Hot 8 Brass Band books a March night at the Mangy Moose

New Orleans' Hot 8 Brass Band plays the Mangy Moose in Teton Village on Sunday, March 7, 2027; tickets are $30 and on sale now.

Picture a ski day ending the way a New Orleans Sunday does: horns stacked up front, a sousaphone holding down the floor, and a room full of people in base layers who forgot they were tired. That's the pitch for Sunday, March 7, 2027, when the Hot 8 Brass Band plays the Mangy Moose in Teton Village. The show starts at 8:30 p.m., tickets are $30 through Prekindle, and the date was announced on Nov. 4.

The Moose holds 400, which is the right size for a band that came up playing on the street. Hot 8 was founded in New Orleans in 1995 by Bennie Pete, Jerome Jones and Harry Cook, folding together two earlier groups, the Looney Tunes and the High Steppers brass bands. They earned their name the traditional way, in second line parades and at jazz funerals, before they ever had a record out.

The records came anyway. The band put out its debut, *Rock With the Hot 8*, on its own in 2005; the UK label Tru Thoughts picked it up for a wider release in 2007, along with a brass-band cover of "Sexual Healing" that became a calling card. *The Life and Times of the Hot 8 Brass Band* followed in 2012, and in 2015 the band marked twenty years with *Vicennial*. If you watched HBO's *Treme*, you've seen them.

The joy in a Hot 8 show has always sat next to hard history. The band has lost members to street violence and illness over the years, a story they've told in their own words to 64 Parishes and to the Smithsonian's Folkways. Bennie Pete, the sousaphone player and leader who held it all together, died in September 2021. The band kept marching, and this year it has been on the road with a Big Tuba Tour that took it from New Orleans out to the West Coast, including an April stop at Portland's Star Theater.

They earned their name the traditional way, in second line parades and at jazz funerals.

Which brings us back to the Moose. The saloon at the foot of the tram has been a Teton Village fixture since 1967, and the Jackson Hole News&Guide has called it the king of the village music scene, with live music daily through the winter and ticketed nights for bigger names. A brass band built for a parade route is a natural fit for a room where the floor fills up after the lifts stop. Sunday night in March also means you're catching them deep in the season, when the locals who've been skiing all winter are ready to let loose.

On tickets: they're on sale now through Prekindle at $30, and a 400-capacity room doesn't leave much margin for a band with this kind of reputation. If March 7 is on your calendar, there's no reason to wait.

Bring your dancing legs. You'll want them after the second song.

Sources: Hot 8 Brass Band - Wikipedia (en.wikipedia.org); The Hot 8 Brass Band, As Told by Themselves - 64 Parishes (64parishes.org); Hot 8 Brass Band - Tru Thoughts (tru-thoughts.co.uk); Hot 8 Brass Band: Overcoming Adversity Through Music - Smithsonian Folkways (folkways.si.edu); Hot 8 Brass Band - Our Story (hot8.squarespace.com); Star Theater Presents - Jazz (startheaterportland.com); The Moose turns 50 - Jackson Hole News&Guide (jhnewsandguide.com); Tickets - Prekindle (prekindle.com); JamBase listing (jambase.com)