Rebirth Brass Band

Rebirth’s moniker reflects both the spirit of its energetic sound and the manner in which the band has invigorated the brass-band sound. Like its New Orleans brethren, the Dirty Dozen Brass Band, Rebirth applies healthy doses of hip-twitching funk, jazzy horns, and galloping percussion to the military-brass template. In Rebirth’s case, there’s also a lot of shout-along vocal improv and background-level chaos that suggests a party atmosphere, even conjuring memories of the mothership on its signature tune, “(I Feel Like) Bustin’ Loose.”

Rebirth began in 1983 as a band project of high-school student Phil Frazier, who was in marching band. He, his brother Keith, and some of his friends would go into the French Quarter and play for tips, and things just grew from there. Twelve albums later, Rebirth is the best taste a midwesterner can have of the freewheeling, life-loving, ground-level daily existence that the Big Easy represents. Though Katrina proved a setback, Rebirth is stronger than ever, having just released Never a Dull Moment, a DVD retrospective and documentary.

This article appears in Jun 20-26, 2007.