Concert Review: The Wooten Brothers / Rebirth Brass Band @ Troy Savings Bank Music Hall, 10/03/2023

Any headliner who brings a New Orleans band to open will play to happy crowds.

The four Wooten Brothers brought Rebirth Brass Band to Troy Savings Bank Music Hall Tuesday to thrilling funky effect. Band-mates since birth, the Wootens showed their future reflects a rich past in 70s soul.

Rebirth blasts past the border between parade and party whenever they take to the stage or the street. First band heard in HBO’s “Treme,” they earned that honor in a decades-deep roar through musical history with roots in traditional jazz and branches in modern jazz, soul and R&B.

Tuesday, they piled zippy horn section playing and solos onto beats that reached your soul through the floor. Funkifizing the Tin Pan Alley chestnut “Exactly Like You,” Miles Davis’s modal jazz classic “All Blues,” or the Rolling Stones’s “It’s All Over Now,” they had the crowd so deep in their pocket from the first blaring riffs it seemed they’d brought everybody on their bus, pumped to dance.

A big beat was in the back and on the edges. Bass drummer Keith Frazier stood so short behind his bass drum that second-row super-fan JD never saw his face. Jenard Andrews, opposite him onstage, loomed so tall that the snare strapped at his waist looked like he was playing a pocket watch or Flava Flav’s clock. Alongside stood sousaphonist Clifton Smith, whose round, low notes hit right on the bass drum blasts. Saxophonist Vincent Broussard got most of the solos, flanked up front by two trumpets, two trombones.

They made a mighty, happy sound, and the dancers packed at the back got happy with it; even in the songs that slammed down the street as party-hearty chants and may sound repetitive outside New Orleans. Rebirth reminded us, with at least one brilliant flourish in every tune, that how they play is as important as what they play.

Funk tunes closed their extra-long opener, including the vintage anthem “I Feel Like Funkin’ It Up” and the new “We Are the People.” Its claim “I feel the music” felt seismic.

As lights scanned the Hall, the Wootens played recordings of long-ago band intros from long before they crafted contemporary careers in others’ bands. Bassist Victor Wooten and drummer/electronic percussionist Roy “FutureMan” Wooten are longtime members of Bela Fleck and the Flecktones; keyboardist Joe Wooten has played in the Steve Miller Band for 30 years, and guitarist Regi Wooten, the eldest, revered as the Teacher, played with former Cream drummer Ginger Baker.

Bassist Victor hosted the youngest and arguably best-known Wooten from the Flecktones and his own jazz and soul projects. They funked around at first, chant-spelling “W-double-O-Ten.” Clean and precise as an ace studio band, they had a special sibling feel of unity, the subject of an early song. Grooves and solos sizzled and thumped, Weather Report-sounding fusion (from the “Mysterious Traveler” period), then some reggae, then some fiery two-hand guitar tapping. They eased into Wes Montgomery West Coast jazz, east-coast quiet storm soul. Call-outs during his solos showed many fans came to see Victor, but Regi blew just as many minds.

Then, having shown lots of what they can do, they told us why. Victor introduced everybody, noting, for example, how elder Regi never beat up his little brothers. “He held up his little brothers!” Vic hailed Joe’s long tenure with Steve Miller, then pointed out how Roy was playing a trap set rather than his electronic guitar-shaped Synth-Axe Drumitar. Yet even this conventional kit had its innovation: a bass drum set vertically on end, the kick pedal directly under it. 

Vic paid tribute to departed saxophonist brother Rudy, with them in spirit every night. When Vic claimed the spotlight, he melody-strung some sweet, delicious tones, got complex with looping tricks, punctuating notes with subtle gestures. He snuck in some quotes: ‘Trane’s “Naima” formed and faded fast as a mirage. Then a groove built WAY up: the Flecktones’ pulsating “Sinister Minister.”

Vic cited the rediscovery of long-lost 70s demo tapes to retrieve three soul tunes. Very much of their time, they urged “Let’s Dance,” “Get Down with Me,” and announced, “Singing and Dancing and Clapping and Playing (That’s What We Like to Do).” In their party spirit and harmony vocals, these were very different from the mostly instrumental shows they’d played for years, and great fun.

Introduced as the human jukebox, Joe soon proved he was also a time machine. He showed off a strong, agile soul-pop voice on vintage radio hits and deeper tracks, including “This Is Your Song,” “Someday We’ll All Be Free,” even the “I Love Lucy” TV theme. He used a talk-box to punch his voice at times and wrapped Stevie Wonder’s “Ma Cherie Amor” around lesser-known tunes. 

They introduced “Sweat,” a new tune Vic announced was available in the lobby as a 45, “old-school.” This playfully stretched message-song warned, “Sometimes you win, sometimes you learn.” 

Rebirth then joined the fun, combining into a 12-piece juggernaut that monster-mashed “Sweat,” “Sex Machine,” and “Power to the People.” Then they goofed on James Brown’s “hit-it” games, Joe calling out, “Hit it one time on 17″—i.e., hit a big chord together, 17 beats out. Good-natured laughter flowed across the stage when somebody counted wrong and hit too early. Guys put down their instruments and checked their watches when Joe called “Hit one long time on 37,” but they hit it cleanly, to general delight.

Maybe best of all, they managed all this funky good time without playing “When the Saints Go Marching In.”

Photo Gallery of The Wooten Brothers by Rudy Lu

Photo Gallery of Rebirth Brass Band by Rudy Lu