Heritage: A Brass Band Celebration Benefiting Trumpets NOT Guns
InthekNOwla.com announces Heritage: A Brass Band Celebration to commemorate the official 2012 re-launch of the InthekNOwla.com website and benefiting local cause Trumpets NOT Guns. Hosted by Treme actor, comedian, and native New Orleanian Tony Frederick, InthekNOwla invites you to come listen, dance, and enjoy the music of Hot 8 Brass Band, Free Agents Brass Band, The OriginalPinettes Brass Band, To Be Continued Brass Band, and Baby Boyz Brass Band under one roof in support of Trumpets NOT Guns with Definition DJ Chris Stylezproviding music between sets. Also, enjoy complimentary beer and cocktails courtesy of New Orleans' very own NOLA Brewing and Old New Orleans Rum.
Heritage: A Brass Band Celebration will take place on Friday, January 20, 2012. Doors open at 8:00pm with performances starting at 8:30pm at 12 Bar on Fulton St. (608 Fulton St.). Tickets are $12 in advance online and can be purchased at http://intheknowla.eventbrite.com/. Tickets will be $15 at the door. Tickets are limited, and advance purchase is highly recommended.
Join Bourbon Street the Band, Davi Jay from HBO’s TREME and trombone/vocalist extraordinaire Glen David Andrews as they welcome a star studded list of entertainment to the stage including some of New Orleans’s finest musicians with special guest appearances and performances from members of the cast of HBO’s TREME*. Stay tuned here for more details and special guest announcements.
Date: Dec 9th Doors: 10:00pm 10:00pm - TBA 11:15pm - Bourbon Street Band featuring Davi Jay and MANY Surprise guests!!
Tickets 15.00 in advance 20.00 at the door ALL proceeds benefit TNG
And that is a good start, it will buy 50 horns towards our goal of 300 in 2011. A shout out to all the special guests who made it a magical night of music, including Irvin Mayfield, Amanada Shaw, Jon Cleary, Ingrid Lucia, Kermit Ruffins, Davi Jay from HBO Treme, Chuck Perkins, The Pfister Sisters, Marlon Jordan, The Hurricane Brass Band from the Netherlands, The Baby Boyz Brass Band, the Warren Easton Brass Band, and the members of Glen David's band, Jermal Watson, Kyle Roussel, Calvin Johnson, Eric Gordon and Julie McKee.
Special Thanks to Silver Sponsors, Susan and Simon Mayne!
Thanks also to the great local chefs providing food for the VIP reception preceding the show, including Susan Spicer from Bayona and Mondo, Dan Esses from Three Muses, Thomas Woods from Maximo's Italian Grill, Mark Falgoust from Grand Isle, Roy Grillot from Grillot's Restaurant, Roland Adams from Marigny Brasserie, and Bob Arceneaux from the New Orleans Coffee Exchange. A BIG thank you to Tipitina's for all their help, and their donation.
You can still make a donation, just click on the button below.
Platinum level - $5000.00
-10 tickets to a future Glen David Andrews Show (excluding jazzfest)
-10 TNG t-shirts
-recognition on all future printed material
-recognition on website
-recognition on any future media coverage
Gold level - $2,500.00
-8 tickets to a future Glen David Andrews Show (excluding jazzfest)
-8 t-shirts
-logo on t-shirts
-recognition on all future printed material
-recognition on website
Silver Level - $1,000.00
-6 tickets to a future Glen David Andrews concert (excluding jazzfest)
-6 t-shirts
-recognition on all future printed material
-recognition on website
Bronze Level - $500.00
-4 tickets to a future Glen David Andrews Show,(excluding jazzfest)
-4 t-shirts
-recognition on website
If you are interested in being a TNG sponsor, please contact me at lgrillot@cox.net or 504-382-2476. Our mailing address is:
At 12, Glen David Andrews picked up the trombone. Rather than studying formally, he absorbed musical skills from neighbors such as "Frogman" Joseph, Harry Nance, Harold DeJean and other local heroes - "the cream of the crop," Andrews says. Soon he was playing for money alongside Tuba Fats in Jackson Square, in the middle of the French Quarter. He was recruited into a brass band led by his younger cousin, Troy Andrews, and has since played in both the New Birth and Treme' brass bands, among others, lending equal measures of musicianship and showmanship to each.
"Aside from being a great musician, Glen David has absorbed a fading tradition," says Ben Jaffe, who runs Preservation Hall, where Andrews used to play regularly on Sunday nights. "He's a link for his generation to something important. But he also has a rare enthusiasm and energy that makes it all special and exciting for even casual listeners." Though most contemporary brass-band musicians have embraced the more funk and pop-oriented sound of say, the Rebirth band, a shift that began some 30 years ago, Andrews sticks mostly to the old hymns, spirituals and trad-jazz tunes. He has just released a live gospel CD, "Walking Through Heaven's Gate", on Threadhead Records, that is probably the first CD to have captured on record the entrancing quality of Andrews' performances at venues like Preservation Hall, the Mid City Lanes Rock 'n' Bowl or, most powerfully of all, on the streets.
Glen David Andrews assembles a new Jupiter trombone donated to a Warren Easton student by Trumpets Not Guns
Times Picayune / March 27, 2011 / Keith Spera
Glen David Andrews, the irrepressible trombonist and gospel/jazz vocalist and bandleader, showed up at Warren Easton Charter High School on Friday afternoon, ostensibly to deliver musical instruments.
The nonprofit Trumpets Not Guns, for which he is the celebrity spokesman, was handing over a trombone, French horn, clarinet and some tuners, the first wave of donations destined for Warren Easton.
But Glen being Glen, he could not resist regaling the 70 or so marching band members assembled in the school’s second-floor auditorium with an impromptu, extemporaneous discourse on life, achievement and keeping it real.
Circling students seated on folding chairs, he stressed that death does not discriminate, citing local rapper Magnolia Shorty and other victims of violence.
“I knew all them people personally,” he said. “They all fit in a box the same way.”
Those who die young are often forgotten. “I’d rather talk about you playing a bass drum,” Andrews said.
Overall, he’s impressed with the way Warren Easton students comport themselves. “I catch the streetcar a lot. I see how ya’ll are compared to those other schools.”
And while it’s OK to sustain a rivalry with the likes of McDonogh 35 and other schools on the football field, “you can’t have rivalry in neighborhoods.”
He noted that he’s never had a "real job"; he makes his living with his trombone. He’s performing 35 of the next 40 days, he said.
He hopes Trumpets Not Guns provides others with similar opportunities. The organization can trace its origins to the New Orleans Jazz Invitational, a charitable gymnastics tournament founded by Lisa and John Grillot at their Empire Gymnastics Academy.
Looking for a way to give back to the community, they hit upon the idea of buying instruments for students in need. Musical instruments, the thinking goes, are far more productive and positive to place in young people’s hands than, say, guns.
They soon crossed paths with Andrews, whose own story of deliverance from drugs and crime via a brass instrument spoke directly to that theme. He is now the face and mouthpiece of the organization, as the Grillots handle the actual organizing.
Eventually, Andrews arrived at the purpose of Friday’s event. He extracted a brand new Jupiter trombone from its case and wondered aloud if the school’s alarm system was functioning; the horn was so nice, he joked, he was tempted to steal it.
Instead, he blew a few riffs and invited students to do the same.
Unlike the Tipitina’s Foundation, which gives musical gear to schools, Trumpets Not Guns awards instruments directly to individual students, based on recommendations from band directors.
There is an element of “blind faith,” John Grillot said.
The organization gave Warren Easton a shipment of drum heads to keep its marching band rolling during Mardi Gras. In addition to the three horns unveiled Friday, additional instruments are to be purchased with proceeds from an April 16 fundraiser at Tipitina’s. By shopping for wholesale prices, Trumpets Not Guns can get more bang for its bucks.
Band director Asia Muhaimin noted that, as a charter school, Warren Easton does not receive as much public funding as some public schools. “These instruments are a huge help,” she said. “The band doesn’t have a lot of money.”
The support of Trumpets Not Guns, Muhaimin said, “will expand my vision for the program and these kids.”
The Warren Easton Brass Band, a subset of the marching band, is slated to join Cyril and Gaynielle Neville, Irvin Mayfield, Kermit Ruffins, Jon Cleary, Andrews and many more at the April 16 benefit concert at Tipitina's. The brass band will play second-line music, a young musician said Friday. “I hope it’s good," Andrews replied. "That’s my background.”
He promised to help supply whatever the students needed. “This is the beginning. I don’t have money, but I have friends with money.”
When one boy piped up that they could use seven (very expensive) tubas, Andrews suggested they “come up with a car wash, and my band will come play. I’m trying to help you help yourselves.”
Children shooting children, people too scared to second line and innocent toddlers losing their lives -- that's not the New Orleans he thought he knew.
So on a recent Wednesday afternoon, Andrews, 30, shared his frustrations and concerns with band members at Warren Easton Charter High School.
He told the students that he was launching a new organization, Trumpets Not Guns, and shared with them his desire to work with the younger generation to take back the city's often violent streets.
The new organization, which Andrews founded with John and Lisa Grillot, plans to collect, refurbish and distribute at least 300 instruments to New Orleans students next year.
Change, Andrews told the students, can only happen when you examine past mistakes and use them as learning opportunities.
"I am here today because I care about you, " said Andrews, who sported sunglasses and wore pressed jeans and an eggplant-colored velvet jacket. "I want y'all to pay attention because I am excited to see you and I am not going to b.s. y'all.
"I am here to tell you where I came from."
Andrews said he was a rebellious, angry high school student.
"I went to school one day carrying a gun because I was tired. I was tired of running through St. Bernard Projects every day like I was Reggie Bush because I was a nerd, " he said. "I let some stupid punks make me feel bad for being smarter than them. Don't do that. Don't let no one tell you that you're a nerd or a geek and feel bad about it."
Andrews was eventually arrested and sent to jail for carrying a weapon to school. He spent time in prison and soon after developed an addiction to marijuana and later heroin.
He told the students that marijuana, no matter what anyone tells them, will lead to bad things.
"I loved the weed. Y'all don't want me to lie to you, " Andrews said. "It got me. Don't tell me you going to smoke weed and not smoke crack, because it'll happen. Weed is a purgatory to a million evil things."
Though drugs were always his impediment, music never failed to be his salvation.
"This here, this is life. This is the ticket to seeing the world. You give it your time and it will take you anywhere -- if you let it, " he said as he held up his trumpet and looked at it like a dear friend right before he ticked off a list of nearly two dozen countries where he has performed.
After fighting drug addiction for years, Andrews found inspiration in the form of local civil rights lawyer Mary Howell who told him, "Glen, you can be something."
"Y'all know Mrs. Howell is an attorney, the one you see portrayed on 'Treme, ' '' said Andrews, who also appears on the HBO series. "She's a lady who fights for people like us, and she helped me get my life right."
Andrews said he has faith in each of the students the way Howell had faith in him.
"You can be whatever you want. I am here to tell you it ain't going to be easy, " he warned. "Not all of us are going to be rappers or football players, but you can damn well be a teacher or a musician. ... No, you may not open up for U2 overnight, but some day -- some day -- you might."
Fewer than 48 hours before he met with the students, Andrews himself became one of youngest musicians inducted into the Louisiana Music Hall of Fame as "Future Famers," which honors stars for the 21st Century.
Before leaving the class, Andrews played the "Treme" theme, written by John Boutte, and asked willing band members to join him in a second line.
Many of the students remained after class, to thank Andrews for sharing so candidly his life story and struggles.
"I love his honesty. He isn't coming in here pretending to be something he's not, " said ninth-grader Jasmine Batiste. "It was nice of him to take the time to talk us. He is right ... it's really dangerous out there."
Taiyana McCoy, an 11th-grader, said she knows firsthand the toll the city's violence can take on one's life.
Taiyana, who's father was murdered when she was a girl, shared with Andrews a poem titled "Bittersweet." She told him she hoped he could help her turn it into a song.
"It's getting worse every day, " Taiyana said. "My grandmother, she raised me saying this is the way the world is, but we don't have to act that way."
For some of the students, the opportunity to jam with a noted local musician was enough to elevate them.
Raymond Ellison, a senior, said he loved the fact that he got to play drums with Andrews. It's not a memory he'll soon forget.
"I felt like he walked in here and kept it real, " Raymond said. "He gave us tips on being better musicians, but he also gave us tips on how to survive."
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