Big Bad Brass Bonanza: Cocek! Brass Band and Dingonek Street Band

Description

"Half serious as a heart attack and half hilarious with enough singular clevernesses to provoke a college course in the study of them" - Mark Tucker, FAME

The music of Cocek! Brass Band is influenced by Eastern-European and New Orleans dance songs, Afrobeat, Klezmer and elements of reggae and Western classical pieces. Bandleader Sam Dechenne started the ensemble in the Winter of 2014 and composes all the music for the band. Dance music for those seeking something new and unique, contemplative Old World melodies that hark to a lost era and catchy riffs that will have you singing along and tapping your foot all night long.

They've released two full length albums and in 2018 put out a new single every month, each one featuring a guest artist from across the country. Painters, instrumentalists, designers, cartoonists, singers and electronic producers were each featured throughout the year in this one of a kind project. In performance spaces ranging from hollowed out warehouses and arts spaces in Boston to the Kennedy Center in D.C., The Burlington Discover Jazz Festival, WorldFest in Louisville, KY and the 11th Annual NY Gypsy Music Festival, Cocek! can be found sprinkling their Phrygian magic dust on audience members all over the world.

Simply put..."a party you don't want to miss!"


Dingonek Street Band BIO

Dingonek Street Band is a Brooklyn-based brass band dedicated to human culture and sonic adventure. Built on the celebratory energy and raw spontaneity of the second-line brass band tradition, Dingonek has developed a cerebral, high-energy party music all its own by absorbing and reworking elements of Afrobeat, Ethio-jazz, Post-bop, Free Jazz, and Balkan brass music. The band's debut album, Primal Economics, was released in January 2018 on Accurate Records.

Dingonek Street Band began in Boston in 2013 with an extended Monday night residency at the legendary Middle East Nightclub. Originally "Bobby Spellman's Underground Society Band," the group experimented by combining disparate styles of music into new compositions, working out brass arrangements of rock and pop hits, and reworking trad-jazz and post-bop standards. Throughout this time and in the years to follow, the group's front line in various iterations would serve in the horn sections of Afrobeat groups including Big Mean Sound Machine, reggae groups including Giant Panda Guerilla Dub Squad, and in legendary Motown acts the Temptations and the Four Tops, all the while pursuing various projects in jazz and free improvisation.

In 2015 the group relocated its main headquarters to Brooklyn and worked to further hone the Dingonek sound by embracing the funkiest elements of their diverse repertoire. Expanding the group and adopting their new identity, Dingonek Street Band went into the studio to capture the essence of the music they had developed, resulting in the eight-song LP Primal Economics. Equally at home at rock clubs, jazz clubs, or performing in the streets, Dingonek Street Band is currently bringing their eclectic sound to cities across the Northeast US and beyond.