I have known about Kermit Ruffins for many years but had not seen him perform live until last week at Brighton Music Hall. Sure, I saw him on the incredible HBO series ‘Tremé‘ and from his scenes, I knew I had to seize the first opportunity I had to see him.

Kermit Ruffins

Kermit is a (mostly) jazz trumpeter who got his start with the Rebirth Brass Band (hmmm, maybe I did see Kermit with them) in the 1980s. His band is the Barbecue Swingers and swing they did! There was no barbecue at this show unfortunately…

Kermit

Kermit is touring in support of his most recent release, ‘We Partyin’ Traditional Style!’, which is a perfect way to describe his live show.

Kermit

One of the most traditional songs they did is one of my favorites, ‘St. James Infirmary Blues’. I have heard many bands play this and Kermit truly did justice to the song.

Kermit

The Barbecue Swingers provide excellent accompaniment to Kermit. The band consists of Derrick Freeman on drums and vocals, Kevin Morris on bass and Yoskitaka “Z2” Tsuji on keyboard; I especially enjoyed the keyboardist, possibly because I was standing closest to him.

Yoshitaka “Z2” Tsuji

Kevin Morris

Derrick Freeman (sorry, that nice big cymbal was in the way of his face from my vantage point)

Kermit also had a young singer, Nayo Jones, come out and sing a few tunes. She has a great vocal range as well as a range of styles, and I thoroughly enjoyed hearing her sing with the Barbecue Swingers.

Nayo Jones

They played other classic tunes, including ‘All of Me’ and ‘Jeepers Creepers’, but mostly Kermit kept the crowd jumping and dancing. At one point, he asked the ladies in the audience to come up on stage and dance with him. Needless to say, many took him up on that!

Kermit with the ladies dancing

Kermit

Kermit is as good a showman as he is a musician. He worked the audience so that we had as good a time as if we had been second lining in the Tremé.

Kermit

I don’t know the last time Kermit was in the Boston area, but I believe it had been quite a while. I hope he doesn’t wait as long to return.

Kermit

The opening act was Bubonik Funk from Charlotte, North Carolina. They provided a decent opening set for Kermit, and the crowd enjoyed them. They had an old black-and-white small television set on stage, which proved to be a prop for their song ‘TV On My Head’.

TV On My Head

This was a very late show for a ‘school’ night so I had to cut out before the show ended. I hated to miss any of the fantastic show, and hope I missed only a few more songs…