Over Jazz Fest, I got to thinking about the increased prevalence of adrenaline in contemporary New Orleans music, particularly the brass department. Bullish young bands, trombonist dynamos, trumpeters who rap—they crackle in rhythm with the new generation’s manic attention span. Every era deserves its own sound but, I wondered, where’s that lowdown growl and shuffle, the Big Easy sweetness
and the strut? On his latest release, James Andrews reminds us where we’ve got our shoes.

Beginning with the third track, “Take a Little Trip,” the stellar horn section (the album boasts Keith “Wolf” Anderson, Craig Klein, Morgan Price and a host of true pros) parades behind Andrews’ trumpet and vocals across the ever fertile ground between trad and funk. “Night Life” takes us into Curtis Mayfield territory. Anyone who stays out late knows Andrews speaks from experience, and the song’s Cuban accents make it the album’s standout.

Impressive as the instrumentation is, the lyrics could be stronger. In that energy drink world, words are usually manifestations of “Somebody scream!” Atop The Big Time Stuff’s layers of brass, Andrews keeps it simple to varying degrees of success. Cash cow though it would be, a Jazz Fest anthem will never work because, for the most part, music about music is much duller than the original experience.

Still, the band is the thing. “Bet You a Dollar” lays out the Canal Street hustler jokes we all know, but the blues are so thick, the cymbals so crunk, that the punch lines sound cocky but not cliché. On “Mr. Boss Man,” svelte horn arrangement shows how precision and planning can move just as many asses as chaos.

Monk Boudreaux leads us out on the final track, a sun-baked second line that disappears around the corner. Though we’ve sped up considerably as a city these last five-plus years, Andrews plays to our internal clock, which wakes us up late, deposits us in sluggish afternoons and ticks on into the wee-hours, when anything can happen if you have time to listen.