Winnipeg based New Orleans style brass band The Dirty Catfish Brass Band are making jazz music fun again.
They played an energetic Show at the Slice, Wednesday, Nov. 21 for a surprisingly good sized Wednesday night crowd of approximately 30, some of whom remembered them from their Windy City Opry show almost exactly a year ago at the Slice.
It’s hard not to smile when hearing this cadre of upbeat horns, and frontman Todd Martin‘s castrati vocals.
Martin was impressive, alternately singing an a wavering, soulful falsetto and playing Mellophone and harp.
There wasn’t a guitar in sight. The horns did all the work, supplying additional bottom end to throbbing bass as well as punchy melodies.
I arrived in the middle of a jam on a song called “Lil’ Liza Jane.”
The septet beamed as they rotated in place in between trading solos.
They played a lot of brassy New Orleans jazz punctuated by gang vocals and lots of energy. But they also turned a few popular pop songs into jazz songs.
By request, they blasted into a hit jazzy cover of Stompin’ Tom Connors ’ “The Hockey Song.” They introduced it with a few bars of “Iko Iko” and Saxophonist Graham Dion did a credible version of a goal and period ending buzzer on baritone saxophone to add to the humour.
They ended their show around 11 p.m. with an encore– a mix of two songs including Michael Jackson’s “Don’t Stop ’Til you Get Enough.”