How Brass Bands Became a New Orleans Tradition

During the same period, benevolent societies and social aid and pleasure clubs boomed in popularity among the city’s African-American and Afro-Creole populations. These groups sponsored church, club, and funeral parades, providing work for the many black brass bands and creating a mutually beneficial patronage relationship that has nurtured brass band music, musicians, and parade culture through the decades. The gigs informed the repertoire, which combined sacred hymns with popular tunes according to occasion and audience.

From there, brass bands continued to incorporate the new sounds of the day into their music.

The introduction of jazz performance styles around 1900 forever changed the local brass band idiom. Bands such as the Original Tuxedo and the Superior, which operated as both orchestras for venue performances and as brass bands for marching gigs, began incorporating jazz elements. Though some musicians operated in only one sphere, many played parades and clubs, interweaving repertoire and style. In this way, jazz not only influenced brass band music, but was itself affected by the bands and their musical traditions—flourishing in and reacting to the performance spaces provided by black churches, benevolent societies, and social aid and pleasure clubs.

In the late 1970s, as popular music and culture evolved further, the Dirty Dozen redefined what a New Orleans brass band could be. This group updated its music to include bebop and funk elements. In doing so, they realigned the brass band repertoire with popular music of the period—just as the traditional bands had during their era of inception. Numerous popular bands have followed in the Dozen’s footsteps, including Rebirth, the Hot 8, and the Soul Rebels—all of whom use hip hop and contemporary popular music elements in constructing their sound and style while maintaining the tradition of playing club and funeral parades.

While some bands have pushed the brass band style and tradition in new directions, others, such as the Liberty, Young Tuxedo, and Olympia continue to embrace the traditional style in their performances. This intentional focus on maintaining traditions helps to preserve a cultural practice well over a century old. Together, the performance practices of traditional and contemporary-style bands represent an integral, living component of New Orleans’s musical heritage.