Brass Messengers

The best way to describe the Brass Messengers is through a litany of basic facts -- they're a brass band, there's eleven of them, and you can see them playing around town at a number of events ranging from political gatherings to theater productions. Once you get into the attempts to describe their music in genre terms, then things get tangled: their music leaps across eras and continents, prying out the lines from between Eastern European and Romany music to fit in Latin, highlife and Americana. It's a joyous sound, and the only downside to confining it inside four walls is the fact that they're often best heard walking down the middle of the street.
Fri., July 20, 8 p.m., 2012