Rebirth Brass Band & Slow Drag Productions, SDP Presents ReBirth ReVisited (Slow Drag Productions)

Rebirth Brass Band and Slow Drag Productions, SDP Presents ReBirth ReVisited (Slow Drag Productions)

You’ve never heard a Rebirth album like this one—although, to be fair, this isn’t really a Rebirth album. SDP Presents Rebirth Revisited is a collection of remixes from Rebirth tenor saxophonist Vincent Broussard, and when I say remixes I don’t mean that it’s a collection of greatest hits with kick drums and extra bass added in. The samples come from Rebirth’s 25th Anniversary, but the tracks Broussard makes with them are in the acid jazz/deep house tradition, and a couple of second line favorites have been rendered almost unrecognizable. There are two mixes of the all-time classic “Do Whatcha Wanna,” but in the second version it takes almost a minute until the famous horn riffs appear and recognition sets in. Horns throughout the album are processed while drums and percussion of all tones and textures weave in and out behind them. The result is more 6th Arrondissement of Paris than 6th Ward New Orleans (I’m thinking of the classic deep house albums Boulevard and Tourist by Saint Germain).

That doesn’t mean that this won’t sound great booming from porches and car trunks when the weather warms up; it absolutely will. Many before me have bemoaned the cliché of hastily-assembled electronica remix cash-ins, but this is 100 percent different. Broussard clearly put much love and attention into these productions, and he deftly pulls off what could have been a disaster in the hands of an outsider. He knows the Rebirth legacy inside, out and blindfolded, and as is often the case, it’s his mastery of the basic material that allows him to experimentally deconstruct and reassemble its pieces without sacrificing quality or the energy contained within the music’s core.