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Roll With It: Brass Bands in the Streets of New Orleans (Refiguring American Music)
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About Roll With It: Brass Bands In The Streets Of New
Product Description Roll With It is a firsthand account of the precarious lives of brass band musicians in New Orleans. These young men are celebrated as cultural icons for upholding the proud traditions of the jazz funeral and the second line parade, yet they remain subject to the perils of poverty, racial marginalization, and urban violence that characterize life for many black Americans. The gripping narrative follows members of the Rebirth, Soul Rebels, and Hot 8 brass bands from back street to backstage, before and after Hurricane Katrina, always in step with the tap of the snare drum, the thud of the bass drum, and the boom of the tuba. Review “ Roll With It, which includes striking black-and-white illustrations by New Orleans artist Willie Birch, is at once celebratory and saddening: a book of personal stories and a highly researched academic work.” -- Geraldine Wyckoff ― Offbeat “Fascinating. . . . The musicians' personal stories are interwoven with historical information, academic reflection, and personal experience, combining to form a highly original work that creates a vivid portrait both of this musical format and the noble but beleaguered city of New Orleans.” -- Florence Wetzel ― All About Jazz “As Sakakeeny makes clear, the story of the city’s brass bands is far more complex than music alone. Beyond its entertainment value, music serves as the ‘site where competing social, political, and economic vectors intersect.’ In many ways, these vectors serve as a microcosm for the problems within the city at large.” ― Kirkus Reviews “A notable work in that it’s the first critical project to chronicle New Orleans’ bombastic contemporary brass-band scene, the generation of musicians that grew up with century-old hymns in one ear and hip-hop in the other; also, and importantly, it’s a keen, social-justice-minded examination of the turbulent mix of race, economics, culture and tradition in which brass band culture is located.” -- Alison Fensterstock ― Times-Picayune “Sakakeeny offers detailed accounts of parades and the inner workings of the bands. The book offers a full picture of their lives and how the city’s cultural economy works on the factory end. Sakakeeny observes the way the city celebrates its culture and especially its musicians, but the book also exposes the way many of them survive on the same earnings as low-rung service industry workers. It’s an engaging look street-level look at the bands that so often are used to represent and symbolize the city.” -- Will Coviello ― Gambit " Roll With It is informative on many levels, detailing song structures, jazz history, neighborhood developments, and weaving information together through anecdote and research. It also poses a bigger question: If our city has economically benefitted from selling culture as a post-Katrina resource, are musicians getting what they deserve? Roll With It explores the answer.” -- Samuel Nelson ― Where Y'at? "Sakakeeny’s approach to the tensions between continuity in change in Roll With It: Brass Bands in the Streets of New Orleans, searches past academic theories, tapping many interviews and his own experiences with musicians. . . . Roll With It deserves a wide readership in the post-Katrina boom." -- Jason Berry ― New Orleans Magazine “In addition to chronicling groups including the Rebirth Brass Brand, Sakakeeny provides a revealing look at the daily lives of musicians. . . . Detailed profiles of individual musicians make for a captivating narrative, and the book is beautifully illustrated with artwork by New Orleans native Willie Birch.” -- Scott Barretta ― Clarion-Ledger “Fascinating. . . . The musicians' personal stories are interwoven with historical information, academic reflection, and personal experience, combining to form a highly original work that creates a vivid portrait both of this musical format and the noble but beleaguered city of New Orleans.” -- Florence Wetzel ―
