Full House Brass Band, Black Mountain Jazz, Melville Centre, Abergavenny, 29/06/2025.

Jack Mac (Jack McDougall) - tenor sax, tambourine, vocals, Thom Dalby-Anning –  trumpet, flugelhorn, tambourine, vocals, Harri Archer – trombone, vocals,  Ryan Huxtable – sousaphone, Jon Whitfield – drums, percussion

The Cardiff based Full House Brass Band, led by saxophonist Jack Mac, are a New Orleans style brass band playing in the contemporary manner pioneered by their two prime musical influences, the Rebirth Brass Band and the Dirty Dozen Brass Band. Other sources of inspiration include the New Orleans Nightcrawlers and the Hot 8 Brass Band.

Mac is best known to me as the leader of the BMJ Collective, the ‘house band’ at Black Mountain Jazz Club in Abergavenny. With bassist Nick Kacal and drummer Ryan Thrupp he forms the BMJC who tutor young musicians, the BMJazzKatz, as well as performing regularly at the Club with specially invited guest musicians. Numerous ‘BMJC with…’ live shows are reviewed elsewhere on these web pages and it’s a series of events that always delivers the musical goods, a series that consistently punches above its weight.

Mac’s love of New Orleans Music is well known and he’s been lucky enough to visit the city on numerous occasions to check out his musical heroes. Although the BMJC series veers more towards mainstream jazz and bebop, sometimes with ingenious jazz arrangements of contemporary rock and pop tunes thrown in, he still manages to play plenty of New Orleans music with the Full House Brass Band, The NOLA Review and Jack Mac’s Funk Pack, the latter specialising in New Orleans style funk. He’s also part of the Bass12 Brass Band, who visited BMJ for a successful show in May 2022. My review of Bass 12 at BMJ can be found here;
https://www.thejazzmann.com/reviews/review/bass-12-brass-band-black-mountain-jazz-the-melville-centre-abergavenny-29-05-2022

Full House Brass Band is effectively a scaled down version of Bass 12 but the smaller line up packs a similar punch and power. Mac is an ever present in the FHBB line up, which otherwise draws on a pool of musicians variously based in South Wales and the English West Country.

In April 2025 I enjoyed a performance by the Full House Brass Band at The Muse in Brecon, an event that formed part of Brecon Jazz Festival’s ‘Springtime Jazz Day Festival’, a kind of ‘taster day’ for the main festival, which will take place in August 2025. I was very impressed by FHBB, whose performance combined energy and showmanship with an unexpectedly high level of musical sophistication. My review of the Brecon performance can be found as part of my Festival coverage here;
https://www.thejazzmann.com/features/article/brecon-jazz-festival-springtime-jazz-day-festival-various-venues-brecon-12-04-2025

Tonight’s line up featured four of the five players who had appeared at Brecon with Mac on tenor sax and vocals joined by trumpeter Thom Dalby-Anning, trombonist Harri Archer and sousaphone player extraordinaire Ryan Huxtable. Come to think of it as the only sousaphone player in the pool Huxtable is also an indispensable ever present too!

The only change was at the drum kit with the Weston-super-Mare based Jon Whitfield taking over from Tom Williams.  It was also notable that at Brecon Dalby-Anning had specialised on flugel and doubled on tenor horn – tonight he focussed on trumpet and doubled on flugel, with the tenor horn left at home.

I’ll admit to not always being enamoured with the brass band format and its focus on entertainment over musical content, but once again Mac and his colleagues didn’t disappoint over the course of two high energy sets that combined excitement and entertainment with a high degree of musical sophistication. FHBB don’t just blast out unison horn riffs, there’s a lot of colourful interplay between the three horn front line of Mac, Dalby-Anning and Archer, with improvisation within the overall framework positively encouraged This was music you could listen to as well as move to.

Although there were some inevitable duplications Mac made a concerted effort not to replicate the Brecon set as he was mindful that several members of the audience had been present at the previous show. 

With this in mind the band kicked off with a piece we hadn’t heard at Brecon, “Buckjump”, a tune by Trombone Shorty. This was ushered in by Huxtable’s low register sousaphone growls, subsequently augmented by Whitfield’s drums and then by the punchy unison horn lines of Mac, Dalby-Anning and Archer. But soon the three horn front line were throwing in colourful snatches of counterpoint as Whitfield added the sounds of cowbell and woodblock, typical New Orleans sounds, but ones that had been less prevalent at Brecon. Each member of the front line is an inspired soloist and we heard fluent and feisty individual statements from Mac on tenor, Dalby-Anning on trumpet and Archer on trombone, prior to some raucous collective carousing between the horns. An excellent start.

From the songbook of the Rebirth Brass Band “New Orleans Music” was also introduced by sousaphone and featured a vocal refrain from Mac, Dalby-Anning and Archer followed by wailing instrumental solos from trumpet, trombone and tenor sax, all powered by Whitfield’s drums and Huxtable’s remarkable sousaphone bass lines. Towards the close the band’s three singers reprised the opening vocal refrain.

“Keep On Gwine”, a James Booker tune from the repertoire of the New Orleans Nightcrawlers Brass Band formed a neat link to BMJ’s previous event, which had seen Mac and the BMJ Collective perform with the London based pianist and vocalist Dom Pipkin, a popular visitor to Abergavenny and a great champion of New Orleans music. June 2025 really was New Orleans month in Abergavenny. Pianist and composer Booker is one of Pipkin’s musical heroes and his tune saw Dalby-Anning deploying a bluesy wah wah trumpet sound on the intro before moving to an open bell as he shared concise solos with Archer and Mac.

“D-Boy”, from the repertoire of the New Birth Brass Band mixed vocals with instrumental solos from Mac, Archer and Dalby-Anning plus an entertaining drum feature from Whitfield.

“St. James Infirmary Blues”, a song that Mac has also performed with the BMJC, featured his powerful vocals in addition to his tenor sax soloing, with further instrumental features coming from Dalby-Anning on trumpet and Archer on trombone.

Next Mac promised us “something a bit funkier”, which proved to be a version of The Meters’  “Cissy Strut”, fuelled by Whitfield’s clipped drum beats and Huxtable’s rollicking sousaphone lines. The punchy unison horn lines of the front liners were followed by ebullient individual solos from trombone, tenor and trumpet.

A lengthy first set concluded with the quintet romping through “Blackbird Special”, a fast moving piece from the repertoire of the Dirty Dozen Brass Band. Pumping sousaphone and skittering drums propelled the raucous unison lines of the front three, with individual solos from tenor sax, trumpet and trombone. As at Brecon there was even a diversion into Ray Noble’s jazz and bebop standard “Cherokee” .

FHBB performances are a constant outpouring of energy and the band started the second set as they meant to go on with “Nothing But A Party”, another tune from the Dirty Dozen songbook. This was another piece to feature vocals in addition to tenor sax, trumpet and trombone solos. When not playing his horn Dalby-Anning rattled a tambourine and the performance was also notable for a second Whitfield drum feature.

A new all instrumental arrangement by Mac of “I Put A Spell on You”, a song associated with Nina Simone, brought something fresh to Abergavenny. This saw Dalby-Anning switching from trumpet to flugel and included a partially muted trombone solo from Archer that incorporated bluesy vocalisations. The arranger was also featured on tenor sax.

Also new was a Mac original, “Swagger Mac”, a tune written in the New Orleans style that more than held its own in comparison to the other pieces played this evening. This included solos from the leader on tenor, Archer on trombone and Dalby-Anning on trumpet.

“Sidewalk Strut”, by the New Orleans Streetcrawlers, combined colourful lines with infectious rhythms and included solos for trumpet, tenor and trombone. When not playing their horns both Mac and Dalby-Anning provided additional rhythmic impetus on tambourine.

“Wayne’s Thang”, a composition by the US alto saxophonist Kenny Garrett that has become something of a modern day jazz standard, represented an unusual and unexpected choice for The FHBB treatment. Nevertheless it worked extremely well in this context and incorporated instrumental solos from Mac on tenor, Dalby-Anning on trumpet and Archer on trombone. Tonight’s version also included a quote from “My Favourite Things”, no doubt inspired by John Coltrane.

Huxtable’s sousaphone, soon joined by Whitfield’s drums and handclaps, introduced an arrangement of the Fats Domino song “I’m Walkin’”. This also featured the combined vocals of Mac and Dalby-Anning, plus instrumental solos from trombone, tenor sax and trumpet.

Another vocal item, “Little Lisa Jane” rounded things off with Mac and Dalby-Anning again in fine vocal form and encouraging the audience to join in. Instrumental solos from trumpet, trombone and tenor were followed by a brief excursion “Down By The Riverside”.

The band’s deserved encore was “It Ain’t My Fault”, another song featuring the voices of Mac and Dalby-Anning, this time augmented by Archer.   Solos for trumpet and trombone were followed by a sidestep into “When The Saints Go Marching In”, arguably the definitive New Orleans song.

On what was perhaps the hottest night of the year the Full House Brass Band attracted a full house to the Melville with scarcely a spare seat visible in the venue. In the sweltering temperatures it felt like we were in New Orleans in more ways than one. The heat did mean that there weren’t any dancers, as there had been at the rather more informal space at The Muse, but in the circumstances this was more than understandable. Instead it was through their voices and their applause that the audience expressed their enjoyment of an excellent performance.

If it was hot in the audience spare a though for the musicians on the stage, who acquitted themselves superbly in very challenging conditions. The standard of the playing was excellent throughout and the band’s enthusiasm and love for the music of New Orleans shone through consistently.

The size of the turnout was a sign of just how much Jack Mac is loved by the Abergavenny audience and once again, with the help of the members of the Full House Brass Band, he had delivered the goods. In Dalby-Anning and Archer he had two excellent front line partners while Jon Whitfield slotted seamlessly into the drum chair.

But it’s Ryan Huxtable who is the unsung hero of the group, his astonishing sousaphone bass lines are the engine room of the band. He never lets up, and playing the instrument at any time represents an impressive feat both musically and in terms of sheer stamina. Playing the beast in this heat must have required an astonishing level of physical resourcefulness, although everybody in the band impressed by keeping up the energy levels and the enthusiasm in these conditions. Well done one and all.

A great way to round off ‘New Orleans Month’ at Black Mountain Jazz.

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