When Ellis Marsalis, pianist and patriarch of a legendary family of New Orleans jazz musicians, died at 85 in April 2020 after being hospitalized with Covid symptoms, the city mourned in silence. In a normal year, Marsalis’s passing would have drawn thousands of people from every corner of New Orleans for a jazz funeral, featuring a brass band, and a second line procession. But as the city reckoned with the early stage of the coronavirus pandemic, no public gatherings were allowed; only ten people were able to gather and pay their respects.
Death is Our Business, a new documentary that premiered in March on PBS’s “Frontline,” honors lives like Marsalis’s, taken by Covid, and the Black-owned funeral homes that have worked tirelessly to adapt to an onslaught of loss.
Continue reading at Bloomberg here, courtesy of Sarah Holder.