BIOGRAPHY

The Stooges Brass Band has been a premier New Orleans Brass Band since 1996. While appealing to the emotions of traditional jazz, the brass band uses their hip-hop influence to create a new sound. Their innovative incorporation of hip-hop sound to the traditional styling of New Orleans brass band music has set them apart from other New Orleans bands and allowed The Stooges Brass Band to develop an extraordinary performance history, including sharing the stage with Ray Charles, Black Star (Mos Def & Talib Kweli), Jessica Simpson, Jadakiss.

The Stooges Brass Band have toured nationally and internationally in Asia, Europe, and South America. In October 2010, they won the title of Red Bull Street Kings, beating out The Free Agents, To Be Continued, and The Soul Rebels brass bands to win an all-expense paid trip for a three-day recording and mentorship session with a producer in the Red Bull Studios in California.  This was the subject of a recent film on the Documentary Channel.

HISTORY OF BRASS BANDS

via wikipedia.org

The tradition of brass bands in New Orleans, Louisiana dates to the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Traditionally, New Orleans brass bands could feature various instrumentations, often including trumpets, trombones, saxophones, sousaphones and percussion. The music played by these groups was often a fusion between European-styled military band music and African folk music brought to the Americas by west African slaves and the idiom played a significant role in the development of traditional jazz. Early brass bands include the Eureka Brass Band, the Onward Brass Band, the Excelsior Brass Band, the Tuxedo Brass Band, the Young Tuxedo Brass Band, the Camelia Brass Band, and the Olympia Brass Band.

In the 1970s and 1980s, the New Orleans brass band tradition experienced a renaissance, with bands breaking away from traditional stylings and adding elements of funk, hip hop, and bop to their repertoires. Some notable exponents of this style of brass band include the Rebirth Brass Band, the Stooges Brass Band, the Soul Rebels Brass Band, Youngblood Brass Band and the Dirty Dozen Brass Band. Also, a number of groups outside the United States have begun playing this style of music.