Funky Dawgz Brings New Orleans Music To The People At Frisbee Fest

If you’ve lived in New Orleans, or have stayed there for an extended period of time, it’s hard to forget the experience: the food, the smells, especially the music. Close to Mardi Gras, you find people who’ve tasted the Crescent City’s charms walking around all over Connecticut in a zombie-like state, hoping to hear a Rebirth Brass Band-style brass band somewhere — anywhere — locked into a second-line groove.

For those cursed souls, the Funky Dawgz Brass Band offers temporary benediction: The 10-piece, fully mobile NOLA-style ensemble gigs all over the state, and next appears at the Circles and Sounds Frisbee Festival in Bridgeport’s Seaside Park on Saturday, May 9.

The players in Funky Dawgz met as members of the UConn marching band and the basketball pep band, led by assistant director of bands Marvin McNeil. “He got a group of guys together and said, ‘Let’s try playing this music from New Orleans,'” said trumpeter Chris Chhoeun, “and it just stuck.”

Funky Dawgz started performing at small school fundraisers for the local community and campus events like Relay for Life. They soon took any gig they could find, anywhere in the state. “We entered a battle of the bands our first year in South Norwalk, and we won the damn thing,” Chhoeun said. “We got to open for the Village People that year at the Norwalk Oyster Festival, which is like the biggest thing we’d ever done at the time.” They also won 10 hours of time in a recording studio, which they used to record “No. 1,” a seven-song sampler that serves as their calling card.

It’s common at schools like Hartt or WestConn for campus groups to spin off into semi-professional ensembles, Chhoen said, but it’s rare at UConn. “It doesn’t happen often here,” he said. “As far as I know, our type of group: we’re really unique in that sense.” It’s also complicated explaining to listeners that they’re a NOLA-style brass band from Connecticut, but UConn’s name recognition comes in handy. “It gives us kind of an advantage, because everyone [in the country] knows UConn.”

The band consists of trumpeters Chhoen, Tyler Reese and Aaron Eaddy; saxophonists Colin Walters (alto) and Tommy Weeks (tenor); trombonists McNeill (the band’s founder) and Mike Marsters; sousaphone player Josh Murphy; and percussionists Steve Jack, Jon Singngam and Devon Farquharson. The sousaphone provides the bass, while the drummers aren’t tied down to a trap kit (one plays only snare, another only bass drum, and so on), which means they can roam as they play. “We can play at Arch Street Tavern or Black-eyed Sally’s, but we can also take it to the street, New Orleans-style,” Chhoen said. “We do that at a lot of festivals everywhere.”

The Funky Dawgz setlist contains the standard repertory numbers — “When the Saints Go Marching In,” “Do Whatcha Wanna” and so on — and some contemporary pop, “Katy Perry, or whatever’s big at the time,” Chhoen said, “a little pop, funk, New Orleans jazz. We try to add our own twist to the hits.” Their heroes, not surprisingly, are NOLA royalty: Rebirth, and the Preservation Hall Jazz Band, who gave them an opening slot last month at Ridgefield Playhouse. “Whenever there’s a true New Orleans act that comes to play in the Northeast, we do our best to link up with them and open for them.”

The Funky Dawgz recently performed at the Meriden Daffodil Festival. In addition to Circles and Sounds, they’ve got some high-profile shows coming up: the Mid-City Bayou Boogaloo Festival in New Orleans (May 16), Strangecreek Music Festival in Greenfield, Mass. (May 23) and opening for Dispatch at New York City’s fabled Madison Square Garden (July 10-11).

“You’ll see us everywhere,” Chhoen said. “Although we do have stage time, we like to do the second-line parade, where we march among the crowd. That’s something that’s very unique to us, because we’re not bound to amplifiers and the stage. We can just bring the music to the people.”

THE FUNKY DAWGZ BRASS BAND performs at the Circles and Sounds Frisbee Festival in Seaside Park, Bridgeport on Saturday, May 9. Gates open from 11:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. Tickets are $7-$15. Information: funkydawgzbrassband.com.