An Experienced New Orleans Jazz Funeral Band
For Processions And Any Other Part Of The Funeral Service.

After a death the funeral is a difficult occasion for all concerned, this New Orleans style band can help you select the music for the funeral, to celebrate the life of your loved one or, to mark their passing with the music they enjoyed.

This dixieland jazz marching band has played for over one hundred funerals and is available to hire to bring their experience to your loved ones funeral procession and service.

At New Orleans Jazz funerals (which used to be called musical funerals) the band plays somberly with spirituals and funeral dirges on the way to the cemetery, the procession is led by a Parade Marshal to clear a way through the crowds, followed by the jazz funeral brass band*.

After the committal, when returning to the reception party the music is played joyfully to celebrate their life.

For jazz funerals in the UK most people ask the New Orleans band to lead the courtege playing upbeat music going to the interment as a celebration of their life and possibly again afterwards at the wake to give them a joyous send off as a celebration of their life. In England the Funeral Director usually takes on the role of the parade marshal as seen in some of the pictures on this page.

If you want any special funeral procession music or for the memorial service this band will learn it (if it is not already in their repertoire), the popular tunes played are :-

• Flee As A Bird to the mountain
• When The Saints Go Marching In
• Just A Closer Walk With Thee
• Down By The Riverside
• Just A Little While To Stay Here
• Lily Of The Valley
• The Old Rugged Cross
• Over In The Glory Land
• When You Walk Thro’ The Streets Of The City

These can be a traditional dirge or,
up tempo and lively.

These experienced musicians have been hired to perform live music for jazz funerals in England, leading the procession of mourners through the streets playing authentic New Orleans jazz or other melodies that are suitable in front of the cortège. They can play the deceased's favorite songs during the service whether religious in a church, chapel or crematorium, or humanist or secular. The New Orleans Funeral band can play at the graveside and very often play for the family and friends at the reception or wake afterwards.

For most families the organisation of a funeral is not an easy thing as they are not only upsetting to the family but happen at short notice. Acoustic Jass are able to deal with either the family members or the funeral director during the band hire process. This jazz band has performed at over one hundred funerals so their experience enables them to offer the best suggestions to help the funeral run smoothly.

Many people have been inspired to have a jazz band after watching the James Bond funeral in the film "Live and Let Die" where a funeral procession appears with the brass band playing the spiritual "Just A Closer Walk With Thee" as a dirge, there is a fatal stabbing and  they carried the body off to "Joe Avery's Piece" an up tempo parade tune. Acoustic Jass has often been asked to recreate this "but without the stabbing".

*The New Orleans brass band is totally different to the British brass band in as much as they use a mixture of brass instruments and woodwind and play in the jazz idiom.