to the cemetery it was customary to play very slowly and mournfully a dirge, or an ‘old Negro spiritual’ such as ‘Nearer My God to Thee,’ but on the return from the cemetery, the band would strike up a rousing, ‘When the Saints Go Marching In,’ or a ragtime song such as ‘Didn’t He Ramble.’” According to neworleansonline.com, Sidney Bechet, the renowned New Orleans jazzman, added: “Music here is as much a part of death as it is of life.”

Ellis’ jazz funeral starts at 4 p.m.

today at the Rowdy Beaver Restaurant in Eureka Springs with a wake, featuring a eulogy by Al Hooks and a gospel sing with Cne Breaux - including “Just a Closer Walk with Thee.” A hearse will carry Ellis’ coffin - “I built it myself, and I made it too short, so they can’t get me in it unless they cut off my feet,” he says - while mourners will board limos and trolleys for the journey to the second stop, the Pied Piper Pub.

There, Ellis will be toasted, roasted and eulogized by Rick Bost, LeRoyGorrell, Rob Knapp and other dignitaries - “whatever anyone wants to say,” he says - before two teams of mourners compete at the wailing wail. A traditional New Orleans “second line” - led by a jazz band - will escort the coffin to the next stop, the New Delhi Cafe, where the celebration will switch gears to become a Viking funeral. An effigy of Ellis will be burned and the ashes put in a miniature Viking boat, which will be set afire.

Mourners, again led by a jazz band, will return to the Pied Piper for the trolley trip back to the Rowdy Beaver and Ellis’ “reincarnation.”

“I’ll be incognito” until then, he says. “At my reception, I’ll reappear.”

Ellis was hoping there would be a grand marshal for the festivities: Heinvited Dan Akroyd “because of his love of New Orleans, jazz and blues, and his interest in metaphysical issues,” he explains. He didn’t get the actor - who was already committed to a European trip, Ellis says - but he did get a bottle of Crystal Head Vodka, from a company owned by Akroyd.

Ellis opened the package at a kickoff party for his pallbearers, greeters and other funeral celebrants and found a signed bottle and a printed note from Akroyd, “This is my funeral, 2012.”

Ellis says there will be a jazz funeral 2013 and beyond - he’s just not sure in what form.

“Some people have asked me if I’m going to die every year,” he says in the drawling speech of the Mississippi Delta, “and I say, ‘Yeah, I’m going to keep doin’ it until I get it right.’”

Whats Up, Pages 12 on 12/21/2012

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