LIGHT TRAFFIC

(Ladies this is for y’all, grab somebody.)

Chicago’s own Hypnotic Brass Ensemble is made of eight blood brothers (not just “brothers in the fight”, as Hudah, the eldest, is fond of saying on stage, brandishing his trumpet above his head) and a drummer. The eight horn players were raised in what was probably one of the most progressive and happening homes on the South Side of Chicago. Their father, visionary and jazz legend Phil Cohran, not only introduced them to their instruments at the tender ages of three, four or five years old, but also ran a vegetarian household steeped in the laws of astronomy and the seven principle of Kwaanza. Now in their mid to late twenties, the bros are poised to take over the world. With several tours abroad every year, and collabs with some of the industry’s finest (Mos Def, Erykah Badu, Tony Allen, Femi Kuti) you can tell the long hours of practice, since the days their trumpets and them were approximately the same size, have paid off. If you still live in an HBE-free household, I strongly suggest you run over to iTunes and fix that problem right quick.

Ever since meeting the brothers last October during Pop! Montreal, I’ve been writing, re-writing and re-re-writing a feature about their sound and story. I first started working on the piece for our News Reporting and Writing class, taught by Ottawa journalist Mark Bourrie. I later pitched some version of it to Irish papers and music mags (Hotpress and the like), as the band was scheduled to make a four-date appearance there in early December. Deadlines were tight and I never heard back. (Freelance Commandment #1: Embrace Rejection.) Then I finally (and rather shamefully) let what had become an overwrought mess of quotes, observations and tentative musical descriptions slip to the back burner. Where it has been simmering, largely unattended, since.

But as soon as I am able to put down the current hot topic of Victoria Avenue barbershops – a profile I am writing for Atlanta’s Barbers Only Magazine – I will return to the Hypnotic Brass Ensemble piece with renewed gusto. All how-to guides to writing suggest you “take a vacation” from a piece when you hit a wall. Usually, the perspective afforded by the break, even if the “vacation” is really just a quick walk to the convenience store to buy smokes, helps the writer figure out how to blast that vexatious wall down. Given the full-fledged sabbatical I’ve taken from this piece of writing, I’m thinking I’ll be swimming in clairvoyant acumen and perspicacity the day I indeed do go back to it.

Or that’s the hope anyway. Stay tuned.