You might attract more saxophone players if you spell it right, but I think the only reeds you need for that is one clarinet. Bass drum, snare, tuba, trombone, couple trumpets.treddle wrote: I had thought about a New Orleans dixie ensemble, but doesnt that require saxaphones?
Just say New Orleans jazz and don't mention dixie, and the saxes might be into it after all. I play in a local band that appears on the street occasionally. We do a couple NO type tunes - Second Line, Wild Tschopitoulas or something like that - and they're extremely fun for the saxes. A saxophone or two can take a lot of the load off the front brass, who will burn out faster if they have to carry the tune all the time. Second Line should be easy to find on a recording or something and learn, not sure WT is as well known. Instrumentation just depends on who shows up.
We also get a lot of mileage out of a couple of church hymns. We know them with names and words from the IWW (Wobbly) song book, but I think it's something like "Sweet Bye & Bye", "Revive Us Again". With the right attitude, you can really stomp out on just about anything, I guess, but it's a lot more likely to work when the music is familiar. Some of the people who show up for our band basically don't have to worry, they know everything -- once out of the blue we started playing Charles Mingus' "Fables of Faubus", no kidding -- but the whole band gets a lot more together with the simple stuff.
Needless to say, it helps if everyone can play by ear and take a part suited to their instrument. The result will be disorderly and ragged, but more fun.
