Hailing from Benin, Africa, the Gangbé Brass Band provides vivid evidence of the mutability and vitality of the brass band ensemble. Over the past 25 years, we’ve seen a reinvention of the brass tradition here in New Orleans at the hands of practitioners like the Dirty Dozen, Rebirth, and Soul Rebels brass bands. In each case, the bands extended the continuum by incorporating material and approaches culled from their own life experience to create organic music brimming with energy. Anyone who’s heard recordings of brass bands from India and Africa can tell you that those regions have unique brass traditions of their own — the Indian groups are often microtonal, so they sound like they’re moving around you (even on record), while the African groups percolate with rhythmic complexity. And so it goes with Gangbé¢. From the first note of Whendo, it’s clear you’re in the hands of an expert festival band. Proud trumpet fanfares, infectious chants, and danceable grooves abound. Rhythmically, they square the difference between Afro-Cuban mambo and Fela Kuti’s ferocious Nigerian beats, even giving Kuti an official nod on the standout track “Remember Fela.” Needless to say they’re a can’t-miss live act, and Whendo will get you primed.