New Orleans Brass Bands S/D

I can't go without mentioned the (however unlikely) on the level Wisconsin brass band scene, Mama Digdown's and Youngblood. I'm sure I've hyped up Youngblood on other threads, but they really are something these days, the new Def Jux album will be tight. It wasn't until after I started listening to a lot of other brass band music that I realized how unique their sound is, clean and precise instead of greasy and raucous (both are great in their way of course).

Speaking of which, what about brass bands from neither New Orleans nor Wisconsin?

The parallel in Minneapolis (where I live) is the Jack Brass Band. I'm all for this kind of thing, but these groups are to Rebirth what Antibalas is to Fela.

I lived in New Orleans for a year and my favorite Rebirth album is still Take It To the Street. Ex-Rebirth member Kermit Ruffins has his own band which is pretty great, too. I find Dirty Dozen boring on CD and in concert, sorry.

My favorite Rebirth story was seeing the guys perform in the bywater one night when members of the Afghan Whigs were in the audience, then seeing the band again in the Zulu parade the next morning. Turns out Rebirth had literally performed all night and went straight to the parade without rest. A float got stuck on a tree, and Rebirth were still energetic enough to challenge a high school band to a battle while the parade stood still. Guess who won.

I still listen to 'New Orleans Album' quite regularly, but it's the only one I've got.

I don't suppose anyone's heard the new one (Medicated Magic)?

I've been listening non-stop to the New Birth Brass Band record, it is HOT SHIT. Totally on Rebirth's level or more so, and it's probably the most spontaneous, live sounding studio album I've ever heard.

or was it not so brass band-y?

Recommend me some New Orleans funeral jazz, please!

And I know this is rockist of me, but the older and more authentic, the better..

thanx

Other than that, just go to Louisiana Music Factory and check out anything by Treme Brass Band (the most well-known band playing in a really trad style that's still around) or Dejan's Olympia Brass Band.

I'll send you a mix if you want to e-mail me, I'm always happy to spread the gospel. Also my brass band should be playing at the Green Mill again in the next couple months.

I really hope their 20th anniversary show dvd comes out, the show was sort of a mess but Cheeky Blakk came out and did Pop That Pussy for 15 minutes, humping trombone cases, Kabuki riding on her back, etc. :>

Yeah, remind me! I've missed you guys a few times now!

New Birth Brass Band, D-Boy
Rebirth Brass Band, Hot Venom
Stooges Brass Band, It's About Time
Soul Rebels Brass Band, No More Parades
Lil' Rascals Brass Band, Buck It Like a Horse

Also a word about Derrick 'Kabuki' Shezbie - he's the main trumpet player for Rebirth, and he was in New Birth as a teenager (he's all over D-Boy). He's SO MUCH LOUDER than any trumpet player I've ever heard, not to mention the fire. His sound is completely wide-open and really sums up the brass band sound for me (he takes the solo on the Rebirth tune I posted above).

HOWEVER, yeah, they take marching band pretty seriously down south and a lot of those kids have incredible chops. We were standing outside of Tipatina's during a parade last Mardi Gras and this high school trumpet line came by blowing high F's and we were like WHAT?! I think that a huge majority of New Orleans brass band musicians came up in those bands and always check them out during parade season, etc.

I am also interested in Jordan's mix.

But still go to Donna's and the Maple Leaf and Le Bon Temps and Cafe Brasil!

most of which are hosting jam bands anyway)

Oh god this is so horribly OTM.

I am also interested in Jordan's mix.

Send me your address.

In Tower Records I noticed in the new Downbeat magazine a nice article on New Orleans brass bands and more. The Stooges Brass band, Hot 8, and Soul Rebels are all here. I haven't checked to see if the article is online.

As a contributing supporter of afropop.org I get a weekly e-mail thing from them. This week they have a nice photo-essay by Ned Sublette(musician, musicologist and author of that immense book on Cuban music) on New Orleans. Sublette is living there for awhile and studying the Caribbean roots of New Orleans. He's got an interview with Donald Harrison and some others. I think you can check it all out at afropop.org

I think one was called Yarl River Blues Band.

I'll be going down to Jazzfest the first weekend to play with Mama Digdown's and see brass bands, can't wait.

From the April issue excerpt on Downbeat's website:

Next Generation New Orleans Brass Bands
Brass Beyond The Streets

By Jennifer Odell

Philip Frazier honks his sousaphone on a chilly January Sunday on the corner of Daneel and 3rd streets. Musicians start to shuffle away from the crowd milling outside the Bean Brothers Bar and strap on horns and snare drums, ready to get their roll on. Dancers for the Undefeated Dicas Social Aid and Pleasure Club come around the corner and tubas, sousaphones, saxophones and bass drums fall in line as the Divas belt out The Staple Singers’ “I’ll Take You There.”

Winding past Mary’s Nightowl Bar, Candlelight Bar, Sandpiper and The New Look, the parading community group hits all of the Uptown neighborhood’s brass band stops. Ostrich plumes fan the air above the Divas in time with Frazier’s non-stop vamps. When the dancers slow down and form a circle, trading moves with kids, the band plays even harder, echoing braay swueals off the projects across the street. This is how brass band music was born.

But it’s growing up. And while playing the second lines and funerals remains important, many of today’s hottest brass players are concentrating more on polishing their CDs and getting national recognition than on stealing the show on Sunday afternoons. The current generation is following the successful business model created by the Dirty Dozen and Rebirth brass bands; updating a traditional sound to make the music relevant to a larger audience. And with each step forward, another cross-breed of the brass band sound is born. Mardi Gras Indian bands like Big Sam’s Funky Nation are based in funk, the Soul Rebels are purveyors of hip-hop and the Hot 8, New Birth and the Stooges hold down the street scene with their bebop-heavy takes on the traditional style.

MARDI GRAS 2005: a photo essay by Ned Sublette
Also Check out Interviews with Joseph Roach, Donald Harrison, and Vicki Mayer by Ned Sublette

Seeing it on twitter too. Googling I see he has had health issues since 2014. Had seizures then . So sad . In his 40s

https://www.nola.com/entertainment_life/music/article_49b3a9ba-2f5f-5bfa-b1ed-6712c1638d09.html

Big 6 Brass band is struggling due to Hurricane Ida. Asking for $ to their Cash App on Instagram

https://www.wwoz.org/blog/675736

Uncle Lionel’s brother, musician Norman Baptiste died back in August I see

Norman Batiste

We're doing a fundraiser on Friday, will be distributing proceeds to our New Orleans brass band community: https://www.facebook.com/events/277709660554623

Same for everything from the Mama Digdown's and Youngblood Brass Band bandcamp pages.

Found this incredible archival footage of Hot 8 from 1996, almost 2 hours long, apparently digitized from Bennie Pete's VHS copy:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OprSGzqvpc8

Wow...

Jazz Festing in place starts again today through Sunday on WWOZ. Many great archival performances (the Longhair fire benefit show is amazing.)

https://www.wwoz.org/683706-cubes-jazz-festing-place-fall-2021

Oh thanks for posting. Had forgotten about that

Some repeats from previous programs (Duke Ellington from the very first fest, good enough that I didn't mind rehearing it.) And some performers I'm not at all interested in, but that's Jazzfest.

For those in New Orleans between October 7 and 17th, I see a bunch of New Orleans clubs are hyping their shows at this specially created website

https://www.neworleans.com/nolaxnola/

I'll be there 15th - 18th. Not much I want to see listed but will check with the brass bands, and going the second line for sure.

How was your visit Jordan?

So the March 2022 Big Ears Fest is gonna have an event of sort coordinated by Ben Jaffe of Preservation Hall Jazz with Sporty's Brass Band and Haitian bands

As the living embodiment of the acoustic New Orleans jazz tradition, the generations of Preservation Hall had learned as much as they could about the music from the city itself. In recent years, exploratory travels into Cuba and Haiti have led to acclaimed documentaries and albums where the band delves deeper than ever into its native soil. The glee of discovery is palpable as they find roots that lead all the way to West Africa, to France, to many diasporic places.

In 2018, they joined Regine Chassagne and Win Butler of Arcade Fire to inaugurate the annual Krewe Du Kanaval in New Orleans. A celebratory tribute to the parades, costumes, and music of Creole culture, it will be tailored to The Mill & Mine by Ben Jaffe, the creative director of Preservation Hall. Taking place in and around the venue, the immersive, episodic experience brings together Haitian music heavyweights from across the festival for an experience replete with unique sets and decorations; drumming, dancing, and chance encounters; and DJs deepening the NOLA-Haiti connection. In addition to Preservation Hall, the lineup includes 79rs Gang, who fuse Mardi Gras Indian music with hip-hop; Lakou Mizik, the leading acoustic Haitian roots-music revivalists; RAM, the globally renowned group that electrified vodou music; and Sporty’s Brass Band, one of the best second-line units in New Orleans.

That Big Ears fest is in Knoxville, Tenn

It was really good, thanks. Saw Sporty's Brass Band at Bullets (crushed it), 21st Century Brass Band at the Music Box Village for a brunch gig (a curious but well-intentioned outdoor art space), and TBC at the Treme Hideaway (Derrick Tabb's place) (crushed it). And Treme BB outside Vaughan's, that was nice and wholesome (Corey Henry on trombone). Caught up with Donna, who's writing about about Donna's and brass band history. Learned a lot as always. Never going to Verdi Mart again in my life (was never a fan anyways), but Quarter Grocery is standing strong.

Oh man, I somehow misremembered that Donna had passed away. So glad that's not the case!

I had plane tix and a hotel reserved for beginning of October, but then Ida went through ands Sun Country cancelled my flight.

I'm working my way through Jazzfest sets on WWOZ's Festing in Place, and TBC is one of the best things I've heard so far. The way they weave rap and pop hits into their songs reminds me of DC gogo.

what does vaughan's smell like inside now that you can't smoke anymore?

Lol, I didn't go inside this time since there was a whole scene outside, although I did last time and it was pretty pleasant actually.

Listening to a Trombone Shorty set on OZ and toward the end there was a a rapper throwing down some great hard James Brown style funk. Had to do some research, as I am unfamiliar with 99% of rap created since "Bust A Move." Turns out it was Mystikal doing "Shake It Fast" (sic) and it's on youtube. I like it way better than the original recording.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=petbyChApoI

Playing with the inimitable Swamp Thing: https://www.instagram.com/p/CVngGl7FBJT/

Nice .

RSVP for next Saturday’s (11/20 2:30pm CT) virtual @WordsandMusicNO event feat. @khdpoetry, whose article, "Oh Casanova," is in @64parishes; @RebirthBB’s Keith Frazier; Michael Ferguson, former music dir of LeVert; and Marc Gordon of LeVert. I’ll moderate the conversation. Free

That’s a cut and paste of a Dj Soul Sister tweet. Panel will address how that r’n’b song became a brass band fave

More press emails to me. Rebirth and Davell Crawford and others are also part of this thing

NOLAxNOLA ‘21: Show Your Love! A Virtual Celebration of New Orleans is a landmark virtual fundraiser event showcasing never-before-seen performances and more by some of New Orleans’ most iconic artists and legends, all benefiting community-based nonprofits dedicated to fostering the music culture of New Orleans. Powered by the digital fundraising platform Fandiem, NOLAxNOLA ‘21: Show Your Love! A Virtual Celebration of New Orleans is set for November 19 and 20, beginning both nights at 9 PM (ET)/8 PM (CT), free to view exclusively via www.nolaxnola.com.

NOLAxNOLA ‘21: Show Your Love! A Virtual Celebration of New Orleans will feature electrifying live performances from an array of New Orleans artists, spanning up-and-coming talent, rising stars, and undisputed musical royalty including Irma Thomas, The Revivalists, Big Freedia, Galactic, Tank and the Banga

OST SPOTTED: the hot 8 joy divison cover in venom: let there be carnage

Nice.

I watched a Sporty's Brass Band IG Live recently that was great.

RIP Sandra Jaffe who helped preserve jazz @ Preservation Hall (along with her husband who had died in 1987)

Preservation Hall was integrated at a time when there were still Jim Crow laws that banned the mixing of races. Mrs. Jaffe was once arrested there, along with Kid Thomas Valentine’s band, for flouting the ban on integration.

“The judge banged his gavel and said, ‘In New Orleans, we don’t like to mix our coffee and cream,’” Ben Jaffe said, recalling what his parents had told him. “She burst out laughing and said, ‘That’s funny — the most popular thing in New Orleans is café au lait.’”

more from article- In 1961, Sandra and Allan Jaffe stopped in New Orleans on their way home to Philadelphia from an extended honeymoon in Mexico. They heard music playing all around them in the French Quarter and stepped into an art gallery on St. Peter Street where a combo was playing traditional jazz.

The Jaffes, then in their 20s, were transformed by what they heard. They came back a few days later to hear the combo again. The gallery’s owner, Larry Borenstein, told them that he was moving his business next door and offered to rent the couple the modest space (31 by 20 feet) for $400 a month.

“We didn’t even think twice about it,” Mrs. Jaffe told the alumni magazine of Harcum College, from which she graduated, in 2011. “‘Of course,’ we said, and that was the beginning of Preservation Hall. We never left New Orleans.”

Preservation Hall — which serves no alcohol, seats 50 or so on six benches and had no air-conditioning until 2019 — has celebrated jazz for 60 years in a city widely regarded as its birthplace. It defied segregation laws in the early 1960s. It survived Mr. Jaffe’s death in 1987, and it survived Hurricane Katrina. The coronavirus pandemic shut it down, but it reopened triumphantly in June.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/31/arts/music/sandra-jaffe-who-helped-preserve-jazz-at-preservation-hall-dies-at-83.html

Backstreet Cultural Museum struggles and is displaced but is trying to raise funds for new Treme locale and/or in Treme a "yearlong lease on a back house on the African American Museum’s campus. While Ms. Francis-Dilling is still trying to raise funds to make the deal possible, she is hoping to reopen in the new space early next year."

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/25/us/backstreet-cultural-museum-new-orleans.html

In two small rooms, the Backstreet Cultural Museum chronicled life and death in Black New Orleans.

One was filled entirely with elaborate beaded and feathered suits that debuted on Mardi Gras mornings and were designed by makers known as “Mardi Gras Indians” or “Black Masking Indians.” The other featured solemn photographs of jazz funerals and memorial T-shirts, displayed in a handmade wooden case, that honored lives lost to gunfire. A rudimentary stand held a red tuba played by Anthony “Tuba Fats” Lacen, a jazz musician who traveled the world performing but played for tips in the French Quarter any time he was home.

But over the past 16 months, the museum has suffered cataclysmic losses. In late August 2020, Sylvester Francis, its founder, fix-it man and visionary, died of appendicitis at age 73. The following months saw a string of venerable artists and performers whose work was featured in the museum succumb to the coronavirus. And then, a year after Mr. Francis’ death, winds from Hurricane Ida uprooted three immense pecan trees that crushed the back roof of the museum’s rented home, the former Blandin Funeral Home in the city’s Tremé neighborhood.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b395lZDbXdo

I have only watched the first minute or so (so far) and it is great-- the music, the dancing, the costumed folks

I had missed that item about Backstreet Cultural Museum moving, and hadn't known that Sylvester Francis passed. I was there when it was a pretty new thing, early 2000s, and he was so warm and engaging. That place is amazing and certainly needs to find a new home.

Was just reading about an event that took place in New Orleans this weekend put together by Los Angeles professor Josh D Kun. In 1884 a 75 piece Mexican band that played Afro-Cuban danzones and European sounds came to New Orleans to play at a World's expo type event. Sheet music was made and circulated and their appearances according to Kun became another factor in the New Orleans music sound. With Project New Orleans , Kun set up an exhibit with photos and such re the above history plus he set up a gig that took place Friday night (he shared some clips in Instagram stories-More jazz than funky street brass band, but figured I would post it here rather than jazz thread ): Here's his description in an IG post.

The third component is what brings us here today. I shared all these histories with this brilliant group of local musicians whose own histories span migrations from Morocco, Ghana, and Honduras and connect to histories of Garifuna freedom struggles, African-American migration “up south” and drum legacies of musical liberation in Congo Square. I invited the great Nicholas Payton to imagine a musical response to these histories that the 8th Cavalry Mexican Military Band is a part of: migration, exile, and diaspora, but also indigeneity- there are arrivals, and there are those who were already here. The suite he created is Bulbancha ’84. Please welcome Nicholas Payton, with Oscar Rossignoli, Amina Scott, Mahmoud Chouki, Weedie Braimah, and Herlin Riley.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gZaQEIAy7dE

another nice secondline

The Backstreet Cultural Museum has found a new home on the grounds of the New Orleans African American Museum in the Treme neighborhood. After Hurricane Ida wrought extensive damage upon the museum’s longtime location in the former Blandin Funeral Home, executive director Dominique Dilling-Francis was forced to find temporary storage to safeguard the extensive collection of artifacts that tell the story of Black traditions in New Orleans, including Mardi Gras Indian suits, Baby Doll outfits, second line attire from social aid and pleasure clubs, photographs and related ephemera.

The Backstreet Cultural Museum has signed a one-year lease for a small, blue house at 1114 North Villere Street while it continues to search for a larger, permanent location.

https://www.offbeat.com/news/backstreet-cultural-museum-secures-new-location-with-plans-to-host-mardi-gras-events/

Mardi Gras is coming

https://www.offbeat.com/news/black-masking-indians-skull-and-bone-gang-plan-appearances-for-mardi-gras/

Historic Dew Drop Inn is reopening in March. Some traditional jazz bands announced but no brass groups yet.

https://www.offbeat.com/news/dew-drop-inn-announces-spring-concert-series-in-mandeville/

That tornado looked nasty

ALthough I did see in an email-

Feed The Second Line checked on culture bearers that we know live in the area (NO East, Lower 9, Chalmette) and luckily everyone is ok!

https://www.offbeat.com/news/big-chief-black-hawk-debuts-at-american-black-film-fest/#:~:text=Jonathan%20Isaac%20Jackson%20is%20a,from%20a%20Black%20local%20perspective.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt13021608/

An exploration into effects of gentrification, COVID -19, and other issues The Culture faces in New Orleans, through the eyes of the youngest Black Masking Mardi Gras Indian Big Chief in the city.

I think Big Chief, Black Hawk movie doc just debuted last night

Brooklyn Writer John Swenson who contributed to late 70s rock guidebooks and later got a 2nd home in 1999 in New Orleans and wrote about New Orleans music has died of cancer. His 2011 book “New Atlantis: Musicians Battle for the Survival of New Orleans” chronicled the role that some musicians played in the city’s recovery after Hurricane Katrina.

Some of us had some issues with his New Orleans and Louisiana music coverage ; but thee was plenty to praise as well

https://www.nola.com/entertainment_life/keith_spera/article_6876e6ca-b508-11ec-9fb7-6749aa6e6cf3.html

https://www.jazzandheritage.org/the-new-orleans-jazz-heritage-foundation-announces-class-got-brass-2022-competition-winners-and-school-music-education-grant-recipients/

New Orleans middle and high school brass band contest

Not gonna make it to Jazz Fest or French Quarter Fest, but at least (as I think I mentioned above) I follow Sporty's Brass Band on IG and see some good video clips there.

It's Jazzfest, everybody. I'm not there this year either, but WWOZ is playing some highlights of past fests until they go live at the fairgrounds at 11:00. Great mix of mostly local jazz, brass band, blues, gospel and Latin so far. I sometimes bitch about what this fest has become over the years, but just hearing Snooks Eaglin's voice pop up made me happy.

Those were the good ol days when I saw Snooks at Jazzfest.

The late music writer John Swenson, a former editor and frequent contributor to OffBeat, will be memorialized with a concert The Broadside on Saturday, May 14, as a benefit for The New Orleans Musicians’ Clinic.

The memorial will be held from 6-10 p.m. and features a stellar lineup of New Orleans musicians, including James Andrews & The Crescent City All-Stars, Ed Volker, Debbie Davis, Davis Rogan, Helen Gillet, 101 Runners featuring Big Chief Monk Boudreaux, Joe Cabral, Andy J. Forest, Michael Skinkus, Dayna Kurtz, Don Bartholomew and the Bartholomew Boyz and others.

https://www.offbeat.com/articles/elvis-costello-talks-back/

Elvis Costello re New Orleans and Dave Bartholomew tribute with Dirty Dozen Brass Band that he's doing at Jazz Fest

Cool set going on right now with Stanton Moore, David Torkanowski, James Singleton, and Jason Marsalis (joined later by Skerik.) I'm trying to place their opening number, it sounded like maybe Vince Guaraldi (if anyone's inclined to check it out on the WWOZ archive.)