Grammy Award-winning Dirty Dozen Brass Band to play the Foundry Theater

“You could have the best rock and roll band playing on stage, and a brass band would come and turn the whole house out. Something about that energy that a brass band brings: we got music for your mind, body and your soul.”

That’s Roger Lewis, the baritone sax man and a founding member of New Orleans’ The Dirty Dozen Brass Band. The Grammy Award-winning brass ensemble is bringing its legendary and vibrant stage show to the Foundry Theater.

The performance is on Nov. 20.

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Since its founding in 1977, the Dirty Dozen Brass Band has taken the traditional foundation of New Orleans brass and street-band music and incorporated a blend of genres, including jazz, funk, R&B, swing, rock and roll and soul.

“I always like to refer to our music as a big pot of gumbo,” Lewis said. “We play all kinds of stuff. We just put everything in and it tastes so good.”

The band’s unique sound has taken the Dirty Dozen to tour across five continents and more than 30 countries. With 12 studio albums, plus myriad collaborations with a range of artists from Modest Mouse to Widespread Panic to Norah Jones, the Dirty Dozen has a storied career and continues to provide high-octane performances nearly 50 years in.

The Dirty Dozen Brass Band — never with more than eight members, despite the name — started out backing heavy hitters like Charlie Parker, Duke Ellington, Horace Silver and Thelonious Monk. The band eventually mixed that music with the traditional New Orleans brass sound and brought it to the streets.

“Nobody had ever done that before and the people loved it,” Lewis said. “We picked the beat up so people was dancing faster than they were dancing before.”

The band evolved from traditions heard on the illustrious streets of New Orleans, like second lines (social aid and pleasure club parades), to become the genre-blending, music machine that it is today.

The Dirty Dozen won the Grammy Award for Best American Roots Performance in 2023 for “Stompin’ Ground,” a collaboration with soul singer Aaron Neville.

Had the Grammy category been approved prior to 2014, given the Dirty Dozen had been making exceptional roots music since long before that, Lewis believes that the band would have about 20 Grammys by now.

And because he’s an 83-year-old who’s been playing the saxophone for 73 of those, who also casually drops names he’s played with, like Fats Domino, Irma Thomas and Elvis Costello, there’s no reason one shouldn’t believe him.

Though the fact of the matter is that the Dirty Dozen Brass Band has had an incredible impact on brass band music, especially out of New Orleans, and any amount of showboating would be justifiable. But when asked if he thinks about the impact the band has made since 1977, Lewis said:

“I don’t be thinking about all that stuff, man. I just keep on playing.”

Brandon Berry writes about the local music scene in Dayton and Southwest Ohio. Have a story idea for him? Email branberry100@gmail.com.