Henley Douglas, Jr. of The Boston Horns belting it out. Photo by Tom Uellner
If you love hearing great horn sections like I do, this month is heaven for you. Some amazing performances are happening all over the city, indoors and out.
The Boston Horns celebrate 10 years of grooving with shows in Salem and Johnny D’s in Somerville’s Davis Square. Los Sugar Kings, with horns in tow, bring a little bit of Havana to Salem. Bonerama take over Wednesdays at Johnny D’s. HonkFest invades Davis Square and Harvard Square and there’s even more!
Boston Horns FRIDAY at Salem’s Knights of Columbus Hall. It’s their 10th anniversary party. Tix at the door or go to their website for advance purchase. This will probably sell out, so you might be wise to buy now. Special guests, great opening sets from Eric Reardon and a Gospel Choir. SATURDAY BoHo hits Johnny D’s for another celebration of the music.
If you’ve never caught BoHo, you should. They write some of the funkiest horn-driven music around. If they didn’t write a tune, they sure ain’t just covering it either. Everything gets Boho’d, from Jimi Hendrix to the Funky Meters. The Boston Horns are pure originality.
I have to say, 10 years ago the stars aligned for me. Winter of 1999 and a new, but great friend, Paul Wennik, took me out to the Rhumbline in Gloucester to catch a band called The Boston Horns — still one of my favorite bands ever. They blew me away that night. This was an early edition with Julie D on vocals with guitar, bass and drums. In fact, at the time, they had two backlines working different shows as they figured out the best fit.
That night, it was Ed Spargo on bass and Craig MacIntyre (now with Josh Groben) on drums. Afterwards, Paul introduced me to co-conspirators Henley Douglas Jr. and Garrett Souvlac and that definitely changed my life. Filled it with great music, introduced me to many of the friends I now spend time with every week, and turned me onto sick bands and players I’d never heard of.
I especially owe a lot to Henley. He talked me into heading to New Orleans for jazzfest (which I just keep going back for every year), got me out to see the likes of Karl Denson and Maceo Parker, and infused his amazing spirit into me and everyone around. A lot of my current adventures in and out of the area lead back to that night. All-nighers in NOLA, roadtripping to CT for P-Funk, two-busloads of funksters invading NYC, killer NYE celebrations….
The Horns have morphed over the years, but the core, Henley on sax, Garrett on trumpet and Jeff Buckridge on guitar remain – and all of the other members of the band have been great and continue to bring the music to the people everywhere. The current lineup is no exception with Pete McLean (SICK!) on drums, Dave Walker (CHILL) on bass, Squanch on trombone and Ben Zecker (SNAP) on keys. This week, they have a special guest vocalist too, Brenda Williams, who I’m told can belt it out. Go check out one of these shows!
