I’m not sure if the brass parts qualify as awesome, but I think they’re great (also, a pretty cool video):
I misremembered the Heats on and thus wasn’t able to find this amazing band’s version of it. To my ear, these two tunes have a similar feel.
Notice the trumpets!
Fela Kuti
Irakere
I’ll Play the Blues for You- Albert King
Hey Brother- Beulah
Bye Bye Life, the finale from the movie All that Jazz has a spectacular horn part near the end.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bNcl0L7eJUY
Eurythmics- Would I Lie To You?
‘Living In America’ by James Brown. Very good brass arrangement, neatly slotted into the vocal parts and adding plenty of musical ‘punctuation’ to the flow of the song.
Cheesy 80’s pop hits + 90’s Ska Brass = More than the sum of its parts!
Example 1
Reel Big Fish covering A-ha…
Example 2
Save Ferris covering Dexy’s Midnight Runners…
The last section of Respighi’s “Pines of Rome” (Pines of the Via Appia?) has fantastic brass orchestration. Picture a roman legion marching in from a distance…
In particular there’s a little song Prima wrote called “Sing Sing Sing.” And Sam Spence’s “The Lineman” is pretty cool.
It seems we’re not limiting this to brass instruments in the strictest sense (i.e., excluding sax).
If so, and we’re just talking awesome horn parts, I’d say the Budos Band has some pretty hot hornwork: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lqyXgFaf1-4 (excuse the lame travelogue video format)
Menahan Street Band’s “Going the Distance” opens with a nice Roman-style flourish at around :45, then at 1:30 turns into a bizarro-world version of “Gonna Fly Now (Rocky’s Theme)”: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eV2Xe4ZHQjs
Or maybe Mingus Big Band’s version of Haitian Fight Song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TSYBTlkhZuU