Osibisa!
Bo! - you just used up ten minutes of my life!
Here’s my revenge…
But…great call, and it raises an interesting question. Osibisa wre playing African music; the Bonzo’s were a weird one-off; Soft Machine were jazzy. The one other “horn” band I can think of right now is Kenny Ball And His Jazzmen. I’m wondering if, at that time in Britain, horns = jazz (for the most part). There wasn’t really a well-founded soul or funk tradition to draw on.
Just speculating…
j
Just thought of another example - The Bedrocks. But they came from a West Indian tradition.
j
Supertramp was heavy on Sax (John Anthony Halliwell), but they also toured with a horn section and featured them in some songs.
“used”?
.
Aye; they’re good, aren’t they? They’re still a band; 52 years running now!
Have Americans ever had an affection for the British tradition of brass bands?
They normally play classical music, not pop or jazz, but there’s a strong tradition in the north of England of working-class brass bands, originally associated with the coal mines.
See the movie Brassed Off (1996) with Ewan McGregor and Tara Fitzgerald - a wonderful movie, particularly if you like brass instruments.
Clip:
Traffic had Chris Wood who played sax and flute for the original line-up. Is that enough for the group to be considered a British horn band?
I, too, thought of Van Morrison, which led me to Georgie Fame and the Blue Flames:
Americans prefer marching bands.
I totally forgot AWB. My bad.
The thread started because I was listening to The Electric Flag’s A Long Time Comin’ and recalled how they specifically referred to themselves as “An American Music Band.” Of course, Chicago and BS&T were also quite popular in the late 60s and early 70s in the US. I can’t even begin to count the funk bands of that era.
According to wikipedia, it looks like the former :-
Well, then they should’ve started a British horn band called Additional Musicians.
Do Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass count?
The Blues Brothers had a number of successes, and they had a complete horn section.
Or are we talking a out some uniquely British type of band?
i think we’re talking about this sort of thing :-
(which i personally can’t stand)
Yes, totally different.
Historically, they emerged in the 19th century as community bands of amateurs, usually associated with specific villages, factories, and mines.
A strong tradition of amateur brass bands still continues today, and there is a National Brass Band Championship, with different ‘leagues’, and about 600 brass bands entering.
Probably the Grimethorpe Colliery Band is the most famous.
This got a lot of airplay in 1965.
I wonder if that’s where The Who stumbled upon that tune.
The Who Hall of the Mountain King
Thanks for going into detail. How are these different from typical high school bands? Just the fact that they keep playing when not in school? Most high school bands around here are almost all horns, woodwinds and percussion.
There is an American Brass Band association:
The only ‘brass’ band I can think of commercially in North America is Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass:
I can’t imagine why, that was an awful rendition.
I loved it in 1965, still enjoy it immensly.
BUT only to the halfway point after which the uninspired middle break and the ever-accelerating reprise indeed render it awful.