Journey To Nawlins, Chapter III - The Dirty Dozen Brass Band (My Feet Can't Fail Me Now, 1984 / We Got Robbed! Live In New Orleans, 2003 / Funeral for a friend, 2004)

 → Thanks also to the late Blue DeVille

The fabulous dozen brass band

The Dirty Dozen Brass Band (DDBB) couldn't be from anywhere else but New Orleans (please pronounce “noo orlayhan” like Gregory Davis shouts at the beginning of "We Got Robbed!". Founded in 1977, the DDBB is a modern re-incarnation of the traditional brass bands that animated the streets, especially for “jazz” funerals and “second line” parades organized by “Social Aid and Pleasure Clubs” (SAPCs). Redad more detailed info below.

In the 1970s and early 1980s, the New Orleans brass band tradition experienced a renaissance, with bands breaking away from traditional styles and adding elements of funk, be-bop jazz, and later even hip hop, to their repertoires, applying one of the primary law of life on earth : who can't evolve disappears. This is exactly what the DDBB did : they added “modern” instruments, mainly electric guitar and keyboards, to the traditional brass structure, and modernized the drumming style. While old brass bands gave birth to traditional New Orleans jazz, contemporary brass bands incorporated in turn some modern jazz patterns, especially improvisation spaces.

My Feet Can't Fail Me Now (1984) : New Orleans' Dirty Dozen Brass Band (DDBB) first album. The band was formed as an informal rehearsal group in 1977 by members of the defunct Tornado Brass Band (trumpeter Gregory Davis, sousaphonist Kirk Joseph, trombonist Charles Joseph, and saxophonist Kevin Harris) soon joined by Efrem Towns (trumpet /lead vocals), Roger Lewis (saxophone), Benny Jones (bass drum) and Jenell Marshall (snare drum, vocals).

Benny Jones was active in the Dirty Dozen Social and Pleasure Club (read below) in the Sixth Ward (1). When asked by his club to set a band together for a parade, Benny Jones proposed his rehearsal group. The group then officially became the Original Sixth Ward Dirty Dozen. Though they were only eight at the time, their name actually refers to the club.

A Social and Pleasure Club parade

But the taking off toward recognition and celebrity was not immediate. The band, re-baptized Dirty Dozen Brass Band, finally got their first regular gig at a club called Daryl's. Their performances started to attract more and more people. One in particular was seduced : Jerry Brock, the co-founder of local radio station WWOZ. In 1980, he recorded several DDBB pieces so he could play them regularly on WWOZ.

Later, in 1982, he arranged for the band a concert at Tipitina's. This promotion helped the DDBB to get a first international exposure at a Dutch festival. The big take off took place in 1984 : a tour of Southern Europe organized by the founder of the Newport Jazz Festival George Wein, two series of gigs in New York clubs, a four-week tour around California, several more appearances in Europe, and… their first album, “My Feet Can't Fail Me Now”.

When Kirk Joseph's tuba (actually a sousaphone) blows the first notes of “Blackbird Special”, you know who you're dealing with : the sons of New Orleans, the heirs of the old Afro-American brass bands where King Oliver and Louis Armstrong made their debuts, the dirty dozen who can turn every day into a Mardi Gras! Pray that your feet stay strong enough to follow the Second Line parade! 

The genius of the DDBB was to make the old brass band tradition attractive to contemporary ears by incorporating the modern influences that enriched New Orleans music decade after decade : modern jazz, funk, blues, R'n'B, soul, swamp… as much components that found the unique New Orleans sound. This innovative approach resulted in a revitalization and continuation of the brass band heritage. Without this, it most likely would have died slowly…

Carried by the unique beat of the sousaphone (similar to the tuba, but bigger), of the bass and snare drums, and varied percussion, the holly trinity of horns (trombone, trumpet, sax) delivers an explosion of irresistible groovy riffs blending jazz and funk. A number like “Do It Fluid” is a good example of what this remarkable first album contains.

The band wanders from their original “Blackbird Special” to a song closely link to the name New Orleans, the iconic “St. James Infirmary”, through funky revisits of jazz standards (Charlie Parker's “Bongo Beep”, Thelonious Monk's “Blue Monk”, Duke Ellington's “Caravan”)… The DDBB do not stick to sole instrumentals, but also ventures into vocal titles like the excellent “I Ate Up The Apple Tree”, the Mardi Gras/New Orleans Indians style of “L'il Liza Jane” (a song written by a real countess, Ada De Lachau born Ada Louise Metz in Brooklyn in1866), their “Mary, Mary” and the final title track “My Feet Can't Fail Me Now”.

With such a great debut album, soaked in funky groove, the DDBB did set the standard really high for all the brass bands who followed in their steps. ■

(1) The Sixth Ward of the City of New Orleans is including the famous Tremé neighborhood.

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Brass bands, Social Clubs and Second line

The tradition of brass bands in New Orleans appeared in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, a fusion between European-styled military band and African folk music (especially from the Yoruba culture of Nigeria) brought by enslaved West Africans. New Orleans Brass bands played a significant role in the development of early traditional jazz.

African-Americans formed benevolent mutual benefit societies called "Social Aid & Pleasure Clubs" (SAPC), to compensate white insurance companies refusal to cover free colored people and former slaves. The oldest still active SAPC, the Young Men Olympian Junior Benevolent Association, was founded in 1884 !

Created in almost each district of New Orleans, the SAPCs social activities consisted in assisting members through illness and other difficulties, and in particular supporting families with burial costs for deceased members. These SAPCs each had their own brass band which among other duties were accompanying funeral processions, giving birth to the traditional New Orleans “jazz funerals”.

These jazz funerals and their following “second line” parades were a transplantation of African traditions that believed in celebrating the member's spirit leaving the body to return to the ancestors and God. The SAPC members march in a dirge with a brass band playing appropriate tunes before the deceased body being "cut loose". A joyous celebratory parade then begins, called second line. After the devastation of Hurricane Katrina, in the very last days of August 2005, the first second line parade was held as soon as October 2005, organized by the Black Men of Labor SAPC !

The same clubs exercised their social mission with a colorful, annual, public second line parade through their home community. The voluntary exaggerated strutting steps of second line dancing also have their origins in the dances performed by the slaves on Sundays, their day off, in Congo Square (an open space, now within Louis Armstrong Park, in the Tremé neighborhood of New Orleans, just north of the French Quarter).

A second line snare drummer commonly followed the brass band, playing off the marching beat with improvised poly-rhythmic figures that could inspire second line dancers or, if the band was improvising, the band itself. Second line drumming styles became a feature of early jazz drumming and the New Orleans Rhythm'n'Blues of the 1950s. The Rebirth Brass Band and the Dirty Dozen Brass Band feature traditional second line drumming styles. (Info mainly obtained from Wikipedia)

Extra info : some of the main characters of the HBO very realistic series “Treme”, which takes place three month after Katrina, are brass bands and jazz musicians or Mardi-Gras “Injuns”. An impressive list of renowned musicians play their own role : Kermit Ruffins, Allen Tousaint, Coco Robicheaux, Elvis Costello, Steve Earle, Troy "Trombone Shorty" Andrews, Deacon John Moore, the Rebirth Brass Band, the Treme Brass Band, Red Stick Ramblers...

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We Got Robbed (2003) : what a re-incarnation ! On DDBB's brass section is absolutely great. Their use of the traditional sousaphone instead of an upright bass to play the bass line, enhanced by drummer Terence Higgins' powerful work on the bass drum, and combined with the deep low voice of the baritone saxophone, produces the unique signature sound of the band. Totally irresistible ! The vocals parts are not properly speaking singing, but sorts of repetitive incantations where African influences are obvious. As a matter of fact, DDBB is delivering a very afrobeat-influenced funky brass music sometimes reminding the great Fela Kuti. Funk is the other key word with brass.

The tracks are long enough to allow each member/instrument of the band to have his solo time, including superb funky jazz/blues guitarist Jamie McLean, as great on solos as on rhythm, and impressive drummer Terence Higgins. Let's not even talk about the immense Julius McKee on his sousaphone, and the 5-player saxes-trombone-trumpets section : the guys are blowing their guts into hard swinging choruses and solos. From “Charlie Dozen” to the encore “Red Hot Mama”, impossible to stay still, your feet won't fail you as guaranteed on track #7 !

On “Dead Dog In The Street” Roger Lewis and Kevin Harris are coming out with an irresistible work on sax. “Unclean Waters” sees an implacable riff from the sousaphone and wah-wah guitar from McLean. The outstanding “We Got Robbed” reminds African sounds, particularly in the chanting, and delivers such a powerful sound that you fear you speakers are going to explode. On “Remember When”, and “Use Your Brain”, the other outstanding track of this live, the horns takes a rather Rhythm'n'Blues turn while the sousaphone is doing a great show on the latter, relayed by McLean on guitar. The long “My Feet Can't Fail Me Now” is a highly dancing number, and the final “Red Hot Mama” closes the album in the nicest manner.

From the first note to the last, this live album is an incredibly outstanding moment of pure jubilation. An absolute must !  ■

The New Orleans funeral revived in 2004 by the brilliant Dirty Dozen Brass Band on Funeral For A Friend is amazing ! You'd almost wish to get such an extraordinary funeral when your time comes, where prayers are replaced by a brass band playing before your casket while you're led to your final home close to the grave of voodoo queen Marie Laveau, in the historic Saint-Louis cemetery next to the French Quarter. Imagine Louis Armstrong playing at your funeral...

In the band's history, “Funeral for a friend” marks a return to the brass bands roots : the New Orleans "jazz funeral", or rather "funeral with music" as they prefer to call it there, that is the original environment of the brass band form.

Actually these unique funerals were a way to celebrate victory over death through the releasing power of music : the victory of freedom in eternal life over the chains of earthly life. Such a musical ceremony was influenced both by the Catholic culture inherited from the French and Spanish past history of the city, and the spiritual rites brought by slaves from West Africa, directly or through the West Indies. A cultural and religious mix light-years from the stern Anglo-Saxon Protestant philosophy of the North East states.

The spirituals played at jazz funerals alternate between human sorrow for the loss of the deceased and explosions of hope and joy for his/her returning home to the Lord, which is why these funeral are often called “homecoming”. This is exactly what the album opening track “Just A Closer Walk With Thee” is expressing : the sorrow felt by family and friends of the deceased is illustrated by a solemn mournful dirge, suddenly bursting into an explosion of joy  in the second part. This feeling of liberation from the chains of earthly life is growing up to almost symphonic dimension in the next great “I Shall Not Be Moved”.

Mournful and joyful numbers alternate : “What A Friend We Have In Jesus” and the highly cathartic “Jesus On The Mainline”; the serious jazz of “John The Revelator” and the rejoicing gospel of “I'll Fly Away” sung with unrestrained passion by Melody Palmer and The Davell Crawford Singers choir; the mournful “Is There Anybody Here That Loves My Jesus” and the happy driving of “Down By The Riverside”. The short final “Amazing Grace” sounds like a military last post, an ultimate goodbye to the departed.

Only “Please Let Me Stay A Little Longer”, with guitar and accordion, doesn't sound quite at the right place in this impressive musical suite, except to remind of the Afro-Caribbean spiritual roots of New Orleans "funerals with music" and their Latin influences.

Nevertheless, on the ten tracks of the album, the band is just great, the horns exploding in all directions, the bass drum and the sousaphone, alternately played by three different blowers, bring both solemnity and dancing second line rhythms.

It is quite difficult to describe the unique atmosphere of such a funeral as it's been carefully recorded by the DDBB. All I can say is that this “Funeral for a friend” is a magnificent work. The funky side of the band has been almost completely erased to keep the true atmosphere of a "funeral with music" as only a city like New Orleans was able to create.

Undoubtedly one of the best albums of DDBB. If not the best one. ■

→ Funeral parade with the DDBB, 1982 (filmed by Alan Lomax) : https://youtu.be/uFf0qPBcAd4

→ Funeral March by the DDBB at Jim Henson's memorial service, St. John’s Cathedral, New York, 1990 : https://youtu.be/a5FKcKEbX18

Videos

■ DDBB leader Roger Lewis interview, 2016 : https://youtu.be/NqdzANkI0VU

■ Some live perf. from the live album repertoire :

→ "Use Your Brain" : https://youtu.be/oXSf4GwNfhY or https://youtu.be/COBKHq2Gw8E

→ “Remember When” : https://youtu.be/iNy69rhycy8 or https://youtu.be/GFXHEQDrYO0

→ “My Feet Can't Fail Me Now” : https://youtu.be/XEylMiRTvYI or https://youtu.be/fBJbgkeVuM8

→ “Dead Dog in the Street” : https://youtu.be/GbAKmc47ObM

→ “Unclean Waters” : https://youtu.be/u-7G6NLXBuc or https://youtu.be/kqsbY44iQz4

Italy, 1984: first tour abroad

■ During their first tour abroad in Southern Europe, here in Perugia (Italy), 1984 : https://youtu.be/VUCWlirI14s
■ Jazz Fest, Berlin, 1984 : https://youtu.be/IHdBlH56oZ

■ Miami Beach, FL, 1993 : https://youtu.be/8E0dzFdWzKI

■ Virginia Beach, VA, 2005 : https://youtu.be/2InItqaG0R0

■ Wilmington, DE, 2008 : https://youtu.be/XIZM-dpkjyY

■ Grassroots Festival, Trumansburg, NY, 2008 : https://youtu.be/86yITeLTYAE

■ Jazzwoche Burghausen, Germany, 2008 : https://youtu.be/UEbbN9lj7E8

■ Evanston, IL, 2012 : https://youtu.be/67Jl6z4vPuI

■ Lexington, KY, 2013 : https://youtu.be/gMUTx_Ixp7U

■ Tourcoing Jazz Festival, France, 2013 : https://youtu.be/RARGbYcOj8Q

■ Detroit Jazz Festival, 2014 : https://youtu.be/1d9UxOnMGH8

■ Vail, CO, 2014 : https://youtu.be/rlkRBe01M4s

■ Rochester, NY, 2014 : https://youtu.be/RJ9Re9JH_uc

■ Hoxeyville Music Festival, MI, 2014 :

→ #1 : https://youtu.be/AB1ADFxKlow

→ #2 : https://youtu.be/RF_nxgB-9VI

→ #3 : https://youtu.be/CKfKCriL5Gk

■ Rosslyn Jazz Festival, VA, 2015 : https://youtu.be/eRfVJOJqJM4

■ Wayne, PA, 2015 : https://youtu.be/KHm_MkKgVRA

■ Cambridge, MA, 2016 : https://youtu.be/zMZJfv5EoxE

■ Off-Beat Magazine performance, 2020 : https://youtu.be/gxo3ZK_lwe4

■ The Funky Uncle weekly webcast, New Orleans, 2021 : https://youtu.be/JogxOQbD9eM
■ Party with Award Winning filmmaker Martin Shore, Esplanade Studios, New Orleans, 2021 : https://youtu.be/Nkb_XqCLuQ8

■ Georgia, 2022 : https://youtu.be/MnzCzl6Y4n4

■ City Winery, Boston, MS, 2022 : https://youtu.be/NdNy_2c4QKA

■ Charles Hotel, Cambridge, MA, 2022 : https://youtu.be/_JaHNlj5Mq0
■ Unknown location, 2022 : https://youtu.be/MnzCzl6Y4n4
■ The Cabot, Beverly, MA, 2022 : https://youtu.be/uK4UJvUgbog

■  Charles Hotel,  Cambridge, MA, 2022 : https://youtu.be/_JaHNlj5Mq0
■  “Hey Pocky Way”, 2022 : https://youtu.be/Du2wuVcsEzA
■  New Orleans JazzFest, 2022 : https://youtu.be/PvWWmf3GOJ8
■ "It Ain't What You Think", 2022 : https://youtu.be/NaFsubkegsU
■  "Hercules", Aaron Neville and the DDBB, 2023 : https://youtu.be/NnhvqENPQC4