RSS
Home
Rebirth returns to the Left Coast
Print
Email
RSS
Subscribe
New Orleans' premier street funk superstars the Rebirth Brass Band will take the stage tonight and Saturday in San Francisco.
If you haven't heard this group's good-time groove in person, I can't recommend more highly that you scoot your booty to the dance floor, pronto.
Last month, my partner in crime, Bea, and I videotaped Rebirth at their regular Tuesday night stand at the Maple Leaf Bar in New Orleans and enjoyed the full force of their hip hop-meets-jazz assault.
The group's snare drummer, Derrick Tabb, told us that if he could live anywhere in America, he would choose the West Coast, mostly for the weather. He seems to imagine it gets humid in his hometown come summer.
Since the band just played in Seattle, I imagine Tabb is getting his fill of Left Coast living. I hope to ask him soon how his after-school enrichment program, The Roots of Music, is humming along. Bea and I are working on a short documentary about the novel rebuilding initiative as we speak.
I'm also wondering how Phil Frazier, Rebirth's sousaphone player and a founding member, is doing since a blood-pressure-related health scare sent him to the hospital the same week we taped the group.
By the way, it turns out there are a bevvy of brass bands in the Bay Area these days, including the klezmer-flavored As Is Brass Band, the classic rockin' Brass Monkey Brass Band and the second-line-loving Joyfull Noise Brass Band. Get some!
And speaking of south Louisiana-inspired culture, a random Web search for local po boy cuisine turned up Yats' New Orleans Original Po Boys, a new lunchtime eatery in a Mission District dive bar that is getting rave reviews on Yelp. That's a real rarity for Cajun or Creole food served anywhere outside the region.
If anyone cares to share his opinion of this joint, please comment. I can't wait to sink my teeth into a seafood combo po boy there. Mmm.
Related Articles:
Comments
- The APOP Hawaiian Cultural Center, in South San Francisco
- Little Afghanistan, find the flavors of Kabul in the Bay Area
- La Peña Cultural Center, travel the globe without leaving Berkeley
- Ashkenaz, Berkeley's home for world music and dance since 1973
- Carnaval San Francisco Festival, an annual blossoming of diversity and joy
- Stash magazine, what's up in hyphy and other Yay Area hip hop
- The Bay Area's ethnic communities, by UC Berkeley journalism students
- San Francisco Chronicle travel stories
- Litquake, a San Francisco literary festival with heart, guts and a taste for the wilder side
- City Lights Booksellers, founded by Ferlinghetti and a living testament to the beats
- The Public Press, non-corporate reporting on the Bay Area
- Bureau of Public Secrets, a Berkeley base for Situationist International screeds
- 7junipers.com, devoted to all aspects of Asian art and culture
- Body Art Expo, a hot spot for the tattooed set that convenes at the Cow Palace
- An introduction to chaos magick, on pagan beliefs
- Quantum decoherence, part 4 of an introduction to quantum reality
- Time Magazine, just good old good journalism
- WWOZ 90.7 FM, the New Orleans jazz and heritage station
- Zombo.com, take a little breather from all that Web surfing
- Trogdor, the burninator
- Richard Cheese, possible saviour of this music of ours
- 'Learn the Cajun French Language,' and other offerings in Baton Rouge, La.
