In New Orleans jazz, there are the mega-standards, tunes such as “St. James Infirmary,” “When the Saints Go Marching In,” “Do You Know What it Means,” “Bourbon Street Parade” and “Basin Street Blues.” Even the most jaded trad group will usually toss one on each of their records, if only to give it that extra bit of commercial zazz. When an album includes every single one of these tunes, something’s up.

This is not the only red flag on the Washington, D.C.-based Beltway Brass Quintet’s From the Streets of New Orleans. The front cover features a postcard-ready photo of a French Quarter wrought-iron balcony, while the rear has a “Rue Bourbon” lamppost silhouetted against a blue sky. “The Old Rugged Cross” is typical of the BBQ’s style. The tuba intones the melody once against a polite, military-chorale style accompaniment. Then the oom-pah bassline comes in, the trumpet picks up the tune in a higher register, and the other horns play a neat and tidy syncopated accompaniment. And—that’s it.

The problem is that the complexity of New Orleans jazz is not found on the printed page. It’s in the nuance of the interpretation, in the contrapuntal chaos of simultaneous soloing. The group’s general failure to fit the idiom only serves to make the occasional trumpet growl or bluesy trombone riff sound painfully forced.

I could be convinced to lay off a little if they’d change the packaging—or perhaps just the title, with its pretense of authenticity. The music on this record is unlike anything I’ve ever heard on the streets of New Orleans (where the french horn does not have a big presence). If you’re reading this review, though, you probably live here, and thus are not in the Beltway Quintet’s target audience.