No one knows when the first jazz funeral occurred, but whenever it did, the word jazz did not apply. From the dawn of jazz music in the 1890s through middle years of this century, the burial marches and parades were called "brass band funerals."

Today the term jazz funeral summons imagery of the second line, a swell of street dancers with bobbing parasols and handkerchiefs held high, engulfing the brass band in a parade of dramatic gyrating movements. But the "cutting loose" phase, moving ...