The Big Easty
New Orleans and Easthampton are 1,500 miles and a couple of cultural lightyears apart, but both cities love good music like nothing else. Brewmaster’s Jazz, the recently-opened concert venue inside New City Brewery on Pleasant Street, hosts a two-night concert this week for a special Southern guest: the New Orleans Swamp Donkeys Traditional Jass Band.
This collective of young musicians — tuba, trombone, trumpet, banjo — plays Dixieland and “early jazz with a modern twist,” led by James Williams, whose vocals evoke the great Satchmo. Guests can soak up songs from the early 20th century up through roughly the 1930s, and chow down on Creole gumbo and craft beer, brewed in-house.
Swamp Donkey Speakeasy: Thursday and Friday at 7 p.m. $12-$14. New City Brewery, 180 Pleasant St., Easthampton. (413) 529-2000, newcitybrewery.com.
— Hunter Styles
