New Orleans Trombonist-Bandleader Glen David Andrews to Ring in the New at Club Helsinki on New Year’s Eve

(HUDSON, N.Y.) – If anyone knows how to get a crowd up and dancing through the change of the calendar, it’s Glen David Andrews, a true prince of New Orleans, whose hard-rocking style of New Orleans jazz, funk, gospel, and party music will ring out the old and ring in the new at Club Helsinki Hudson on Monday, December 31, 2012, beginning at 9pm. Andrews combines a voice and stage presence worthy of Louis Armstrong, updated for the hip-hop era. The club’s kitchen will be preparing a special New Orleans menu by its chef, Hugh Horner, himself an emigre from Treme.

As a young boy, whenever a second-line parade passed by, Glen David Andrews tagged along with his older brother, Derrick Tabb, who is now the snare drummer with the Rebirth Brass Band. Back then, Andrews played bass drum. At 12, he picked up the trombone. Rather than studying formally, he absorbed musical skills from neighbors such as “Frogman” Joseph, Harry Nance, Harold DeJean and other local heroes – “the cream of the crop,” Andrews says. Soon he was playing for money alongside Tuba Fats in Jackson Square, in the middle of the French Quarter.

He was recruited into a brass band led by his younger cousin, Troy Andrews, and played in both the New Birth, Lil Rascals, and Tremé brass bands, among others, lending equal measures of musicianship and showmanship to each. Now he fronts his own high-powered ensemble that veers from traditional jazz to gospel, rock, blues and funk, all in the same show.

Andrews has appeared in HBO’s Treme, playing himself and performing his original tunes. He has also appeared in numerous documentaries, including Faubourg Tremé: The Untold Story of Black New Orleans, by Lolis Eric Elie, Swiss filmmaker Peter Entell’s chronicle of the controversial, post-Katrina proposed closing of St. Augustine Church, Shake the Devil Off, and Spike Lee’s two epics about Katrina, When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts, and If Da Creek Don’t Rise.

For reservations in The Restaurant or in the club call 518.828.4800

 

 

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.