Dirty Dozen Brass Band - Influence

Influence

From the beginning, the music of the Dirty Dozen was a departure from the traditional New Orleans brass band sound, and as the band's popularity increased the distance between them and more traditional groups only grew. When Kirk and Charles Joseph left the band suddenly in 1991, citing the pressures of the group's demanding touring schedule, Davis was forced to replace Kirk Joseph not with another sousaphonist but with an electric bass player. Similarly, in 1994 drummers Lionel Batiste (who had replaced Benny Jones on bass drum some years earlier) and Jenell Marshall left the group; Davis was unable to find a pair of drummers who met his expectations, and instead hired a single musician to play drum kit. The subsequent addition of a keyboard player and guitarist removed the band still further from its street band roots. Finally, throughout the band's history they relied on written arrangements to a far greater extent than do most other New Orleans brass bands.

Despite the Dirty Dozen's uniqueness, however, the band's success inspired a resurgence of New Orleans' brass band music, both in the city and nationwide. The band was most influential in the 1980s, when they demonstrated by example that brass band music could be successful by moving beyond a type of music that risked stagnation as nothing more than a tourist attraction. Before the Dirty Dozen band was formed the Olympia Brass Band was already mixing R&B and jazz influences in with traditional tunes; the Dirty Dozen took this farther, and gave the trend worldwide visibility. Bands which followed in their wake did not all follow their more jazz oriented stage band approach—only the Soul Rebels have gone in that direction—but a wide variety of bands, from the Rebirth Brass Band to Wisconsin's Youngblood Brass Band have been influenced by them in other ways. Rebirth has the most direct connection with the Dirty Dozen: they got their start playing at Daryl's when the Dirty Dozen was on the road.