Beats of The Streets

Last Friday I was incredibly fortunate to witness some of the finest Brass Bands in New Orleans at Beats of the Street— an event dedicated to the New Orleans Brass Band Tradition.  The event featured performances by the Loyola Faculty Jazz Band, The Young Tuxedo Brass Band, and The Dirty Dozen Brass Band.  Each of the bands was vastly different in their instrumentation, style and sound. 

              The Loyola Faculty Jazz Band was 7-piece band that had 1 trombone, 2 trumpets, 1 soprano sax, bass, drummer, and a guitar/banjo player. This type of band was called a “Parlor Band” since it would play inside parlors and clubs.  This band repertoire included music by “Jelly Roll” Morton and King Oliver to name a few.

            The second act was the Young Tuxedo Brass Band. The band name was somewhat ironic as age of the musicians varied from mid to late 20’s up to the 80’s! This band was much larger than the first band.  Their instrumentation was 2 trumpets, 1 clarinet, 1 sousaphone, 1 bass drum, 1 snare drum, 2 tenor saxs, 2 trombones, and a grand marshal. The grand marshal held fancy umbrella and danced around in front of the stage as the band played. The Young Tuxedo’s, unlike the Loyola Faculty Jazz Band, was a marching brass band.  They had uniforms with matching hats with “Tuxedo” labeled on the front. The music they played included songs like “Bourbon Street Parade” and “Oh When The Saints Come Marching In”. A big part of what the Young Tuxedo’s do is playing in funeral marches.  There are three steps to funeral marches. The first step is the band sets of up a few blocks away from the church or where the service is happening. Then they march to the church playing quietly to let the people at the service know the band has arrived.  The 2^nd step is the march to the cemetery.  The grand marshal is responsible for leading the way.  The band will play a down tempo song on the way to the cemetery. The 3^rd step happens after the burial has taken place. The band will play an up-tempo piece to celebrate the deceased’s life on the march back to the church.

            The Last band to play was The Dirty Dozen Brass Band. Their instrumentation was 2 trumpets, baritone sax, tenor sax, sousaphone, keyboard, and drum set, with band members doubling on vocals.  Dirty Dozen started out like the Young Tuxedo’s but took a different direction away from the traditional brass band. Dirty Dozen plays everything from modern jazz to funk.  They played many original tunes including “My Feet Can’t Fail Me Now”.     

            All bands that played were incredible.  The City of New Orleans is blessed to have the brass band tradition that adds so much to the already culturally rich city. 

 Link to event below
http://www.loyno.edu/csno/nolaloyola-2012-beats-streets-brass-band-tradition-new-orleans

Tuxedo Brass Band

On Friday, the Tuxedo Brass Band performed at Loyola University and it was probably the coolest thing I have seen so far. I had always wanted to see a traditional brass band play here in NOLA and I was hoping to just stumble upon a wedding or something but the fact that they performed at my school was great!

First, they talked about how they had been around for a long time (since the 1910's I think) and musicians such as Louis Armstrong and Mutt Carey have been in it. Now, they call themselves the Young Tuxedo Brass Band as a spin-off of the original brass band.One thing that interested me was how they perform at  funerals. The leader of the band said there's 3 stages in funerals: 1) the march song that lets everyone at the funeral know the band arrived 2) the dirge and 3) an uplifting song after the person is dropped in the ground. The video is of an example of an dirge song that is normally played called "What a Friend We Have in Jesus". Enjoy!

I really enjoyed this band because I've been obsessed with old brass band music since I started playing jazz and hearing them play was amazing. I think it's definitely something to be on the look out for in NOLA.