Dre Benjamin and the NolaCal Second Liners bring communal passion to Sacramento Mardi Gras

By Scott Thomas Anderson | Solving Sacramento Dre Benjamin, out front, and the NolaCal Second Liners, lead the Krewes and Kings of Queens Parade in Oak Park on Feb. 3. (Photo by Scott Thomas Anderson) 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. Benjamin is the grand marshal of this February event. The Second Liners seem to feed off his energy, shuffling and sashaying as they go, making a willful spectacle of delight in their traditional digs for a New Orleans social aid and pleasure club....