Review by J Hunter
Photographs by Rudy Lu
A JazzApril story

“Do You Know What it Means to Miss New Orleans?” Louis Armstrong made that song famous in 1947, but the question itself still hangs heavy. Unlike my friends who made Jazzfest an annual thing, I’ve only been to NOLA once, and there are days when I miss it like fire. So what happens when you’re actually FROM the Crescent City, but you’re doing business in the Empire State? You find yourself some like-minded souls, boil up a sumptuous gumbo that mixes NOLA classics with surprising covers and home-cooked originals, and then drop it on unsuspecting Noo Yawkers!

That’s what the Outer Borough Brass Band is about, and they brought big fun with them last Saturday night when they played the second installment of Proctors’ “Party Horns NYC” concert series.

Just like you’d expect, OBBB came out of the blocks fast and hard, with their killer three-man horn blowing up the intro to Smokey Johnson’s “Ain’t My Fault.” Pianist Alison Leyton-Brown, trumpeter Ivan Rosenberg and bass drummer Moses Patrou didn’t sing the words as much as they let them loose. You know how you just want to shout “Thank God THAT’S over” at the end of the week, and it feels so good when you do? That was the clear message on the players’ faces as they barked out the lyrics with smiles all around, and the smiles ran up into the audience as Rosenberg and tenorman Scott Bourgeois took turns blowing us all down. Patrou and snare player Jason Isaac kept the tune a bopping march (with the emphasis on “bopping”), while Leyton-Brown banged out the goodness on her Nord keyboard. It was a major release for all concerned, and we were howling for more when it was all done.

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