To the Beat of the Drum

As I was reading through the book “The Spirit of Black Hawk” I came across a section which I found to be interesting. The Section started out with the authors basically telling how he first came across Black Hawk as he traveled to different places around New Orleans working on a documentary about families of jazz musicians. The Story goes on as the author describes one a church service he attended, giving little side notes here and there on certain thing which happened during the service. The thing I find interesting though is when he moves on to talk about Guiding Star Spiritual Church or more specifically Frank Lastie who along with being a Deacon was also a drummer. Deacon Lastie was a convert who was mentored under Mother Catherine Seals (A faith healer who lived in the Lower Ninth Wards). It was through Mother Catherine’s suggestion that Lastie who learned drumming with Louis Armstrong began playing the drums in church. It was in one of Lastie sermons that he spoke of the scorn he received and said that “Now, they’re very few churches that don’t have a drum”, which makes me wonder was Deacon Frank Lastie the first man to play the drums in church. Though the answer is not clear and further research into the subject is needed to discover the answer it is still something that I find very interesting.