Read the full article by Scott Thomas Anderson at Sacramento News & Review
Festive feathers of a madcap umbrella jump with the snare beats as Dre Benjamin comes dancing along Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard.
Clouds gather overhead.
Benjamin keeps stepping for Broadway, swinging his sunshade with one hand and pumping his pluming feather-fan with the other: Both pieces of parade swag are intrinsic to the Seventh Ward of New Orleans, the neighborhood that raised him.
The Bigger Than Us Arts band is following. Their street jazz atomizes the air of Oak Park, filling it with tuba claps and drum strikes and a lone trombone roaring muscularly through the morning. And between the musicians and Benjamin are the NolaCal Second Liners, a partying group of parade fanatics that The Big Easy native formed in 2019.