Soul Rebels Brass Band have a story. And fuck, the white middle classes who will be fawning over this lot as they make their way around Europe, love a tale of triumph over adversity. Like the blues singers who went blind and lost all their fingers, only to grow more fingers, which they also lost, who made amazing dustbowl tales of misery, SRBB have extreme discomfort and tragedy backing them up.
Basically, all you need to know is that they’re from New Orleans and were punched straight in the gut by The Flood, left to whistle by a slow reacting government and using music to drag them out of one kind of funk and straight into another.
However, to focus on this doesn’t really do the Soul Rebels justice. It wouldn’t matter one jot if these guys just happened to be out of town while misery knocked on the door because, when they strike up their invigorating blend of N’Orleans jazz, Lee Dorsey funk and shameless enthusiasm for a good time, you’re not exactly wringing your hands and thinking of tough times.