The Dirty Dozen Brass Band / Fanfaraï

A terrific start to the new season at The Arts Center – a high-octane double bill featuring two bands, both making their Gulf debuts, who really know how to deliver. The Dirty Dozen Brass Band (above) is the pioneering group that brought funk to traditional New Orleans jazz : the New Orleans-based Grammy Award winners blend traditional jazz and bebop with funk and R&B/soul – lots of energy, lots of musicality, and how can a band that includes both a tuba and a bass sax not deliver a good time all round? And Fanfaraï (below) is a kind of French/North African equivalent, a brass and percussion ensemble founded in 2005 and based in France with musicians from a variety of cultural backgrounds who merge Arab-Berber, Afro-Cuban, Latin, and jazz sounds with reggae and funk – and as the name indicates, there’s going to be a lot of brass and a real overlay of raï (their 2018 album Raï is not Dead says it like it is). This will be a great evening …