Floatin’ Down Catawba

Where Otis Went

Half Dozen Brass Band

A handful of Georgia’s most in-demand horn players have come together to form Half Dozen Brass Band, an ensemble that plays its own infectious blend of jazz, hip-hop, funk, and Dixieland.  HDBB offers the kind of celebratory music that thrives in the streets of the Big Easy, equally at home on stages or sidewalks. Named for its core of six founding members, HDBB was formed in May 2008 and quickly garnered local acclaim in Athens, GA, winning the 2009 Flagpole Athens Music Award Winner for “Best Jazz Band.”

Members of HDBB have performed in New Orleans and around the country with the likes of Ray Charles, Antsy McClain, Maynard Ferguson,  Little Anthony & the Imperials, The O’Jays, The Four Tops, The Temptations, JazzChronic, The Corduroy Road, Tommy Smothers, Lou Rawls, and Clarence “Gatemouth” Brown.

HDBB showcases a rare ability to be celebratory and smooth at the same time.  There is a clean sense of symbiosis and exchange in “Floatin’ Down Catawba” and “Where Otis Went”—horns speaking back and forth, yet never crowding one another.  HDBB serves up, if not a rebirth, then certainly a hearty dose of the cool. – Zachary Greenberg