Never a Dull Moment is a documentary on the Rebirth Brass Band, but it’s little more than that. It tells the story of the band from its inception at Joseph Clark High School, through its growth periods at Treme bars as teenagers, to the band becoming a local institution. It should be a really good story, with teenagers almost immediately immersed in the adult nightclub world, complete with the inevitable tensions that accompany bands with a lot of members becoming successful. Unfortunately, the movie is little more than a celebration of the band, conveying little of the life and drama that surrounded the band’s evolution.

Sadly, filmmaker Charlie Brown is almost visually illiterate, shooting Kermit Ruffins in Joe’s Cozy Corner with the shadow of his trumpet crossing his face in almost every shot. Jerry Brock was shot at night with so little light that he might as well be an FBI informant. Keith “Wolf” Anderson was interviewed in front of St. Louis Cathedral on, from the looks of things, a disposable digital camera with the attendant crappy sound. Brown tends to shoot down on seated subjects, making them all seem small; only Rounder Records’ Scott Billington escapes this fate, and that’s because he’s seated at a desk in front of a nature mural that makes him seem like a benign version of Twin Peaks’ Benjamin Horne.

Fortunately, the music and live footage make everything better, and no amount of inept work can obscure the band’s wild power and groove. Rebirth’s loose, exuberant ensemble playing has been adopted by most of the next-generation brass bands, but it still sounds fresh here. It’s a shame Never a Dull Moment isn’t the tribute the band deserves.