New Birth Brass Band / Allen Toussaint’s Jazzity Project

New Birth Brass Band

New school trumps oldtime, Louis Armstrong meets Chuck D – NOLA jazz is vivid as ever, to be proved by the New Birth Brass Band, which stands in the forefront of the recent New Orleans brass band renaissance. The band fuses hip-hop, Mardi Gras Indian chants, funk, and modern jazz with traditional sounds. Despite their age – all under 30 –, they are jazz veterans and have been playing with everyone from Wynton Marsalis to Dizzy Gillespie. The New Birth Brass Band has recently been gaining national acclaim with features on MTV and articles in several high profile national publications.

Allen Toussaint’s Jazzity Project

“Allen Toussaint is New Orleans. The ‘Number One’ music man of the Crescent City is carrying the torch passed to him by Professor Longhair. Singer song-writer, painist, producer, arranger, label owner … mover, shaker and shaper. Virtually every major artist and every hit record to come out of New Orleans since early 1960s has had the ‘Toussaint touch’ shaping it or them. I can’t think of anybody alive who can play piano like this, yet it's not something that’s common public knowledge. His arrangements make every song come to life with a strong individual identity for each one and his lyrics are poetry.”
Andy Grigg, Real Blues Magazine