DIRTY DOZEN BRASS BAND

SIXTH WARD SURVIVORS

Dirty Dozen Brass Band bring a little New Orleans Flavor to the Lock'n Festival stage

by Matt Ashare |  
Published September 4, 2013

The ’90s are generally remembered as the age of alt-rock or the decade when the punk- and grunge-inspired underground rose up and changed the face of popular music. But, looking back, the culturally turbulence of the ’90s also turned out to be a very good thing for the jamband scene, which finally had an opportunity to blossom and flourish outside of the long shadow cast by the Grateful Dead.
    The Dead and their followers had more or less defined the parameters of the jamband subculture for nearly three decades, until the death of the band's de-facto figurehead, singer/guitarist Jerry Garcia, in 1995, led the grizzled Bay Area touring powerhouse to retire from active service. The band's departure left an obvious vacuum that was rather rapidly filled by an eclectic array of established and up-and-coming artists — artists who'd essentially been waiting in the wings as Garcia's health declined and the Dead began losing their foothold as the primary arbiters of jam. After a decade working the club scene, the genre-bending foursome of phreaks called Phish bypassed mainstream channels altogether as they moved up to amphitheaters in ’93, well on their way to establishing their own fervent national following of Phish Heads. The following year, a couple of more radio-friendly crossover acts from the scene — Dave Matthews Band and Blues Traveler — both scored their first big radio hits. 
    While the alternative nation was flocking to various iterations of Lollapalooza in the ’90s, the the jam-happy crowd had its own annual touring carnival, the H.O.R.D.E. Tour. For for seven years — from 1992 until 1998 — H.O.R.D.E. mapped out new directions for the jam scene. Old-guard heavyweights like the Allman Brothers Band, Neil Young, and Taj Mahal, were paired with newly minted headliners like Phish, Dave Matthews Band, Blues Traveler, and Widespread Panic. Alternative-leaning artists like Beck, Barenaked Ladies, and Ben Folds Five, shared the stage with the blues slinging Big Head Todd & the Monsters, second-gen reggae star Ziggy Marley and his Melody Makers, the jazz inclined hammond B-3 trio Medeski, Martin & Wood, and much stranger, headier fare from left-fielders like ’60s experimental rocker Col. Bruce Hampton's Aquarian Rescue Unit, and newgrass banjo phenom Bela Fleck's Flecktones.
    You can see the results of the jamband renaissance of the ’90s, and the sturdy foundation that it laid, reflected in the line-up of next weekend's four-day Lockn' Festival in Arrington, Virginia. At the top of the bill, you've got the Dead's Phil Lesh and Bob Weir soldiering on in their latest incarnation, Furthur. Also representing for the old guard are two blues-based groups with Allman alums, Warren Haynes Band and Tedeschi Trucks Band, as well as the apparently indefatigable Col. Bruce Hampton and reggae stalwart Jimmy Cliff. Along with H.O.R.D.E. veterans Widespread Panic, Trey Anastassio will be on hand with his band to offer a taste of Phish. From the newer guard, there's Colorado's String Cheese Incident, a psychedelically skewed bluegrass outfit who came up through a ’90s club scene peppered with jamband hotspots NYC's Wetlands, and Georgia's countrified Zac Brown Band, recent alums of the mainstage at Tennessee's Bonnaroo Festival. And, filling the gritty rock crossover spot, you've got the riff-weilding Black Crowes.
    But there's another act in the Lockn' line-up — the Dirty Dozen Brass Band — who embody yet another major trend that has played an integral role in bolstering the jamband scene over the past twenty years, namely the degree to which artists with a jazz pedigree have been brought on board the neo-hippy bandwagon. A veritable New Orleans institution, the Dirty Dozen got their start in the late-’70s playing weekly gigs in the city's Sixth Ward, the Tremé neighborhood that serves as the setting for the HBO post-Katrina drama of the same name. They went on to spread the brass band gospel on the jazz festival circuit nationally and internationally. As their renown and popularity grew, they transformed the conception of the brass band, adding funk, bebop, and r&b stylings to a form that had grown out of marching band horn players free-forming it at late-night social club gatherings.
    Along with the Neville Brothers, the Meters, and dozens of local heroes, the Dirty Dozen Brass Band were a somewhat ubiquitous presence at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival throughout the ’90s, when musos of all persuasions began flocking in growing numbers to the annual event, and jam-associated artists, including Dave Matthews, started showing up on the bill. It made sense: There's always been an implicit link between the jam and jazz scenes. Jamming, after all, is just a more casual name for improvising, and improvisation is at the heart of jazz.
Both forms of music also place a high value on virtuoso musicianship in a way that isn't necessarily true in other corners of the rock and pop world. So, as the jamband scene expanded to include jazz groups like Medeski, Martin & Wood in the ’90s, the ties between jam and jazz became more explicit.
    It's no coincidence that John Medeski, the B-3 maestro in MM&W, turned up as the producer of the Dirty Dozen's 1999 album "Buck Jump," a groove-centric affair that helped solidify the bonds between jazz and jam, much in the same way that the New Orleans jam act, Galactic, has done since their mid-’90s inception. The seasoned dudes int he Dirty Dozen, for their part, have managed to maintain their footing in both camps, appearing on a second season episode of HBO's "Tremé," guesting on a couple of the more recent Widespread Panic albums, doing the rounds of jazz clubs like Ronnie Scott's in London (last weekend), and, of course, throwing down with jamband nation at festivals like Lockn'. It's a welcome reminder that jamming certainly predates the Grateful Dead, and that, even if it's not always apparent, vital links between the rock world and the jazz scene remain to this day.