The Soul Rebels find themselves at home in any venue
24th June 2019 · 0 Comments
By Geraldine Wyckoff
Contributing Writer
The Soul Rebels have recently performed in Colorado’s Red Rocks amphitheater, at the notorious Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival and just last week celebrated the Juneteenth holiday at Houston’s Miller Outdoor Theater. Yet, when in New Orleans, this hometown band, which has gained a reputation for collaborating with a wealth of renowned, national artists, continues to play smaller venues like its standing Thursday night gig at Magazine Street’s Le Bon Temps Roule and this Saturday night’s show at Frenchmen Street’s wonderfully intimate d.b.a.
“First it’s a love,” declares snare drummer and leader Lumar Leblanc of the Rebels maintaining club dates in the city. “We’re from New Orleans. It’s a passion thing there. At d.b.a., the Bon Temps or the Blue Nile where the people are all on you, the audience and you are together making it happen. You feel the spirit of the people.”
“It’s a whole different dynamic,” Leblanc continues describing how the Rebels approach a performance at a club versus an arena or festival. “A big stage show puts you more in the mode of a theater act for the audience and it can’t have the same looseness (as a club). You have to give a highly choreographed, precise performance. It takes a lot of work. The physicality is hard – the hours of practice, the exactness.”
A super big event for the Soul Rebels and, for that matter, New Orleans, is that the band will be joining keyboardist/vocalist Ivan Neville’s down the trash bin group, Dumpstaphunk, to open for the legendary Rolling Stones when the iconic band headlines at the Superdome on Sunday, July 14.
“We’re so honored to be playing in the Dome with the Rolling Stones,” says an obviously thrilled Leblanc. “It’s a another monumental chapter in a dream-filled journey that I’ve been on in music.” He adds that his magical, musical tour initially became a reality when, as a member of the Young Olympia Brass Band, he had the opportunity to play with and be mentored by such New Orleans greats as saxophon-ist/bandleader Harold Dejan, trumpeter Milton Batiste, Anthony “Tuba Fats” Lucen and so many other keepers of New Orleans jazz and brass band traditions. “This is just the icing on the cake and another chapter in that journey that we’re proud of.”
Leblanc could hardly have imagined back in 1994 when he saw the Rolling Stones perform as part of the band’s Voodoo Lounge tour that one day the Soul Rebels would appear on the same stage as the rock ‘n roll legends. “Who would have thought that almost 30 years later, I would be opening for them?”
Leblanc and bass drummer Derrick Moss remain the only original members of the Soul Rebels. Both received their early training as members of Dejan’s Young Olympia Brass Band before being inspired by the innovative sounds of the Dirty Dozen and Rebirth Brass Band to form, in 1991, the hot, new Soul Rebels Brass Band.
“When the Dirty Dozen and Rebirth kind of took over the torch from Dejan’s Olympia Brass Band on the streets it got into the ears of youngsters like myself,” Leblanc says of the transition.
Notably, the members in the current edition of the Soul Rebels boast the musically important combination of street creds, marching band experience and furthered music education.
“Yeah, we all went to college and we really pride ourselves in our marching band history and (credit) those great patriarchs from the era,” says Leblanc mentioning band directors from St. Augustine, McDonogh 35 and Kennedy high schools in particular.
“What it brings is a certain authenticity and exactness to the music that we are afforded from the two worlds – brass band’s improvisation and marching band’s regimentation,” adds Leblanc pointing out Beyonce’s use and thus recognition of the historic nature of college marching bands at her Coachella concert.
That brings us to the immediate future with a fully-packed show on Thursday, July 4 at the Republic that features the Soul Rebels sharing a bill with Big Freedia and Mannie Fresh that is a part of the Essence After Dark series.
“The After Dark shows have really been gaining a lot of ground,” Leblanc observes. “You remember years ago when the night shows at Jazz Fest were so big? Essence is trying to create that same magic. A lot of the people who come to New Orleans want to experience the authentic vibe of the city.”
The Soul Rebels have both benefited from and enjoyed all of their many collaborations with Leblanc, giving a shout out to hip-hop artists Nas and Talib Kweli.
“With the rappers, it’s fun because hip-hop is usually just the deejay and the rappers – turntables and no band,” Leblanc says. “Over the years, people like LL Cool J have incorporated a live band because you can’t emulate the energy that transpires from one human to another and the rappers want to have the same spirit.”
That spirit comes easily when the Rebels hook up with their fellow New Orleanians as they recently did when the group appeared with pianist, vocalist and Stay Human bandleader Jon Batiste on “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.”
“Oh Lord, that was so much fun, child,” Leblanc exclaims. “I used to play with Jon’s uncles (keyboardist) David Batiste and (drummer) Russell Batiste, who were some of my best friends at St. Aug’s and Jon has that same infectious energy. It was like a party when we got there. New Orleans musicians can blurt out anything and expect you to know the tunes. You automatically pick it up because we have that New Orleans repertoire in our heads. We just grooved and grooved.
“You gotta love what you do.”
This article originally published in the June 24, 2019 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.
