“We play everything,” states Tom Barber, who does duty as the group’s tuba player and arranges many of the group’s tunes, “from Baroque to Dixieland.” Previous library appearances by the quintet have featured holiday music. This time, Dixieland will be the order of the day.

 

“Traditionally, brass quintets consist of a tuba, two trumpets, a French horn and a trombone and are popular for the bold and distinctive way the five horns blend together,” says Barber. And because of that blending, Dixieland is a perfect format for a brass quintet. As the earliest recorded Jazz music, Dixieland is an early style that developed in New Orleans. The style combined earlier brass band marches, French Quadrilles, ragtime and blues.

 

The term Dixieland became widely used after the advent of the first million-selling hit records of the Original Dixieland Jazz Band in 1917. The music has been played continuously since the early part of the 20th century. The definitive Dixieland sound is created when one instrument (usually the trumpet) plays the melody or a recognizable paraphrase or variation on it, and the other instruments improvise around that melody.

 

This program is free and open to the public. For more information, please visit Deschutes Public Library at www.dpls.us or call 312-1032.