Celebrating over 45 years since their founding in 1977, the GRAMMY Award-winning New Orleans-based Dirty Dozen Brass Band has taken the traditional foundation of brass band music and incorporated it into a blend of genres, including bebop jazz, funk and R&B/soul. This unique sound, described by the band as a “musical gumbo”, has allowed the Dirty Dozen to tour across five continents and more than thirty countries, record twelve studio albums and collaborate with a range of artists from Modest Mouse to Widespread Panic to Norah Jones. Forty-five plus years later, the Dirty Dozen Brass Band is a world-famous music machine whose name is synonymous with genre-bending romps and high-octane performances.

Roger Lewis - Baritone Sax/Vocals
Gregory Davis - Trumpet/Vocals
Kirk Joseph - Sousaphone
Trevarri Huff-Boone - Tenor Sax/Vocals
Stephen Walker - Trombone/Vocals
Julian Addison - Drums
Takeshi Shimmura - Guitar


THE HISTORY OF THE DIRTY DOZEN BRASS BAND:

In 1977, The Dirty Dozen Social Aid and Pleasure Club in New Orleans began showcasing a traditional Crescent City brass band. It was a joining of two proud, but antiquated, traditions at the time: social aid and pleasure clubs dated back over a century to a time when black southerners could rarely afford life insurance, and the clubs would provide proper funeral arrangements. Brass bands, early predecessors of jazz as we know it, would often follow the funeral procession playing somber dirges, then once the family of the deceased was out of earshot, burst into jubilant dance tunes as casual onlookers danced in the streets. By the late '70s, few of either existed. The Dirty Dozen Social Aid and Pleasure Club decided to assemble this group as a house band, and over the course of these early gigs, the seven-member ensemble adopted the venue's name: The Dirty Dozen Brass Band.

On his 17th full-length album, singer-songwriter Anders Osborne describes Picasso’s Villa, “a condensed story about living in America between 2018-2021, the fears, confusion, deep joy and peace achieved through true friendship, family, community, hours of meditation and detachment from ego.

 Bewildered, the first track released from the album, is an impressionistic reflection on four decades of American politics and culture, from the Reagan era through the digital world of the twenty-first century. Osborne says, “Bewildered began as an exercise in historical observation but it was engaging in a fun way to deep dive into the stories of the past that created instant cultural shifts. All these basic human rights issues have been made into divisive political issues. But at the core of everything is the bewilderment of suffering and the basic human longing for bliss. We are all playing a divine, eternal game with Brahman, this world's duality prevents good nor bad from prevailing. We are bewildered and beguiled by love and fear.”

 

The song Dark Decatur Love, describes a time in Osborne’s early twenties when he was living and working down in the French Quarter of New Orleans, “I was feeling very sentimental and missing my youth. It brought me back to a very romantic time. There were five or six years in the lower French Quarter where we had started our own little scene of artists, pool sharks, and dancers that all congregated together there. All we thought about every day was being ourselves—trying on different costumes to discover who we were, seeking for truth in the darkest places. It was a joyful exercise in reminiscing in a beautiful way.”

The song Le Grand Zombie is Osborne’s response and tribute to the passing and influence of his friend and New Orleans legend Dr. John. The title song of Picasso’s Villa evokes the lives and work of legendary as a vehicle to express some of the contradictions of a musician’s life (Osborne is also a prolific painter himself). “Picasso’s Villa attempts to describe the music business and the jester like role performing musicians have. We’re a currency used, adjudicated, negotiated, transacted, valued and sometimes discarded.” 

The album was recorded in New Orleans with an all-star cast of backing musicians, including guitarist Waddy Wachtel, drummer Chad Cromwell bassist and Bob Glaub. Sonically, the album captures a balance between the heavy, Crazy Horse-inspired rock present in Osborne’s live shows, while simultaneously leaning into the more contemplative singer-songwriter roots that inspired his music from the very beginning. “My process is so rough and free form,” Osborne explains, “but on this record, we managed to capture all that dirt with the right amount of polish on it.”

 

For Osborne, who has been in a twelve-step program for fifteen years, “The biggest change in getting sober was the focus on meditation and prayer, just looking more inward. When I’m sleeping in 140 different beds a year, eating unhealthy foods, the meditation is what keeps me centered. Holding myself in that sacred space for a while is what makes it possible for me to do all this.”

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Anders Osborne was born in 1966 in Uddevalla, Sweden and at a young age knew that he spoke the language of music and poetry well. He fell in love with everything from Vivaldi, Chopin and Black Sabbath to Robert Johnson, Joni Mitchell, Van Morrison and Cat Steven’s to John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Bob Dylan and Bob Marley. “Blues connected everything together for me," Osborne recalls. "The early rock, the R&B, the jazz, the singer-songwriters. Blues was like a thread running through everything." He began playing in open D tuning which gives his fretwork a signature sound and feel. "I first heard Open D on Joni Mitchell's Blue, and my fingers just fit the tuning.” Osborne travelled around Europe in his late teens and in 1986, when he was nineteen years old, he visited New Orleans. He fell in love with the city, and never left.

Osborne released his first album Doin’ Fine in 1989 and as would be the case on is future releases, he wrote virtually all of the material. His songs have also appeared on recordings of other artists including two he co-wrote with Keb Mo for the latter’s Grammy winning Slow Down, and Tim McGraw’s number one Country hit Watch The Wind Blow By. Others who have recorded Osborne’s songs include Brad Paisley, Aaron Neville, and Trombone Shorty.

After living and performing there for almost four decades Osborne has become a fixture of the New Orleans musical community. Guitar Player called him “the poet laureate of Louisiana’s fertile roots music scene.” New Orleans' Gambit Weekly has honored Osborne as the Entertainer of The Year. OffBeat named him the Crescent City’s Best Guitarist on three occasions, and the Best Songwriter twice. He has appeared at Jazz Fest for 35 years and will perform at the festival again in 2024.

 In addition to his solo shows, Osborne has performed with the North Mississippi All Stars with whom he recorded the album Freedom and Dreams in 2015. He has also toured with and played with Toots and the Maytals, John Scofield to The Meters, No Derek Trucks, Warren Haynes, Stanton Moore Phil Lesh, Jackie Greene Bonnie Raitt, Dr. John and Taj Mahal. Osborne appeared as himself in an episode of the HBO series Treme and he has taught a course about art and the music business at Tulane University. Since 2019, Osborne has collaborated with Steve Earle at the annual Camp Copperhead songwriting camp.

Osborne works closely with the “Send Me A Friend” foundation and through writing music for New Orleans Children’s Museum. He has additionally worked closely with Million Strong, Love Rocks NYC, Stand Together, Trombone Shorty Foundation and Phoenix.

River Eckert (b. Oct. 9, 2009) is a 14 year old piano player born and raised in New Orleans, LA. From a very young age, River has been surrounded by music. Immersed in the styles of Professor Longhair, James Booker, Dr. John, Allen Toussaint, Fats Domino, Art Neville among others, River is passionate and dedicated to “carrying the torch” of the New Orleans Piano tradition.

Coming from a musical family, River started playing piano at the age of 3 years old. He began studying classical music and his teachers urged him to start playing blues and jazz based on his natural ability to quickly grasp those styles. Now at the young age of 14, he sings and plays both in a solo piano and full band setting. He is quickly gaining local and national popularity. River recently began recording his first studio album, he is joined by George Porter Jr.,Terence Higgins and John Fohl in the rhythm section and it is expected to be released in early 2025. Recently, he was also a featured artist on three upcoming “Playing for Change” video recordings. 

River has been fortunate enough to have performed with George Porter Jr., Stanton Moore, Luther Dickinson, Terence Higgins, Roger Lewis, Fred Wesley, Kirk Joseph, Donald Harrison Jr., David Torkanowsky, Brad Walker, and many others. He has had the honor of performing at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival, Tipitina’s, Maple Leaf Bar, Chickie Wah Wah, French Quarter Festival, NOLA Funk Fest, Oak St. PoBoy Festival, WWL Morning Show, WWOZ Radio, and Fox 8 News…

In 2017, Quiana Lynell made her salient mark on the jazz-and-beyond musical world as a wise, heartfelt, warm vocalist whose voice is singular in its soul, intensity, ecstasy and outright spiritual courage. She played with her trio at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival which led to her performing in Poland with trumpeter Terence Blanchard’s Spike Lee tribute with a 75-piece orchestra. In November, after considering for a couple of years whether she was ready, she decided to vie for the Sarah Vaughan International Jazz Vocal Competition Award. She commanded the finals stage at NJPAC’s Victoria Theater and wowed the judges and audience with her vocal prowess that earned her the prize, which afforded her the opportunity to record an album for Concord Records. The result, 2019’s A Little Love, produced by the renowned Brian Michel Bacchus, is testament to what a rare, mesmerizing artist can achieve on her auspicious debut.

A feast of soul, gospel, r&b, groove and jazz, A Little Love blooms with songs about searching, trying times, buoyant love, deep reflection and social action. Lynell sings with the voice of authority and the takeaway from the album as a whole is honesty. She’s a truth-seeking storyteller with a spirited resolve. She covers a wide range of songs, from Nina Simone to Chaka Khan, from Duke to the Gershwins, from Donny Hathaway to Irma Thomas, with the bookends of the album featuring songs by powerful modern artists Alina Engibaryan and Joshuah Campbell.

Blanchard said his take on hearing her for the first time was “a serious vocal discovery.” He added, “Quiana Lynell is already a vocal presence. When I first heard her sing, my initial thought was ‘Who are you, where have you been, and why am I just hearing you now?’”

Who is Quiana Lynell? Like so many significant artists, she came from the church. In her house when she was growing up in Texas, there was no secular music allowed. But music was everything to her and she knew she was singer, but it was all about expressively harmonizing in the church’s choir “in service to the Lord,” she says. Because her local public school had music education beginning in the kindergarten, she learned the basics and gained a preliminary sense of how music works.

But Lynell strived for more. She left home and became the first in her family to finish college—Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge where she studied voice. “I didn’t know what to expect,” she says. “I struggled a lot. I knew I had a lot of talent but not the theoretical skills. I took a lot of time training to catch up. But I made it even though I didn’t have a lot of confidence into where to go next. I didn’t like the classical world, with the competition and the rules orientation where you have to always be correct. I realized I was someone who wanted to bend and break rules.”

In 2007, Lynell took a job at the AT&T call center. She laughs at the times when while customers were on hold, there could be quite the party environment in the center. A big component of the party was singing. One of her co-workers was impressed and told her she needed to be a singer and she wanted her to sit in with her blues and zydeco band. “I couldn’t imagine her playing the clubs and juke joints,” says Lynell who had two children. “I grew up religious so I had different priorities. But she convinced me, and I was blown away. I learned that singers can have pretty voices and be entertainers.”

Four months later, her friend died of complications during surgery and at the funeral her bandmembers said they needed a new vocal leader. She jumped in. “I learned so much about the song form and entertainment and how to interact and take people on a journey,” she says. During the day, she still worked at AT&T and was providing for her family, but small-paying gigs at night were getting too stressful. She broke out and started attending jam sessions and expanding her musical community. “I was singing and giving people my soul, and I was loving it,” she says.

In 2011, she left AT&T and started teaching music in an elementary school that was converted into a middle school. In the meantime, she was gigging and writing which consumed her time to the point where she needed to find a new source of income. Her New Orleans friend, pianist/educator David Torkanowsky told her about a new music department being developed at Loyola University that needed a vocal teacher. Becoming an adjunct professor opened her world wider. During this transitional time, Lynell was increasing her jazz repertoire, and she formed a band.. She loved Dianne Reeves and looked to her as a hero. She made a set of goals: to be a vocalist like Reeves and tour internationally.

“I began to stalk people to figure out how to advance my career,” she says. “I read biographies of most of the prominent jazz vocalists. Of course, being in New Orleans, I was able to learn what it means to be an apprentice.” Herlin Riley and Blanchard were key as well as Blanchard’s management.

Lynell met Blanchard for the first time in Poland at the rehearsals for the show. “Terence is the most easy-going and accomplished person,” she says. “He was such a good leader and teacher. He told me, ‘You’ve got it, so don’t be nervous.” One of the singers at the show was Nona Hendryx of r&b group LaBelle and Talking Head’s Stop Making Sense film. Lynell sang duet with her on “A Change Is Gonna Come.” Blanchard said, “Quiana commanded that stage and left us all with the same feeling as my initial thought, ‘Who are you and where have you been.’”

Blanchard continued to champion her, including inviting her to sing at last year’s International Jazz Day show with Herbie Hancock. “This is crazy,” she says. “Here I was playing with the people that I’ve idolized. I found a group of people who were compassionate and wanted to progress my talent.”

When it was time for Lynell to record, her management team opted for Bacchus as the perfect producer—and collaborator for her variety of styles. Lynell’s goal: to put together a collection of songs that would be a gumbo pot of music. “My mission was to make A Little Love be just that,” she says. “We’re being affected by everything in this world—the state of our country, the gun violence. I’m bringing a little bit of love to romance and to our country.” Her band on the outing is Cyrus Chestnut on piano and Rhodes, guitarist Ed Cherry, bassist George DeLancey, vibes and Rhodes player Monte Croft (who contributes a beauty to the recording, “What Is Love?”) and one of the singer’s gigging partners, drummer Jamison Ross.

A Little Love opens with the r&b/gospel uplift covering young vocalist/pianist Alina Engibaryan’s song of searching, “We Are,” which was Bacchus’s suggestion. “This song speaks to me,” Lynell says. “It’s about trying to figure out how we feel and how we can be fulfilled. It’s full of spiritual wisdom that reaches everyone.”

That’s followed by a passionate gospel-fueled take on “Tryin’ Times,” a social-consciousness Donny Hathaway song (made famous by Roberta Flack’s version in 1969) about familial unrest and the late ’60 tenor of ”confusion over the land.” Lynell notes, “I feel like it’s part of my job to make you think. I feel all these words. Sadly, it feels like everything has gone backwards to being just as traumatic and dramatic.”

Other takes on covers include the grooved soul of “Move Me No Mountain” (put on the map in 1980 by Chaka Khan who says, “It’s one of the best songs I’ve ever done”), the gently swinging Gershwin tune “They All Laughed” (performed as a sweet vocal duet  with Ross), the quiet and sincere “Just a Little Lovin’ (inspired by Carmen McRae’s rendition), and “You Hit the Spot” (a Mack Gordon/Harry Revel tune that Ella Fitzgerald made famous and Sarah Vaughan later sang) where Lynell starts soulfully slow then swings with a fiery scat at the end.

One of the many highlights of the collection is Lynell’s raucous version of the 12-bar blues  “Hip-Shakin’ Mama” best known for its inclusion in the Irma Thomas songbook. She rocks out on it with a blue flame, noting, ”It’s fun double entendre music. It’s so emotional and comedic. And it’s the blues. I could do this all day.” (In fact, it was her rambunctious take on the song at the SASSY Awards that brought down the house.)

Another significant number is Lynell’s prayer-to-shout blend with Duke Ellington’s “Come Sunday” that leads into the profound Nina Simone protest, “I Wish I Knew How It Feels to Be Free.” “I started this out with a solemn moment by doing Duke,” Lynell says. “You learn from the gospel that you may beaten down, but the sun will come up. This is my prayer for the country. And then we hand clap with Nina for this civil rights song. Nina was a mover during the Civil Rights Movement. I want the same with this song. It’s time to come up with a change.”

A Little Love ends with the poignant anthem, “Sing Out, March On,” a politically motivated song written by Joshuah Campbell, where Lynell soars with heartfelt soul and r&b vocals on such charged lines as

“Now, I believe in the power of raising my voice And I believe in the power of making some noise If I die I can’t sing, and if I can’t sing I’ll die So we can sing for one another now, let’s give it a try”

“Terence brought that song to me,” Lynell says. “We always talk politics, so this is perfect. It was cool how Brian recorded it in the studio. But I told him I had another idea. I come from a singing family and my grandmother was living during those Civil Rights days and watched the marches. So I went to Texas to have the four generations of my family singing in a choir-like background.”

“This album is my introduction to the world,” Lynell says. “It was my first time working with a producer, and it came out so differently than what I had thought I could do. I was always told that my intuition was leading me in the right direction. This is like taking a picture of who I am today. There will be more pictures to come.”