If you live in Whistler and you feel like getting an authentic taste of Louisianian culture, you'll have to take a six-plus hour flight out of Vancouver (or drive nearly 4,500 kilometres) to reach New Orleans. Alternatively, you could just wait until July 12.
That's when the New Breed Brass Band sets up shop in Olympic Plaza to continue Whistler's Summer Concert Series.
Bandleader Jenard Andrews, his cousin Revon and other members of their crew dropped their first album, Made In New Orleans, last year and earned a Grammy nomination for it. They proudly continue their home's tradition of brass bands (which dates back to the 19th century) with a spicy pot of musical gumbo: second-line instrumentals, hip hop, jazz, R&B and a dash of Mardi Gras subculture.
"I just love it because everybody really is a person, and they all got their own journey that they've been on," comments Revon. "Then we come together and we put all that emotion, feeling and everything we got together when we hit the stage. We're giving it to you raw. It's real and it's us."
The Andrews boys were born in the bayou, and into music. Jenard's father James is labelled by Vanity Fair as "the Musical Mayor of New Orleans" for a successful trumpeting career and gigs on the HBO drama series Treme. His uncle Troy is known as "Trombone Shorty": a New York Times-acclaimed showman with four chart-topping albums as well as collaborative experience with Bruno Mars, Foo Fighters, the Red Hot Chili Peppers and many more.
It's therefore no surprise that both Jenard and Revon have been playing from an early age.
"Being at my grandmother's house, there were always a million instruments just laying around," recalls Jenard. "New Orleans children just take to music. I feel like every child starts with music in some way, shape or form."
Quips Revon: "When you come out of your mama, she'd be like: 'what do you want to play?'"
Coming of age
As the older cousin, Jenard got his start with a different group called the Baby Boys Brass Band. As childhood gradually fell by the wayside, he and his pals began considering how they might rebrand—to be viewed not as boys but as the young men they had grown into.
Jenard and his peers were inevitably drawn in by the gravitational pull of the Rebirth Brass Band: a Grammy award-winning outfit that has made its presence felt at a myriad of festivals and street corners over the last four decades. Most in New Orleans go through a stage as a Rebirth cover band until they're able to distinguish themselves, and New Breed was no exception.
At one point, Trombone Shorty sat Jenard's crew down and made them realize that their so-called "practice sessions" were full of Rebirth songs they already knew and couldn't make a name off of. A new journey began, and the New Breed Brass Band started to coalesce as its own distinct entity around 2015 under Shorty's guidance.
They've gone through a number of lineup changes since, which is not unusual for a Louisiana brass group. Revon, for example, was in high school when Jenard started up New Breed, but he's now a co-bandleader.
"I think, over time, people grow apart or some stuff gets in the way of a band's main objective," Jenard says about the changing personnel he's had to deal with. "As long as the new people learn the music and can play on the level we are at, it's pretty easy [to adapt]. I actually enjoy playing with new people often because it's cool to hear someone different every now and then."
July 12 will be the New Breed Brass Band's first trip to Whistler. DJ Vinyl Ritchie will set the table at 6:30 p.m. before Jenard and company kick off their set at 7:30 p.m. More details are available at whistler.com/events/concerts/.
