New Orleans Travel Diary: The Free Spirit Brass Band

While walking down Canal Street and making our way to the French Quarter, Edward and I heard a live brass band playing and decided to investigate. It turned out to be the Free Spirit Brass Band, playing away at the corner of Bourbon Street. Two birds with one stone: we’d found Bourbon Street without really trying, and some live music to boot!

They were drawing a crowd:

Here are a couple of quick videos (each about a minute in length) of the band in action:

After their performance, the band were happy to pose with people for shots.

The tuba player said “Accordion! Oh, I gotta get in on this!“

The trombone guy asked if I could break out with something “suitably funky” on the squeezebox. The trumpet player had already been doing a hip-hoppy line in B flat, the key to which many brass instruments are tuned. It’s a key I’m a little weak at playing in — I’ve gotten terribly used to the “piano-friendly” keys of C, D, F and G and the “guitar-friendly” keys of E, A, B and C# — but I needed the practice.

Luckily, I’ve been listening to a fair bit of Trombone Shortly lately and started playing an improvised line based on his stuff. The band seemed to like what I was doing:

…and it turned into an impromptu jam session!

A pretty good start to this trip, if I say so.