INNER CITY ALL STARS: Press

The Inner-City All Stars recorded their album Gotta Move On in three days, but getting their studio time was years in the making.

The front of the CD, released in January, includes this sentence in small print: Outstanding achievement is not the result of moderate effort.

The album makes a sturdy example of how this brass group bounces among the styles of jazz, funk, hip-hop and rap in its own family-friendly way.

The All-Stars, organized in 2002 and named “Best Band” this year by the Association for the Promotion of Campus Activities, performs not just at colleges but also high schools, elementary schools, military bases, festivals and as a support band for touring headliners.

They have played nearly 35 shows since February.

But once the recording support came along, in part through Lake Dallas producer Nichelson Entertainment, the group was finally able to spotlight itself on disc.

“It was pretty easy, because we had been playing those songs over three or four years,” said bandleader and manager Calvin Sexton, a 2003 graduate of the University of North Texas. “We just never had the opportunity to record them.”

The All-Stars has a fluctuating membership of six to eight. Aside from vocalist and trombone player Sexton, perhaps the most consistent member is David Seip on tuba and vocals, a member since 2006.

Seip explained that the other members join the band and then leave to work with other groups.

“It’s just a matter of what they are able to dedicate to us in terms of time,” Seip said.

When asked about how the group modulates their show song list, Sexton said they choose the best style that reflects where the show is, and Seip concurs, citing show length and audience demand.

“When we get called out to arts shows, they are usually longer, and they are wanting to hear everything,” Seip said. “For universities, they concentrate on hip-hop or a funk kind of party music. When we go to New Orleans, a lot of times, we play [the party music] because it sets us apart from the other brass bands that play in [traditional] style.”

There isn’t anything aggressive about the All Stars; in fact, they have been paired with Brave Combo.

“That’s partially by design and partially because that’s what we like to do,” Seip said. “We’re not a hard-core group. We’re very much about having a good time. But also, by design, we can go pretty much everywhere, play at a school, or at a show or at a club. People enjoy it, regardless of the situation.”

With the first album released, Seip said, he looks forward to the next. It may be a live concert recording, a style he admits is very close to what the band is about.

“That whole situation is what we’ve been doing for years now. We’re still a young group, relatively speaking. Every time we do something, things get a little more refined, a little closer to what we want to be in our heads,” he said. “And I think we get a little better vision of what we would like to do in the future. That’s what I like about being in the group.”

Inner City All Stars Really Are All Stars

This is the time for finding some extraordinary talent as summer festivals and events unfold and emerging artist take the stage to entertain. It is amazing how the energy of the crowd, the unbridled atmosphere of open air, and the boundless limits of sound create the best showcases imaginable.


Inner_City_All_Stars_-_Junkyard_shot




Inner City All Stars is just such a discovery. At a recent event in the Kansas City Crossroads art district, on a near perfect Friday evening, the Inner City All Stars brought an eclectic blend of rhythm, blues, disco, soul, Caribbean, and southern jazz to the stage after marching through the street like true New Orleans high steppers. It was an instant turn on for the crowd and the relationship between band and audience grew better with every passing moment thereafter.

Leader of the group is Calvin Sexton who has a super high energy personality and matching vocals and trombone. His positive vibes resonate and are carried out by the trumpets, saxaphones, guitars, keyboards and the never-to-be-forgotten tuba that is played by David Seip!

Other band members include Brandon Blouin on drums, Quinton Moore, Marvin Hollie on Guitar and Keyboards, Daniel Hardaway, Ira Basset on Trumpet, Deanthony McGee on Saxaphone, and just about everyone on vocals!

Even the stiff, who are quick to tell you that they just came to listen and not to participate, are up and dancing, heads bobbing, arms waving in quick order. But it’s no wonder. This emerging group is making some serious rounds and drawing a lot of attention everywhere they go.

The Inner City All Stars have shared some impressive stages with a lot of named acts, received a standing ovation at Live at the Apollo, and are becoming a “festival must book” on a lot of impressive arts and humanities organization lists.

You’ll want their DVD “Live at the Wildflower! Arts and Music Festival 2007”. Their CD sales were extremely brisk during the Kansas City event. The audience wanted to keep the music playing it appeared long after the Inner City All Stars concluded their act with a parting musical march down the same Kansas City street .

You can visit the Inner City All Stars website at http://innercityallstars.com for information on booking, and intriguing information on the groups leader and band members. This is one group you’ll definitely want to know a whole lot more about!

The Inner City All-Stars call themselves a "funk/jam brass band," and that they certainly are - though, as you might expect from a Denton-based musical group whose members mostly hail from UNT music programs, categorization can be a pretty tall order.

While contemplating the creation of Inner City, front man Calvin Sexton kept in mind the spirited, high-energy marching music of historically black colleges and universities he was exposed to during his Birmingham, AL youth. When he came to study at the University of North Texas in 1996 and fell under the spell of a wide variety of musical styles (including funk, jazz, and world music), the concept for Inner City began to take shape. For several financially-strapped years, Calvin left his studies behind and moved to California, playing backup and freelance with a variety of bands. In 2003 he returned to North Texas to complete his degree (in Music Performance) and formed the band soon after.

The Inner City gang lend a strikingly improvisational flair to everything they undertake musically, and this spontaneity comes through loud and clear on their debut CD, Gotta Move On. This is not meant to imply that the musicianship isn't tight, because it very much is: These guys lay down slick licks.

Their forte is rooted in a big, bold New 'Awlins brass sound - the kind you can only achieve by playing a lot of horns and playing them loudly. But they also explore a range of diverse sonic realms while remaining firmly entrenched in their selected instrumental lineup, in much the same way that Brave Combo (another eclectic Denton band) crosses over into areas where polka ordinarily fears to tread.

Here's a cut-by-cut impression of Gotta Move On:

"Gotta Move On" - setting the tone for the Inner City All-Stars, this intro piece is heavy on brass-fueled jazz energy - but a bit lackluster on the vocals

"Boogie on Reggae Woman" - hot stuff! A fresh take on the Stevie Wonder standard

"Samba de Kazuki" - if there's such a thing as Latin jazz, this be it

"Can't Get Over It" - near-Eastern overtones, with eerie echoing trumpet choruses

"You Know Nothing" - starts out with an ominous baritone horn dirge that makes you think Godzilla might be attacking the city, then slithers into a hip hop back beat; King CJB 3:16 does guest rap duties

"Inner City" - repeated horn proclamation; guest rap by Tim "Smooth" Brown

"Rompadon" - the party chatter background is left in the mix, lending an intimate, live feel to the proceedings

"I.G.T. - Party Mix" - funky, funky sax and trumpet riffs with teasing counterpoint vocals in an extended jam format

"Drakeford Incorporated" - saxophone jazz instrumental, with Jison Choi guesting on Fender Rhodes

"2 Bump" - a slow, contemplative intro quickly shifts to something pumped full of energy and hilariously booty-licious; shifts briefly into instrumental fifth before ending with a rapped reprise

BONUS: for those patient enough to wait out several minutes of dead air, there's a "Get Ready" surprise ending jam session

Production values are good, so cranking up the volume yields nothing but more music - and you'll want to crank this one, so you can share the virtuosity with the neighbors.

A couple of minor provisos: While vocals aren't often in the Inner City aural spotlight, where they do make an appearance they seem underplayed and downright atonal. Also, I'd like to hear what these guys could do with a full-length slow-jazz soundscape like the ones that make brief appearances in "2 Bump." Maybe they're saving those up for the next CD.

NOTE: there are at least two references to The Wizard of Oz on the musical program - see if you can spot them.

The Inner City All Stars ratcheted up the sweat factor at Gezellig with an eye-popping, butt-wrenching set of hybridized funk (they even busted out with a little impromptu "Rapper's Delight" while the tuba provided the funky bass line), wherein even the most wilting of wallflowers was moved to dance.

You. Will. Not. Stop. Dancing. The best part about living in the '00s is the different genres of music that smash like atoms, creating a brilliant flash of energy. Such is the genesis of the Inner City All Stars, who slam together old-school funk, New Orleans jazz, rap from back in the day and blaxploitation wah-wah rock into one big booty-shakin' jam. If your ass ain't movin' by the end of their set, you better see a preacher, cuz you got no soul.

Two Denton-based bands aim to get Brazos Nights concert-goers dancing

Thursday, June 01, 2006

By Carl Hoover

Tribune-Herald entertainment editor

The first and last Brazos Nights concert in June takes place Friday, and those attending may want to bring dancing shoes.

In past years, the city’s free Brazos Nights open-air concerts ran on Friday or Saturday nights in June, but a shift to a monthly schedule this year left only one Brazos Nights for the month.

Two Denton-based bands, both known for horn-heavy, danceable music, will provide the music this week.

Brave Combo, the world music/polkameisters who are a Brazos Nights standard and Westfest fixture, return, hot on the heels of news that only true Brave Combo fans can appreciate:

The band’s recording of the Chicken Dance will be the official version played at the Great American Chicken Dance on July 4 at Dell Diamond in Round Rock.

Organizers hope to break the world’s record for largest Chicken Dance — 72,000 dancers in Canfield, Ohio, in 1996 — to raise funds for Austin-area schools.

Some other Brave Combo news bites since their last Waco-area performance:

* The band’s latest CD release, Holidays, won favorable reviews and radio airplay, including such shows as the nationally syndicated “Dr. Demento Show.”

* The ensemble’s recording of “Jingle Bells” is featured in the background of the short film A Christmas Caper, found on the Madagascar DVD.

* Brave Combo made its symphonic pops debut with three Dallas-area orchestras in February, performing arrangements of 13 Brave Combo songs with the Arlington Symphony, the Garland Symphony Orchestra and Las Colinas Symphony Orchestra.

Who’d have thought a band formed by University of North Texas music grads who specialized in “nuclear polka” and other off-the-wall genre hybrids would last 27 years?

Never underestimate the staying power of the Chicken Dance.

Opening for Brave Combo is another Denton band with similar roots, but a fraction of the longevity.

Trombonist Calvin Sexton, a Birmingham, Ala., native who studied music at UNT, formed the Inner City All-Stars Brass Band in 2002 after several years playing with Lady Bo — Bo Diddley’s female guitarist — and with cruise ship house bands.

“I learned a whole lot about music from those experiences,” he said in a phone interview from his Denton home. “I learned about freeing myself from rules and regulations about music.”

So while horn-heavy rhythm-and-blues and funk music isn’t heard much on the radio these days, it still lives in the Inner City All-Stars Brass Band, to the dancing delight of their audiences.

Sexton, drummer Jon Hussui and tubaist David Seip form the ICASBB’s permanent core; rounding out tonight’s lineup are trumpeters Duane Hargis, Sam Harris and saxophonist Scott Sheldon.

The band adds players as needed and, as several players are school music teachers, its schedule picks up after school is out.

Sexton said the band’s name refers to the ethnic diversity found in urban environments. “We all meet in the inner city,” he said.

The band offers a wide-ranging blend of music: high-energy jazz, funk, rhythm-and-blues, Latin rhythms. “If you don’t like one song, you’ll probably like the next one,” he said.

Why Denton as its operational base? Sexton said the city has a pool of professional musicians that keep new ideas and sounds bubbling.

“It’s a great place to get inspired,” he said.

Not only do Brave Combo and the Inner City All-Stars hail from Denton, but so do the pop band Bowling For Soup and Grammy-winning vocalist Norah Jones, Sexton pointed out.

Like Brave Combo, the All-Stars pride themselves on getting audiences up on their feet — as they did when they opened a “Showtime at the Apollo Theatre” in New York a year ago with a rockin’, choreographed rendition of Stevie Wonder’s “Superstition.”

“Be ready to be excited and don’t be too shy to dance,” Sexton advised.

If you've ever been to Jazzfest in New Orleans, you know how loud and edgy brass bands can get. Dallas got a taste of that sound Thursday night at Jazz Under the Stars from the Inner City All Stars, a Denton-based group that put some serious Crescent City funk into Stevie Wonder's "Boogie On Reggae Woman." If you missed it, the All Stars play at 5 p.m. today at Denton's Juneteenth Celebration and June 23 at Club Dada.

The Gypsy Tea Room in historic Deep Elum was the place to be for some hot, funky jazz on a warm Texas night. Outside the club is a plaque remembering the great musician “Blind Lemon” Jefferson. Jefferson played his style of blues in Dallas many years ago, but there are still some fantastic sounds to be heard in the clubs of Deep Elum. On this night, the Tea Room was jammed with fans that wanted to move and be moved by some of the best brass this side of New Orleans. When The Inner City All-Stars Brass Band took the tiny Tea Room stage, the people were ready for a party. As the music grooved, even more people pushed their way toward the stage. Soon, it was hard to get any closer to the band. Everyone had to claim their spot and get ready to be dazzled. With two trumpets, two saxes, trombone, tuba, drums and percussion, the All-Stars had to take care with their on-stage gyrations. But even with the reduced space to strut, the band managed to show their chemistry, soul and big brass sound. Each of the musicians would find themselves in the solo limelight before the night was over, and each would do themselves proud as the band pounded out their high-energy tunes. Some of the featured material was the band’s own original compositions while other songs were classics from the 70s and 80s redone with an All-Star flare. On that warm night, the band lit up the room with songs like, “Flashlight,” (P-Funk at its best from the 70s). This extended version really got the crowd to dance and move to the beat. Caribbean vibes were also featured, which soothed and delighted the masses. One of the highlights of the evening was the medley including the classic hits, “Just the Two of Us” (Grover Washington, Jr.), “What You Won’t Do For Love” (Bobby Caldwell), and even a bit of the Bee Gee’s “Staying Alive.” The medley ended with a slower, soulful version of “Just the Two of Us” much to the delight of the faithful. The lively groove of the tuba and bass drum laid the foundation for the talented brass musicians. The show became a non-stop party, accompanied by the band’s movement and dancing on the stage. The All-Stars also grooved on “Superstition” (Stevie Wonder), and ended the gig with a rousing cover of Outkast’s “The Whole World” to thunderous applause. The Inner City All-Stars play highly energetic music that’s fun to listen to and requires crowd participation. The All-Stars’ show is not a spectator sport; you become part of the action. The sound was a mixture of hip-hop, soul and a whole lot of big brass jazz and funk. For a good time, call the Inner City All-Stars Brass Band.

I’ll be the first to admit that I have no basis of comparison regarding brass bands. At the same time, I know what sounds good. So I knew I was into something good when I heard the Inner City All-Stars tear ass through their five song EP. The Inner City All-Stars show considerable versatility, working within a wide variety of styles.
The EP kicks off with an impressive arrangement of Stevie Wonder’s “Tell Me Something Good,” and moving right into the Latin-tinged “Samba de Kazuki.” The EP then tackles an eastern flavor on “Can’t Get Over It,” with all the ferocious spirit of veteran funksters like the J.B.’s and the Isley Brothers. All of these disparate influences are filtered through the New Orleans brass band sound, with a little call and response thrown in for good measure. All in all, it makes for an incredibly enjoyable listening experience. Hearing this band recorded makes the mind reel at what the live experience might be like. There’s a party in your stereo, so shake it.

Inner City All stars performing with Los Super Vatos! Check out their website www.lossupervatos.com

It was worth seeing the band, Let by eager to please trombonist Calvin Sexton, apply its sound to hip - hop hits

Than's how you open up the Apollo Baby! Thats how you open it up!