Parades & Carnival
To do this is to march/dance in a certain fashion during a Mardi Gras parade. (If you're actually a part of the parade, you're the first line; if you're just dancing behind it, you're in the ...)
What is "Second Line?"
Complete with whistling and second-line drumming, this song is one of the staples of the Mardi Gras celebration.
What is "Go to the Mardi Gras?"
This song was widely popularized by local music hero Louis Armstrong as a jazz number in the 1930s, and is typically performed these days by any number of jazz and brass bands in New Orleans as an upbeat dixie land jazz tune.
What is "When the Saints Go Marching In"?
What is "What a Wonderful World?"
While not a Mardi Gras parade, this one is from a 1948 movie titled by the same name.
What is "Easter Parade?"
These lyrics are great: "Down in New Orleans where the blues was born, it takes a cool cat to blow a horn." True.
What is "Mardi Gras Mambo?"
This jazz song is performed by Louis Armstrong and is from the play, "Porgy and Bess," based on Charleston, South Carolina.
What is "Summertime?"
Name this Christmas tune from Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer by Burl Ives: "How do you measure its worth? Just by the pleasure it gives here on Earth"
What is "Silver and Gold?"
This song about the Mardi Gras Indians, mimicking the languages of the local Native Americans, and paying homage to this deeply rooted tradition.
What is "Iko Iko?"
This song composed by Earl King in the early 1960s. It became a hit in New Orleans for Professor Longhair in 1964, featuring a whistled first chorus in a rollicking blues piano style and refers to Mardi Gras Indian groups.
What is "Big Chief?"
This jazz standard was recorded and copyrighted by the Original Dixieland Jass Band in 1917. It is one of the most recorded jazz compositions.
What is "Tiger Rag?"
This song played around Halloween is about a creature with one eye, one horn, and flys!
What is "The Purple People Eater?"
This tune is a New Orleans Mardi Gras-themed R&B song that was performed by Al Johnson and recorded in 1960. It is now considered an iconic festive song of the New Orleans Carnival season. To this day, he bills himself as Al "this song name" Johnson.
What is "Carnival Time?"
This silly song was appointed the official song of Mardi Gras back when the Krewe of Rex first organized in the late 1800s, appointing a king, a Mardi Gras flag and the colors green, gold and purple, representing faith, power and justice.
What is "If Ever I Cease to Love?"
This tune is a 1929 stride jazz/early swing song. Andy Razaf wrote the lyrics to a score by Thomas "Fats" Waller and Harry Brooks[2] for the Broadway musical comedy play Connie's Hot Chocolates.
What is "Ain't Misbehavin'?"
Doris Day sang this silly tune about how you have to be in love to see this colored cow.
What is "A Purple Cow?"
This bluesy and funky tune by Earl King describes the excitement of this celebration: "I get excited with every beat of the drum and make ya wanna get down with it have a whole lotta fun."
What is "Street Parade?"
This tune is the strongest of several Mardi Gras classics by The Meters during their mid-'70s period. With a microscopically accurate second-line beat, boogie-woogie piano New Orleans style, semi-nonsensical lyrics, and loads of thick funk on top, this sums up the bohemian essence of the celebration.
This tune is a song by Irving Berlin. It was his first major hit, in 1911.
It is believed by some jazz-ragtime circles in New Orleans that Berlin was writing about a real band and bandleader, who were popular at the time in New Orleans, and actually was known as Alexander's Ragtime Band, after its leader, Alexander Joseph Watzke (also known as "King" Watzke or Alex Watzke).
What is "Alexander's Ragtime Band?"
Name this tune about this little colored fruit sung by Frank Sinatra.
What is "Little Green Apples?"