Dirty Dozen Brass Band

We Got Robbed! Live In New Orleans Twenty-six years ago, a form of music rose from the streets of New Orleans that merged the brass band horns and distinctive rhythms of traditional funeral music with elements of equal parts R&B, funk, bop, gospel and rock. The resulting "fonk” has risen into a mighty squawk and the DDBB are its strongest proponents. The DDBB are at their best in a live setting, as this slick undertaking confirms — staged before a hometown crowd for their 25th anniversary during the ’03 New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival. Spine slipping horns now collide with guitar, drums and keyboards on a sound that begs interaction as it blows apart the traditions from whence it came. Their steamy brand of hothouse funk and go-for–broke gusto lifts off this (basically) "best of” disc, designed as an online or concert-only souvenir. Sporting four original members, this feisty squad runs through "Unclean Waters,” "My Feet Can’t Fail Me Now” and seven other classics including a crowd-bruising take on George Clinton’s "Red Hot Mama.” Wily invention, their stock in trade, elements of Sly and the Meters’ work their way into intros as the untouchable dream team of Gregory Davis (trumpet), Roger Lewis (baritone/soprano sax), Kevin Harris (tenor sax), Sammie Williams (trombone) and Julius McKee (on killer sousaphone) takes no prisoners. Ever. Get Dirty.