Basin Street Blues

• Artist: Olympia Brass Band
• Rating:
• Release Date: 1990
• Total Time: 58:02
• Genre: Jazz

Review

Harold "Duke" Dejean's renowned Olympia Brass Band is to modern traditional New Orleans brass band music what Elvis Presley is to rock & roll: they are the kings of the genre. Formed in 1958, the venerable brass band was hired to perform at weddings, parties, and funerals for the famous and humble alike. Among its membership were Dejean on alto saxophone, Milton Batiste on trumpet, Edgar Smith on tuba, Stanley Stephens on snare drum, and Wendell Eugene on trombone, to name a few. Many of the musicians have passed away -- Batiste in 2001 and Dejean himself in 2002. But the music they created lives on, as in this 1996 recording of many brass band favorites, such as "Lord, Lord, Lord," "The Darktown Strutters' Ball," "Bill Bailey," "Just a Closer Walk With Thee," and "When the Saints Go Marching In." The music is played in the polyphonic style characteristic of the idiom -- which often is regarded as out of tune by the uninitiated. But that idiosyncratic style is part of its exuberant charm, showcased nowhere more so than on the album's title cut or the final tune, "China Boy." If the listener cares to know what the brass band street music tradition of New Orleans is all about, one cannot do better than this CD for an education. ~ Rose of Sharon Witmer, Rovi

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