Benin Brass Band

When Benin's Gangbe Brass Band starts playing, it's impossible to stay in your seat. The merry sounds of tubas, trumpets and trombones swoop and dart through the air like drunken hummingbirds, while the drums lay down a foundation of percolating percussion that puts heart, soul and feet in motion. The rhythms sound familiar: echoes of Nigeria's juju, Cuba's son and Trinidad's calypso float through the mix. The cheery horn lines bring to mind circuses, carnivals and New Orleans second-line rumba -- it's all a giddy mixture of Africa, Europe and the United States.

As anomalous as the idea of an African brass band may sound to many in the West, Gangbe's music and style has deep roots.

“The French colonials brought horns to Africa more than 100 years ago," says Athanase Dehoumon, the band's bugler, speaking by phone through translator Genevieve Bruyndonckx. The band was in Doische, Belgium, at the headquarters of its European label, Contre-Jour, preparing for the tour that will bring the musicians to the Great American Music Hall on Wednesday. “The fathers of our trombone player and trumpet players were in the French army and learned to play (European marching band) music," Dehoumon says. “Some of the people who learned that style started playing horns at traditional ceremonies and festivals. When we started Gangbe (the translation is “sound of metal"), our first objective was to play jazz music from around the world with acoustic instruments. At the beginning, we played the music of Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, Louis Armstrong and, of course, Fela (Anikulapo Kuti, the Afro-beat innovator who combined American soul music with Nigerian rhythms), who we admired for his music and political feelings."

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