The Highline Ballroom Welcomes THE SOUL REBELS & FRIENDS, 10/19

Related: The Highline Ballroom, SOUL REBELS & FRIENDS, Live Music

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The Highline Ballroom, Live For Live Music, My Free Concert, and NolaFunk.com Present an epic CMJ party with undisputed kings of New Orleans brass, The Soul Rebels, collaborating alongside a special group of handpicked musicians who promise to turn this showcase into the must see event of the week.

Maceo Parker - sax legend from James Brown's band - will blow his horn as Moon Hooch tears the house down with their break beat grooves. Billy Martin of Medeski, Martin & Wood will rock the drums and American Royalty will bring the thunder. The evening will nourish your soul, with The Soul Rebels in the middle of it all. To complete the evening our kitchen and bar staff at Highline is cooking up a customized, soulful menu with food and drink specials straight out of New Orleans. Look out for all sorts of funky giveaways and contests offered by the Highline Ballroom and the great folks at LiveForMusic.com and MyFreeConcert.com.

Imagine blending the sounds of Mardi Gras funk, soul, R&B and pop so seamlessly it defies category. Now shrink that idea into an eight-piece brass ensemble, add a hip hop sensibility plus 100 years of New Orleans jazz tradition, and you get the New Orleans sound known as THE SOUL REBELS.

The Soul Rebels grew from their traditional New Orleans brass style out of the desire to play the music they heard on the radio, but with respect to the New Orleans brass band tradition. The band has gone from a local New Orleans favorite to live collaborations with Metallica, Green Day, Galactic, Trombone Shorty, Slick Rick and shows with Kanye West, Snoop Dogg, Seal, Cee Lo Green and Estelle.

In January of 2012, the band released its first international album, Unlock Your Mind, on Rounder Records. This new song-driven studio effort includes guest appearances by Cyril Neville, Trombone Shorty and Meters guitarist Leo Nocentelli. Since Hurricane Katrina, The Soul Rebels have been more successful than ever serving as an international ambassador of the New Orleans sound represented its hometown on television, appearing in the season finale of the HBO series Treme, Conan O’Brien, ESPN, NPR, BBC, NBC, and the Discovery Channel. The Soul Rebels continue charting new territory today, combining top notch musicianship and songs with grooves that celebrate life in the time-honored New Orleans style.

Topping off the list of collaborators is Maceo Parker: his name is synonymous with Funky Music, his pedigree impeccable; his band: the tightest little funk orchestra on earth. Everyone knows by now that he’s played with each and every leader of funk, his start with James Brown, which Maceo describes as "like being at University"; jumping aboard the Mothership with George Clinton; stretching out with Bootsy’s Rubber Band. He’s the living, breathing pulse that connects the history of Funk in one golden thread. The cipher that unravels dance music down to its core. “Everything’s coming up Maceo,” concluded DownBeat Magazine in a 1991 article at the beginning of Maceo Parker’s solo career. At the time Maceo was remembered by aficionados of funk music as sideman; appreciated mainly by those in the know. More than a decade and a half later Maceo Parker has been enjoying a blistering solo career. For the past sixteen years Maceo has been building a new funk empire, fresh and stylistically diverse. He navigates deftly between James Brown’s 1960’s soul and George Clinton’s 1970’s freaky funk while exploring mellower jazz and the grooves of hip-hop.

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