This came out in 1999 – or at least that’s when I got it. Here’s what I said about it back then (with some minor editing):
If “New Orleans brass band” makes you think of old guys in red vests and straw hats tooting When The Saints Go Marchin’ In, The Dirty Dozen Brass Band will open your eyes — and ears.
On this eighth release, the N’Awlins septet’s sound is equally at home in Funkytown and Dixieland. Greasy bayou grooves straight from The Meters are the main ingredient in their Creole musical gumbo, with heapin’ helpings of clattering, bumptious percussion, joyously disjointed horns and organ-jazz jive (courtesy of producer John Medeski of Medeski, Martin & Wood). Rollicking, jumping and wailing, the DDBB are like some tipsy marching band strolling the French Quarter at Mardi Gras, playing anything from Louis Jordan’s Run Joe to Marvin Gaye’s Inner City Blues — and picking up fans like the Pied Piper wooed mice. They’ve got the jam; give them your bread.
