Here's a music RIP that I missed, as it happened back in November (2 months before this blog began). Fitting that I stumbled upon it on the first day of JazzFest.
Some of our posse of Lowell Folk Festival people from New Hampton got to meet this guy and his family on two different occasions, in 1999 and then again a few years later. Back then, Doc was only 85...
November 20, 2007
"The city's oldest traditional jazz musician, whose surname was synonymous with New Orleans music, died Tuesday morning at the home of his daughter Elizabeth Powell in Marrero. Ernest "Doc" Paulin was 100.
"Mr. Paulin passed his love for music on to his children. At least six of them performed in his band.
"He understood life; he knew how to make a way of no way," his son said. "I'm going to miss his sense of humor. He had a sense of humor about everything."
The family, he said, is working on funeral plans and is trying to persuade officials to allow an event to be held at city-owned Gallier Hall.
"We don't have a place large enough for the crowds," Rickey Paulin said.
As it turns out, they did have a service to beat the band...
