The front line of three trumpets, two trombones and a tenor saxophonist was backed by a rub-board player, a bass drummer, a snare drummer and a tuba player -- the giant golden bell of his horn emblazoned with the bands name.
With no stationary instruments such as a keyboard or a trap-drum set, these musicians were ready to go marching off in a parade -- the job description for a New Orleans brass band.
The group, which first played the festival as teenagers in the mid-'80s, is as much a jazz band as a parade band. You could tell by the way the horn players peeled off one by one from the jaunty R&B vamp of Gemini Rising to blow adventurous solos.
Like jazz virtuosos everywhere, though, they faced the challenge of holding the attention of an audience that was less interested in virtuosity than in party music. When Phil Frazier, Rebirths co-founder and tuba player, noticed the focus of the scantily dressed, beer-can-clutching crowd leaking away, he cued the band to switch to the sing-along title chant of Who Took the Happiness Out?
This got the crowd bouncing to the original vamp. Eventually, however, the players started slipping off again into jazz solos against the party groove. But as soon as the crowds energy began to sag, it was back to the chant. Back and forth it went for the whole set, even when co-founder and ex-member Kermit Ruffins rejoined the band to add his trumpet to the mix. The danceable grooves and exuberant catch phrases kept the music from growing too cerebral, while the inventive improvisation kept it from becoming too repetitive.
As a solution to the challenge of jazz artists connecting to a non-jazz audience, the New Orleans brass band format is more aesthetically satisfying than, say, smooth jazz. Instead of diluting both the jazz and the R&B, these musicians complicated both aspects and still made them mesh. Rebirth didnt invent this approach, but theyre doing it better than anyone else in the city right now.
They proved once more that people will dance to a jazz band if you give them half a chance.
