About Us
Our Name
The name “Ideal Maine Social Aid and Sanctuary Band” pays homage to New
Orleans Social Aid and Pleasure Cubs (SAPCs), which were neighborhood mutual aid societies and brass bands, started in the 1800s. These groups provided key services to their members, such as health care and burial insurance, during the height of segregation when Black New Orleanians were barred from mainstream services due to their race. They also supported brass bands, which members hired to perform funeral rites and processions, lead neighborhood parades called “second lines,” and hold community social gatherings. These groups were fundamental to the birth and proliferation of jazz music. You can read more about their history in this article about New Orleans’ music history from the famous New Orleans radio station WWOZ.
The neighborhood bands of Social Aid and Pleasure Clubs remain an integral part of New Orleans culture today, and continue to serve their communities with youth mentorship, community drives, funeral processions and second lines. They are a petri dish for developing new brass band sounds and techniques that permeate through New Orleans music, and also a key training ground for young musicians to learn the culture and how to play classic New Orleans music. For example, the famous musician Trombone Shorty got his start playing trumpet in his neighborhood brass band as a young boy, and he incorporates many of the foundational musical elements of these groups into his music and performances.
SAPCs and their bands are also an important unifier for community activism, which was highlighted especially in the wake of Hurricane Katrina in 2005. WWOZ historians explain: “Four months after the levees failed, with the city considering a plan not to rebuild some Black neighborhoods, a coalition of 29 clubs held a massive second line in Treme that rallied support for displaced families’ right to return. It was a symbolic gesture, but not an empty one. A 2010 study by sociologist Frederick Weil found that SAPC members were the most ‘civically engaged’ segment of the post-Katrina population, a quality correlated with stronger community recovery.”
Our History
The Ideal Maine Social Aid and Sanctuary Band was founded in 2017 with just three people. We are now a group of around 50 active members, with a much larger email distribution list of occasional contributors. Our band aims to fill a similar role to SAPC brass bands in our community of Portland, ME.
We honor the New Orleans SAPC brass band tradition not only through our name, but also our matching hats - which model the style of hats worn by many of these bands for second lines - and through our musical selection, which always includes a few classic New Orleans brass band songs.
The band also has roots and influence from right here in New England. Two of the 3 original members were previously in the Somerville Massachusetts band which founded the Honk! Festival of Activist Street Bands, the Second Line Social Aid and Pleasure Society Brass Band (now Good Trouble Brass Band) and one of the originals has strong ties with Bread and Puppet Theater (https://breadandpuppet.org/). The annual Honk! Festival, features similar street bands from around the country and the world. The Ideal Maine band has had the honor of performing at Honk!, most recently in 2025.
Our band welcomes musicians of all ages and ability levels, and our objective is to support social justice, civic engagement, the arts and community activism across many causes (note we refrain from supporting specific political candidates). For grassroots causes, we often play for free. When we perform paid gigs, we donate the money we earn to organizations, chosen via vote by band members, that align with our purpose. You can read more about us via this Portland Press Herald article from February 2026.
