This is inspired by my many trips to New Orleans for Jazz Fest. For those of you who have yet to experience the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival (commonly known as The Jazz Fest), it is without question The Festival to End all Festivals.

Deeply steeped in the incredible history & cultural cornucopia that is New Orleans, the Jazz Fest is simply unrivaled in its breadth and depth of musical styles and genres. It is completely filled with supremely gifted & talented musicians and performers.

When I traveled to this amazing city my first time, I had an idea that I would be exposed to great music but I genuinely had NO idea of how amazing it would all be. To witness music & performances of the most top notch caliber, from bands & musical styles of people and/or groups I'd previously never heard of, was a completely humbling experience for me as a music fan.

Experiencing this, one really begins to realize the infinite expanse that music occupies in our universe. There is SO much amazing music out in the world. For as much as we may hear or may be exposed to on a daily basis, there is always and incredible amount of music that we're missing.

Going to the Jazz Fest just once in your life is like taking a pilgrimage to the musical Mecca that is New Orleans and paying homage to the city that is the birthplace of Jazz, which along with the blues, are roots of all the contemporary music we listen to today.....New Orleans is a city which has single-handedly shaped & influenced American popular music like no other...Respect!

::Background::

The tradition of brass bands in New Orleans, Louisiana dates to the late 19th and early 20th centuries. "Brass bands have inhabited the city's streets ever since, and legends like Louis Armstrong, Jelly Roll Morton and Wynton Marsalis all played in them"* A well-known use of these bands is for the New Orleans Jazz Funeral.

Traditionally, New Orleans brass bands could feature various instrumentations, often including trumpets, trombones, saxophones, sousaphones and percussion. The music played by these groups was often a fusion between European-styled military band music and African folk music brought to the Americas by west African slaves and the idiom played a significant role in the development of traditional Jazz.

In the 1970s and 1980s, the New Orleans brass band tradition experienced a renaissance, with bands breaking away from traditional stylings and adding elements of funk, hip hop, and bop to their repertoires. Some notable exponents of this style of brass band include the The Rebirth Brass Band, the Soul Rebels Brass Band, The Hot 8 Brass Band, & The Dirty Dozen Brass Band.

http://www.nojazzfest.com
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jazz_funeral
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_line_(parades)
*http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=103082942016&ref=mf

Happy Listening!

Sincerely,

idea

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What Goes Around - Critical Brass
Come On Home - Ain't No Party - Rebirth Brass Band
Talkin' - Rebirth Brass Band
Rock With The Hot 8 - The Hot 8 Brass Band
Tornado - Wikki Wikki - Runin Away - Rebirth Brass Band
Round One - Youngblood Brass Band
Jisten To Me - The Hot 8 Brass Band
Shotgun Joe - Rebirth Brass Band
Trouble - Rebirth Brass Band
We Are One (Natural Self Remix) - The Hot 8 Brass Band
Mission Shuffle - Brass Monkey Brass Band
Remember When - Rebirth Brass Band
Chameleon - Rebirth Brass Band