TITLE: NEW ORLEANS BRASS

LABEL: PUTAMAYO WORLD MUSIC

By Audrey Coleman

The album is designed to honor that tradition while revealing it as an evolving genre of music. During the 1950s and 1960s, for example, some of the brass bands began incorporating rhythm and blues, jazz and funk into their sound. On Cut 5 of New Orleans Brass, the Dirty Dozen Brass Band's infectiously rhythmic rendition of It's all Over Now, featuring Dr. John in fine form, demonstrates this trend with verve. Kermit Ruffins represents the 1980s generation take on the tradition with his Rebirth Brass Band with Treme Second Line (Blow Da Whistle).

Several cuts give a hearty nod to the New Orleans brass band sound most familiar to our ears. The Preservation Hall Hot 4 play a mellow Dinah with juicy Dixieland style improvisation. A New Orleans spin on I'll Fly Away features vocalist John Boutte turning the spiritual into an affirmation of life. The album ends with The Dukes of Dixieland putting across their punchy version of - no surprise - When the Saints Go Marching In.

Putumayo World Music is helping to renew the musical community battered by the economic aftereffects of Hurricane Katrina, not only by releasing this and other CDs celebrating New Orleans culture, but also by contributing a portion of the proceeds to Preservation Hall's Renew Our Music Fund. The non-profit provides financial assistance to New Orleans musicians and helps perpetuate New Orleans musical culture. Since Katrina, Putumayo has contributed more than $250,000 from the sale of its New Orleans CDs to New Orleans non-profits and musicians.

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 Audrey Coleman is a writer, educator, and passionate explorer of world music and culture. Research for the above article came from classes she took in UCLA's Department of Ethnomusicology, from forays into The Rough Guide to World Music, Volume 2 (Rough Guides Limited, London, Penguin Books, 2000), and  from obsessive listening and web-surfing on the subject.