The Old Town Brass Band...

We caught the Old Town Brass Band playing at the Fredonia Brewery on a brilliant sunny Saturday afternoon. This is a great venue to see a band, outside seating, room for kids to run and tasty food trucks. I suppose the beer is good but I don't drink so I can't speak to that but the Old Town Brass were great, playing a combination of traditional Dixieland, Mardi Gras, swing and funk tunes to a good sized afternoon crowd.   

I must admit here and declare a disclaimer as we do have a horse in this race. Our son Morgan plays drums in the group. It's something he's been doing a short time(the band, not the drums) and from the looks of this here he is enjoying it. The rest of the group is made up of a local music educator and students from The Stephen F. Austin State University music department.

I think Morgan told me that of the original eight members at the first rehearsal he attended there were only three of those at this gig. Pretty tight sound considering most people had only had their music for two weeks. The rotating crew thing is about par for the course when it comes to wind player bands. I know the quintet I play in, The Lufkin Brass has used several different trumpet players and had other members switching instruments to fill parts as necessary.      

Of course there were secondliners! 

Guitar, drums and tuba. Note on the music stands. Everyone had the tunes on an ipad. I guess time has passed me by cause for horn gigs I'm still toting around a satchel full of thrift store ring binders with my music stuffed in clear plastic sheets to keep my grimy fingers from soiling the clean white pages. I admire this modern approach because I could imagine all those old guy fears a gig with one of these. Notes too small on the screen, screen too dark, too bright and other tech failures that would foul up the dude in the band with the least amount of hair, at least on his head. 

Heck I usually carry around a battery powered stand light in case I need to squint at a bunch of squiggles on a page but I usually end up using it to find the car keys I dropped in the parking lot.   

The keyboard player, also lead vocals won best band costume. I almost wore a very similar thrift store shirt of great traditional Mardi Gras colors, maybe the same one. It's America and there are millions of those things hanging on the racks at Walmart and going to the second hand store graveyards. Lucky for us there are a million other Karnival costumes to choose from.   

Great guitar player but a weird looking instrument. I'm an old guy, my tuba is 86 years old and I have a 1924 banjo so what do I know about modern looking stuff? 

Morgan told me the tuba player's main instrument is bass trombone and he also played that but he was an excellent tuba guy and really hit a good vibe on the funk tunes.   

Next Old Town Brass gig I know of is at a downtown food truck Friday the City of Nacogdoches puts on on March 25th. I think swing dancing will also be featured. 

That's our old Mardi Gras flag behind Morgan. It has a long and colorful family history often hoisted in New Orleans, at fish fries and now at a brass band gig.