Independence Day is a time for parades, marching bands and “The Stars and Stripes Forever,” but in the past few years something strange has happened to your John Philip Sousa.
Brass bands, the mainstay of the July Fourth parade, are playing Balkan wedding songs, disco, unprintable New Orleans ditties like “Black Drawers,” and adding a revolutionary new flavor to the staid patriotic repertoire.
Credit a mini-renaissance in street bands, the musical equivalent of the graffiti artist. These bands are mobile, they work outdoors and they have a guerrilla sensibility.
More Mardi Gras than “Music Man,” the new brass bands are enlivening Atlanta’s patriotic celebrations. Here are five that will be rocking the holiday.
The Wasted Potential Brass Band
Take a small, pugnacious brass band, add a rapper with a bullhorn, and you’ve got a recipe for an Atlanta twist on a New Orleans staple.
The Wasted Potential Brass Band will deliver that mix to celebrants in East Point at 4:30 p.m. on July 4.
“We’ll play some New Orleans standards with Atlanta lyrics,” said trombonist Jamie Hemphill. “We’re trying to bring that second line sound to the city of Atlanta. And we play a couple of our own, inspired by the lantern parade.”
That would be the lit-up parade along the Beltline in September, in which the WPBB also has marched.
They will play across the street from the East Point MARTA station and East Point City Hall.
Mercury Orkestar
What better way to celebrate the birth of America the Beautiful than with a blast of Serbian wedding music?
For Erik Kofoed, it seems appropriate. Kofoed, 39, is the founder of Mercury Orkestar, an Atlanta ensemble modeled after the Balkan brass bands that blew his mind back in college, when he first heard a recording by Romany band Fanfara Ciocârlia.
He described the music as “wild, crazy, fast, ecstatic and improvisatory. I fell in love with it.”
His ensemble of 8 to 14 pieces includes trumpets, euphoniums, tuba, percussion and a shrieking, pint-sized E-flat clarinet.
“We do beer festivals, park festivals, club dates — my goal is anywhere there’s a party, that’s where we want to be,” he said.
Mercury Orkestar will take a break this year. “I’ll be celebrating at the beach,” said Kofoed.
The Wolf Pack
The Wolf Pack, run by alpha wolf and tenor saxophonist Kebbi Williams, can expand to 30 members, with conventional wind instruments augmented by laptop electronics and Cuban percussion.
For outdoor gigs, they sometimes jettison the electronics and pack the trap drummer onto a “drum chariot” and push him down the street.
Most of the Wolf Pack's tunes are originals, which Williams described as "a mixture of sounds." They include "Maul," "In the A" and "Frank."
The latter is a tribute to late member Frank Barham, who was killed last year in a traffic accident while propelling his wheelchair from Atlanta to Savannah on a fund-raising expedition.
The Seed & Feed Marching Abominables
The Abominables are perhaps the granddaddy and grandmama of Atlanta's alternative marching bands, and are also probably the biggest.
In 2013, when they celebrated their 40th anniversary at the Inman Park Festival, they mustered 220 musicians and dancers for the parade.
The band is known for outrageous costuming, but also stresses musicianship, and will perform more standard marching band material than the others mentioned here, because they have the instrumentation to carry it off.
At 10 a.m. on Tuesday, July 4 the Abominables will perform in the Avondale Estates parade, which begins at the intersection of Clarendon and South Avondale Road.
Atlanta Freedom Band
About 35 musicians and members of the color guard in the Atlanta Freedom Band will bring party music to the Avondale Estates parade this year, pumping out the glam sounds of Kesha, Queen, Nicki Minaj and Daft Punk.
Founded in 1994 by a man named Buzz Carr, who decided the Atlanta Pride Parade needed a marching band, the Freedom Band has grown to include a concert band and a jazz band.
Atlanta’s premier LGBT marching band, the Freedom Band offers many onetime musicians the opportunity to dust off wind instruments that haven’t been played since middle school.
“One of our slogans is ‘Get that instrument out of the closet,’” said Cliff Norris, director of marketing and development.
Norris said the Freedom Band can play the conventional repertoire, but is more likely to rock “Starships” or “Crazy in Love.”
The Freedom Band also will march in the Avondale parade, beginning at 10 a.m. Tuesday, July 4.
About the Author
