Grooving With the Southern Komfort Brass Band at @Underground119 in Jackson, Mississippi

When I saw that something called the Southern Komfort Brass Band was playing at Underground 119 in Jackson, Mississippi, I decided to drive down from Memphis to check them out, since I didn’t have a gig myself. I had no trouble finding a place to park in downtown Jackson near the venue, but I was in for a shock when I walked the block up to Underground 119, because I soon found that the place was already at capacity and was only admitting people as others left. I began to fear that I had driven all the way to Jackson for nothing, but eventually a group of about five people came up the stairs and left, and I was able to get inside. The venue was in a basement underneath an art gallery on President Street, and was packed with people beyond belief. There were no chairs available, and I could only stand, which, in fact was better because the standing area was directly in front of the stage where the band was playing. The Southern Komfort band was founded in 2010, and is apparently a mixture of native Jacksonians and some displaced New Orleanians who settled in Jackson permanently after Hurricane Katrina. Like the better known New Orleans bands, they take the youthful, hip-hop street approach that sets the current generation of brass bands apart from the older New Orleans jazz tradition. New Orleans brass band standards, Marvin Gaye tunes, Isley Brothers songs, even Z. Z. Hill’s “Down Home Blues” and R. L. Burnside’s “Coal Black Mattie” were transformed by the band’s Caribbean-like percussion rhythms into music that packed the dance floor. Stopping only for a couple of breaks, the band finally ended their final set at 1 AM, and I was sorry to see it come to an end.