E-mail a friendThe Dirty Dozen Brass Band
airdate October 3, 2006
For nearly 30 years, The Dirty Dozen Brass Band has combined various musical genres with New Orleans' traditional brass band music and recorded with many artists, from Dizzy Gillespie to Elvis Costello. Hurricane Katrina forced band members to flee the Big Easy, but they've stayed together on the road and in studio. The release of the band's version of the classic 'What's Going On' marks the one-year anniversary of the devastation and a portion of sale proceeds goes to Tipitina's Foundation.
The Dirty Dozen Brass Band
Tavis: Roger Lewis, Kevin Harris, and Efrem Towns are three of the founding members of the New Orleans-based jazz group The Dirty Dozen Brass Band. Roger and Kevin's homes were completely destroyed in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. Efrem's house suffered severe damage, and over the past year, they've put their lives back together and recorded a CD marking the thirty-fifth anniversary of one of the greatest albums in music history, Marvin Gaye's 'What's Going On?' Later on, they'll perform a song from the new disc, but first, gentlemen, I'm happy to see all three of you, and I mean that, following Hurricane Katrina. It's a pleasure to see all of you.
Kevin Harris: Great to be here.
Efrem Towns: Oh, just glad to be here, Tavis.
Tavis: And I'm glad that you are still doing what you're doing. How did ya'll, beyond the surviving, find the time, the energy, the space, the concentration to do another album?
Roger Lewis: (Laugh) Well actually, we was on tour when Hurricane Katrina was hit (unintelligible)...
Tavis: Then again, ya'll stay on tour. (Laugh)
Lewis: Yeah, (unintelligible) world's greatest touring band.
Tavis: I was about to ask, before (unintelligible), not to make light of this, but before your homes were destroyed, when was the last time you'd been in that house anyway?
Harris: Actually, we were trying to get to New Orleans. Everyone else was getting away, and we were going there.
Towns: Yeah. (Laugh)
Harris: Really. (Laugh)
Towns: We were, like, the only people on the highway going (unintelligible).
Lewis: Everybody else is trying to get away, yeah.
Harris: That was our off day, and we were looking forward to that Monday at home.
Lewis: Yeah.
Tavis: So it was your off day on the twenty-ninth. You were trying to get home.
Harris: Yeah, we were all anxious to get home because we'd been off for a while. We were gonna be off for about a month. And with no greater place to be than New Orleans, and that's home. And the reality of it was (laugh) it wasn't home for a minute.
Tavis: Roger, you started - I'm sorry, I cut you off, but you were starting to tell me how you all got together to do this CD after Hurricane Katrina.
Lewis: Yeah, well, actually, before Hurricane Katrina took place, we had been talking for years about doing, well, Efrem, it was actually his idea about doing Marvin Gaye's music.
Tavis: It's ambitious to take on Marvin at any time, and there are a lot of folk who believe - I was in one of these conversations the other night, and we were debating what the greatest song was ever written. And again, there's no real answer to that, but Marvin Gaye's 'What's Going On' has got to be in the running for one of the greatest songs ever written. And ya'll took that whole album and reinterpreted it. That's an ambitious and bold project.
Lewis: Yeah, it wasn't easy. (Laugh)
Towns: It wasn't easy, (unintelligible). A lot of...
Tavis: But it was your idea, though, Efrem. (Laugh)
Towns: Oh, well...(laugh)
Lewis: The thing was, Efrem has played Marvin Gaye every day of his life since he's been in this band. And we've heard every tune every day since he's been in this band. All 30 years. So we know Marvin Gaye very well. (Laugh) (unintelligible) So it just became our project.
Tavis: Why the love for Marvin? Why play Marvin's music every day for 30 years of your life?
Towns: Marvin has a wide repertoire and all these different albums he have is - they all varied from one mood to another mood. And I listen to the stuff that he did, the crooning stuff he was doing, the ballads and all. It just constantly changed. It just don't stay the same. The music constantly grows and grows and grows. It just don't get redundant, and the music - the more you listen to it, the more different things I hear from it.
Tavis: When you take a classic record like this, which one of the pieces, was there a particular song that you struggled with more than the others, trying to figure out how you wanted to interpret it?
Harris: I think, I think 'Holy' was a good one, 'cause we decided to do that in a dirge, in a New Orleans funeral kind of thing. And that was a real difference from the tune itself. And I think that one came off real nice. I like the phrasing and the expression and the emotion that that one tune by itself carries on. But all of them were, our interpretation was different from Marvin's, but the feeling is still there. The concept is still there. The message.
Towns: That's right, 'Holy' was the one that we got to, like, just (unintelligible). Like Kevin, he mentioned, we were going through Hell and water trying to get (unintelligible). Finally we got tired of calling each other enough names and stuff, and Kevin decided hey, boom, (unintelligible) Marvin sings that song as a vocal solo.
Tavis: That raises a fascinating point. How are decisions made when you got a Dirty Dozen Brass Band? (Laugh)
Lewis: Well, dirty.
Tavis: Very dirty, huh? (Laugh)
Lewis: Yeah, yeah. This particular CD, it was collective improvisation among everybody, even the producers and whatnot. And I think that Corey Joseph, who was a sousaphone player on the CD, he did a fantastic job. Because James Jamerson, I think his name was, the bass player that recorded all that stuff with Marvin, hey, man, that's like a major accomplishment...
Towns: That's a genius.
Lewis: ...to try to emulate. Not necessarily he did emulate all the stuff that James was doing. But just to take on that challenge. 'Cause everything is based around a bass. It was quite a challenge, and I think Corey Joseph did a beautiful job.
Tavis: So on this side of the hurricane, you guys were traveling doing a couple hundred shows a year already as it was. You doing more stuff now? Have you slowed down a little bit? How has it impacted you?
Lewis: I think it's more now than it was before.
Tavis: Even more now?
Lewis: Yeah.
Tavis: I was gonna guess that. I was gonna guess that, and only because I've been to a couple of jazz festivals over the last year since the hurricane, and it just seems that the appreciation for what you all do, as New Orleans musicians, no matter what band you are, but certainly Dirty Dozen Brass Band, the appreciation at Superbowl events and NBA, just anywhere you go, there's an appreciation now I think even greater for what you all have to share with the world than there was even before the hurricane. You sense that as well?
Lewis: All the musicians in New Orleans are placed in different states, and now everybody's getting a little taste of New Orleans music.
Tavis: Exactly, it spread out, yeah.
Lewis: Yeah, it spread out. (unintelligible) (Laugh)
Harris: See, that's the good thing for us. Now we can really get some New Orleans cooking wherever we go now.
Tavis: Wherever you go. 'Cause so many people have been moved around, yeah.
Towns: Yeah, 'cause it's not just the musicians. Like we traveled many places over the last three decades, and we go someplace, we might see a person from New Orleans. But now we go places and we see (unintelligible).
Tavis: You got a whole New Orleans section.
Towns: Yeah, so they get a chance to see the real deal, the music, and they also respond to the music.
Tavis: Well, as much as I love talking to ya'll, which I could do for a few more minutes, I'd rather, with all due respect, hear you play than hear you talk. I think they will do that in just a moment. The Dirty Dozen Brass Band, they got some other members here as well, will come on the stage for a special performance. Stay with us.
From their critically acclaimed interpretation of Marvin Gaye's classic album 'What's Going On,' here is The Dirty Dozen Brass Band performing 'Right On.' Enjoy. Good night from Los Angeles, and keep the faith.
(Performance)
Back to October 3, 2006