Preservation Hall Jazz Band - Preservation Brass: For Fat Man

BOOM.

It’s the first thing you hear, the first thing you notice. A bass drum strike so hard and heavy, its sound carries for blocks. In fact, you probably feel it before you actually hear it. 

BOOM BOOM.

A bottom-end so deep, it lets everyone know: the band is on its way.

BOOM BOOM BOOM

And before you can even see ‘em, you can hear ‘em, clearing the way: angel trumpets, devil trombones, rat-a-tat snares, pulsing tubas, and at the center of it all, the anchor, the rock, the gravity that keeps it all from spinning out and flying off into space, the bass drum. The steady beat that lays the foundation for every feat the brass band can accomplish. The beat that sets the slow and reverential pace for a walk of remembrance towards the cemetery. The beat that dictates the rhythm of the joyous dance on the corner. The beat that puts butts in motion. That bass drum beat is the heartbeat of New Orleans, the organ that pushes the blood through the arteries and veins of our city streets, and the biggest and strongest heart was Kerry “Fat Man” Hunter. When the bass drum was strapped over his shoulders and the mallets were in his hands, he let ‘em know–loud, proud and undeniable was his style, and it’s that style that’s at the heart of For Fat Man, the new recording by the Preservation Hall Brass.

The album was guided from inception to completion by Preservation Hall cornet player Kevin Louis, He wanted to capture what was going on at the Hall on Monday nights, and from the beginning, Fat Man was key to the recording. 

Equal parts remembrance, document, and party, For Fat Man wasn’t meant to bear that title. Kerry’s untimely passing during Mardi Gras is sadly but irrevocably now a part of the story of this record, which began as a celebration of where the brass band tradition at Preservation Hall was at and where it’s going. And thank goodness, the story doesn’t end. Life, like any good brass band, keeps moving. This record is a joyous link in the chain that is the story of New Orleans and its music. It’s for the ancestors, for the culture, for the people in the street, for those that mourn and those that celebrate and everybody somewhere in between. This record is the sound of that chain, that heartbeat, that rhythm. That sweet and thunderous BOOM.

And it hits so hard that the Fat Man can probably hear it up in Heaven.