All That

By Alex Oliver

Fans of classic funk, brass band jams, jazzy improvisation and a little bit of hip-hop -- fans who dig all of that -- get ready for All That. Of the crop of recently-formed funk bands in New Orleans, All That lay claim to the most old-school talent, and have developed a unique sound that has grown organically out of the members' collective talents and knowledge of local music. Sousaphonist Kirk Joseph came up playing in brass bands around the city before co-founding the Dirty Dozen, in the process reinventing sousaphone playing as fat, heavy bass, a sound that every brass band since has picked up on. Keyboardist Davis "DJ Davis" Rogan got his start in local radio at age nine on Tulane's WTUL, and now hosts the Brass Band Jam on WWOZ. Jospeh and Rogan, along with trombonist Keith "Wolf" Anderson, formerly of the ReBirth Brass Band, form the core of All That. Added to this core are any number of local players, providing a loose structure the band considers a great asset.

"We might have Stanton [Moore] come in, but he's touring with Galactic, and we may have Willie Green, but he's with the Neville Brothers -- my drum sub list is awe-inspiring. We have about thirteen drummers who play with us," Rogan explains.

"That's a plus on our side. New Orleans is the home of drummers, anyway," continues Joseph. "All That is pretty much all of everybody. We've got so many personnel, we could never run dry."

The All That personnel list contains members of Galactic, Flavor Kings, New Orleans Klezmer All Stars, Royal Fingerbowl and the Neville Brothers, to name a few. Of course, surviving as a working musician in New Orleans often means playing with different bands, creating a sense of unity in the musical community that's unequaled out side of the city.

"I thought it was really cool, what Scott Billington was saying in your last issue about how people are going to look back and say that this was another golden era of New Orleans music," Rogan says. "We've got shit that the rest of the United States just can't touch. Look at Iris May Tango, that's half of Mas Mamones, half of Royal Fingerbowl. Dave Kunian and Patricia Gorman were out drinking one night and came up with this thing that it's all one band in New Orleans."

"That's the one thing about New Orleans, there are so many musicians who play with so many bands," explains Joseph. You go to the West coast or the East coast and people have got top be in one particular band. New Orleans is, like, 'Hey, come to the gig.' You can get about any horn player from any brass band to play in another brass band. Everybody has to play hip-hop, street funk, sousafunk, or rhythm and blues. The jambalaya of New Orleans is made up of musicians."

While outsiders might think many of these bands would posses some degree of antagonism toward one another in competing for the same market, in fact the opposite is true. Local billings featuring All That with the Flavor Kings and Galactic are a common site at local clubs, and the three bands have all developed their own distinct sound in the loosely-defined genre of funk.

"The difference between us and Galactic is, Galactic is very smooth and polished, and their strength lies in their being smooth, polished and tight," Rogan explains. "Our strength lies in our ability to be spontaneous and crazy. They're sort of more grooving, while we can go from grooving to spazzing, and then back to groove. We love them all to death. What's happened with Galactic is totally cool. I mean, we could easily sit back here and be, like, 'Man, those guys used to open for us as much as we opened for them,' and that kind of makes you look small and bitter. The fact is, this shit is just going to be explosive for everybody. Having the Fingerbowl out there, and the Klezmers out there, and Galactic, it kind of paves the way for us. You can look at us like John the Baptist -- they're all going to go out and tell about us, then we're going to come along and whip 'em in the ass."

Formed in August of 1995, All That quickly emerged as a local club favorite. Packing clubs like the Mermaid Lounge and Café Brasil became so common for the band that they managed to land a slot at the 1996 Jazz Fest, before the band's one-year anniversary and without cutting a record, a feat any band would be hard-pressed to match. But things came together so easily for All That the members feel like it was all destined to happen. Historically, Rogan and Joseph first played the same venue in 1978, so the match seemed more blind fate than a conscious choice.

"We realized we both played the Jazz Fest the same year," Rogan recalls. "Kirk was a senior at Fortier High and I was in the McDonough Elementary School band when Walter Payton was director. So we both come out of the New Orleans tradition -- I used to have jazz funerals march by my house. When I was in high school I was more into punk, but when I left the city for school in Portland I realized, 'Oh my God, the rest of the planet sucks,' so then I got really into New Orleans music."

"This band is something I've always wanted to do, even before Davis and I got together," Jospeh says. "When I was with the Dozen I wanted to do this. Maybe not to this degree with the hip-hop and the rap, but definitely with the funk. After we got Kevin and Alex [drummer Kevin O'Day and guitarist Alex McMurray, now of Royal Fingerbowl] and all the horns together, I heard it, I could tell this was gonna go somewhere. Not from what I thought of it, but from what I heard. I know it's going to work, it's just a matter of time."

The band is currently in the studio cutting tracks for what they hope will become their debut record. Attracting label interest has so far proved a problem for All That, but is not one they feel is insurmountable.

"We went through a We're Going To Land A Deal Period, and then through a Fuck It, Let's Do It Ourselves period, but between that was the idea that we may be able to line up a little something," Rogan explains. "We're going to make a really nice tape in the next few weeks and send it to some important people, and kind of say, 'This is your last chance to shower us with your money and affection before we go and do this on our own.'"

All That are confident their live sound -- the horn attack, bubbling bottom, Wurlitzer/Clavinet/organ and hip-hop raps -- is enough to sustain the band and attract new fans until the record happens. And given the currently thriving interest in New Orleans music, the band is likely to find crowds wherever their travels take them.

"What we have isn't a three-piece horn section, what we have is a brass band front line," Rogan says of All That's sound. "This confused a lot of people when they came to see us, 'cause they didn't know who the front man is. Wolf, our trombone player, is a natural front man -- his contribution to the whole brass band history is as heavy as Kirk's, he came in and did all the arrangements for the ReBirth -- so Wolf goes crazy, then Brice [Miller] plays some trumpet, then raps, then he goes crazy. The idea is, they're across the front and contributing to the voice of the band on a different level than a horn section.

"We went on a little mini-tour of the Pacific Northwest. I'm from here, but I went to Reed College in Portland, Oregon. In an attempt to prove than not all alumni are not necessarily losers or geeks, they flew our whole band out there, at great expensive. Those were some great shows. One portion of what I can see of our core audience is sort of what you would call those hippie-jam kids, because in a live situation we're an energy band. When we start going -- you can call us a jazz band, a funk band, or a brass band -- but when we're rolling, we rock, we're pure energy. So these kids with their funny little glass pipes and long hair, they all showed up out there and they really loved us. I could see us raging on the H.O.R.D.E. tour."

Whatever the future of All That is, the ride is sure to be fun for the band and their fans. When this much talent and knowledge comes together as naturally as it has, and spawned something as new as All That is, good things are bound to happen.

"I've got super monstrous people who have always wanted to work with us, people like Tim Green, Herlin Riley, Willie Green, who come to see us and say, 'Man, I just love the shit out of this band and I'd really love to get with y'all,'" says Rogan. "We're on a roll, we're putting it together so [labels] can either -- it's not so much jump on the boat -- they can finance the boat or not, but the boat is definitely leaving. It's kind of like a rocket ship, leaving the atmosphere and we're rattling and it's gonna hit the atmosphere and it's either gonna break though, or the explosion is gonna be real pretty."

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