Somewhere between the lingering echoes of the ghost bands of greats like Glenn Miller and Tommy Dorsey and the neo-swing renaissance led by Royal Crown Revue, somewhere between the same old thing and everything old is new again, that's place the Dirty Dozen Brass Band calls home.

Emerging from the shadows of the Crescent City in the late 1980s, this group of instrumental standouts took the music of jazz legends and pop contemporaries for a streetcar ride through unfamiliar neighborhoods of sound. Stevie Wonder goes from his soulful home in Mid-City to the alleys of Jackson Square with a distinctly second-line version of "Don't Drive Drunk". The pace is pure Mardi Gras, fuelled by the downright funky sousaphone riffs of Kirk Joseph and the blazing trumpets of Gregory Davis and Efrem Towns.

"It's All Over Now" is firmly rooted in the Quartier Latin, with legend Dr. John on piano and vocals in this distinctly bayou version of this classic Rolling Stones song. Then it's time for Jelly Roll Morton to get on the streetcar and ride through the Garden District with an exotic, polyrhythmic blending of "Jungle Blues" scoring the journey.

The collection includes many other gems, including a pretty straight jump at Dizzy Gillespie's "Oop Pop A Dah". Each track is a twist on the original, but still recognizable and enjoyable by both the creationists and evolutionists in your congregation. Shout "amen" for the Dirty Dozen Brass Band!

See what they're up to at www.dirtydozenbrass.com.