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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Entertainment
Isa Jaward

The Hot 8 Brass band: On the Spot review – sharp-edged New Orleans jazz

The Hot 8 Brass Band
‘Spirits are high’: the Hot 8 Brass Band. Photograph: Tru Thoughts

Led by sousaphone player Bennie Pete, this Grammy-nominated group deliver the authentic sound of New Orleans parades on their fifth album. Best known for reworks of such classics as Marvin Gaye’s Sexual Healin g, Hot 8 perform several more electrifying covers, including Stevie Wonder’s That Girl and Sade’s Sweetest Taboo, alongside original tracks. Spirits are high as band members laugh, call and whistle to each other over piercingly high trumpet refrains, jagged saxophone solos and jaunty percussion on Get It How You Live. The mood softens on the slow, woozy St James Infirmary. A triumphant return to the studio, brimming with raucous, sharp-edged attitude.

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