Big Sam’s Funky Nation to play Saturday Afterburner
July 15, 2010
A second musical star from HBO’s New Orleans-based series Treme has been signed to perform at this year’s Harvest Jazz and Blues Festival, September 14–19th.
In a late addition to the Festival’s 20th anniversary line up, organizers announced today New Orleans brass funk band Big Sam’s Funky Nation will close the Festival’s Saturday night with a bang. <a href=“http://www.harvestjazzandblues.com/index.php/artistbio/big_sams_funky_nation”>Big Sam’s Funky Nation</a> was recently named Best Funk Group in New Orleans and will bring their high-voltage, brass-filled funk party to the popular Saturday Afterburner show in the Budweiser Blues Tent.
The late addition was made following news last month that Champion & His G-Strings had to cancel all upcoming appearances, including at Harvest, while their frontman Maxime Morin is treated for Leukemia.
“The Saturday Afterburner is the last major night-time show of our Festival, so we always want to make sure that it’s a fun, celebratory and high energy party, which Big Sam’s Funky Nation more than deliver,” says Brent Staeben, music director for the Festival. “They bring that joy and excitement of New Orleans funk to the stage that you can’t help but dance to.”
Led by trombone powerhouse Big Sam Williams, formerly of the Dirty Dozen Brass Band and now a fixture on the HBO hit show Treme, Funky Nation brings undeniable personality and masterful chops to the stage, mixing a rock sensibility with the improv-style of jazz and the horn-heavy front section of big band funk. Hailed as “the top man on the slide trombone in the birthplace of jazz,” Big Sam blows the funk out of his trombone and refuses to let the audience sit still.
“Big Sam was really excited to come here, once he found out what else we have going on at our Festival,” Staeben says. “Being from New Orleans, he, of course, knows all the other New Orleans musicians playing the Festival this year, especially Kermit Ruffins, who also stars in Treme. And he recently played with Jonny Lang at JazzFest, so he was excited to get on stage right after Lang’s show. All signs are pointing to this becoming a very collaborative and very fun must-see show.”
Tickets for Big Sam’s Funky Nation and the rest of the remaining Harvest tickets and passes go on sale on Saturday, July 17th at 8:30am in The Harvest Store at 81 Regent Street, online at <a href=“http://www.ticketpro.ca”>www.ticketpro.ca</a> and by calling the Ticketpro call centre at 1-888-311-9090. For more information on this or any other act appearing at the Festival, visit <a href=“http://www.harvestjazzandblues.com”>www.harvestjazzandblues.com</a> or call 1-888-NB BLUES.
