To Be Continued Brass Band, or TBC Brass Band, the subject of a documentary titled From the Mouthpiece on Back, is a jazz band formed in 2002 by young men who grew up in the 7th and 9th Wards in New Orleans, Louisiana. They sought to avoid the life that befell many of their friends and classmates involving drugs and violence by creating a jazz and brass band. The band started at Carver Senior High School in New Orleans where the band's eventual leader and tuba player, Jason Slack, borrowed instruments from Carver's band director. Some of the instruments were taped together. For example, the tuba was taped with duct tape to patch a hole in the horn. The band received permission from Carver's principal to play a set on the school grounds. The school's reaction simply was "wow," and the TBC Brass Band was on its way.
TBC started with no manager and no guaranteed gigs so the band played on the streets of New Orleans, establishing a presence on the corner of the legendary Bourbon and Canal Streets in the French Quarter. The band quickly became popular, and hordes of fans spontaneously surrounded the band and danced around the band's regular street corner. As explanation for the band members' support and love for another, the band's trumpet player succinctly states "We sometimes say, we're all we got. Well, we're all we got."
In addition, TBC continued the time-honored New Orleans tradition of leading "second line" parades at funerals of members of their community. Second line is a unique New Orleans parade where a jazz band accompanies the family of the deceased at the grave site with somber tunes. But once outside the cemetery, as the procession hits the streets, the band erupts into celebratory life-affirming music as the bereaved dance in celebration of the life of the deceased.
Read more about To Be Continued Brass Band: The Roots and TBC Brass Band, Movie About The TBC Brass Band, Membership, Discography
Famous quotes containing the words continued, brass and/or band:
“The problems of society will also be the problems of the predominant language of that society. It is the carrier of its perceptions, its attitudes, and its goals, for through it, the speakers absorb entrenched attitudes. The guilt of English then must be recognized and appreciated before its continued use can be advocated.”
—Njabulo Ndebele (b. 1948)
“You could almost see the brass on her gleaming,
Not quite. The mist was to light what red
Is to fire. And her mainmast tapered to nothing,
Without teetering a millimeter’s measure.
The beads on her rails seemed to grasp at transparence.”
—Wallace Stevens (1879–1955)
“What passes for identity in America is a series of myths about one’s heroic ancestors. It’s astounding to me, for example, that so many people really seem to believe that the country was founded by a band of heroes who wanted to be free. That happens not to be true. What happened was that some people left Europe because they couldn’t stay there any longer and had to go someplace else to make it. They were hungry, they were poor, they were convicts.”
—James Baldwin (1924–1987)