Combining tunes, songs & style (traditional & new) with dazzling modern horn lines, featuring fiddles, flutes, concertina, smallpipes,
vocals, step dance, a top-notch rhythm section and
a powerful 4-piece brass section in smart, joyous arrangements.
Recorded at the legendary Minneapolis studio Creation Audio
"The joyful and sophisticated sounds of Brass Lassie fully achieve what in my experience is a very rare feat of genre-blending - combining traditional Irish, Scottish and French music played and sung by a brilliant frontline with authoritative and tasteful jazz influenced arrangements from a great full horn section and some fabulous drums and bass. I enjoy every minute of their music!" -- Dáithí Sproule, of Altan
"It represents a great vision, the conception is brilliantly executed, and audiences are left wanting more."
-- Phil Nusbaum, Jazz88/KBEM-FM
2023: The Brass Lassie album was featured on a very fun live video podcast "Back Catalog Listening Party", where we listened to tracks, viewed photos, revealed insights, chatted and chuckled!
You can view it right here: the BRASS LASSIE episode
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A limited quantity of physical CDs remain! (Price includes shipping)
Standard crew neck, Sizes XS-S-M-L-XL-XXL. Shipping is included in the price! High quality fabric, all cotton. Please indicate your choice at checkout in the "NOTES" section. (V-Neck with Cap Sleeve Style also available - see separate listing).
V-Neck Style with Cap Sleeves, S-M-L. High quality super soft fabric, all cotton. Sizes run small, stock is currently fairly limited. (With interest, we will produce additional L and also XL). Please indicate your choice at checkout in the "NOTES" section. (Standard BL Tees available as well, in XS-S-M-L-XL-2XL).
Limited Edition Brass Lassie Bell - to ring in the new year, celebrate the 2021 January Inauguration, or for any time of the year fun. A small but very classy cowbell! Price includes First Class shipping. Priority First-Class available on request!
"Brass Lassie, from Minneapolis/St. Paul, is a mini-orchestra of superb musicians led by Laura MacKenzie, comprising flutes, whistles, fiddles, pipes, and keyboards, with a seriously hot brass back-line and rhythm section,
plus step-dancing and multi-lingual vocals. Their extraordinary takes on Cape Breton dance tunes, Celtic jigs and reels, traditional ballads and waulking songs are not so much genre-crossing as genre-smashing. Swinging like there was no tomorrow, with jazz-inspired brass arrangements, Latin-flavoured Scottish dance tunes and a big band sound, their music is bold, joyous, highly infectious and probably unique...they’d be a gas on stage." ---Bob Walton, fROOTS (U.K.)
"Refreshing, wide-ranging and highly entertaining." -- Alex Monaghan, Irish Music Magazine (Dublin)
“Brass Lassie has found its wonderful own niche with an exciting repertoire of Irish, Scottish, French and French-Canadian music. Superb arrangements, successfully blending the groovy brass sounds with rhythm and trad Celtic music…The Brass Lassies have taken their music into (a) dynamic, unusual and exciting direction. This CD is great fun, full of joy and inspiration.” --- Michael Moll, FolkWorld
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"Brass Lassie Innovates in a Most Satisfying Way" (excerpts from Phil Nusbaum's thoughtful review; Full Review)
"In Scottish tradition, “Lassie” refers to females. But “Brass” Lassie? It’s a band moniker proclaiming a Scots-based music group featuring women musicians and brass in its instrumentation. In live shows and on this first recorded project, the brass lineup includes trumpet, French horn, trombone and bass trombone. Adding the brass to flutes, fiddle and concertina makes Brass Lassie sound different than any other Scottish or Irish band. In the process of delivering a unique musical synthesis, Brass Lassie maintains the high performance standards associated with the leader, Laura MacKenzie."
"Including the horns provides a type of firepower you don’t normally hear in Scottish or Irish music."
"Regardless of where Laura found inspiration, the CD represents a highlight in a lengthy musical career based on executing the highest standards of Irish and Scottish music."
"The players in Brass Lassie are all veterans of performance and recording. It really shows in the Brass Lassie recording and in performance as well. Every tune or song is delivered crisply. Everyone plays the right notes at the right time. It’s all done on cue, in perfect tune and in perfect time."
"Brass Lassie is the result of a life’s work in music. But one hesitates to say that with too much emphasis because Laura is far from done. But it is at least a strong watershed in the musical career of Laura MacKenzie. It represents a great vision, the conception is brilliantly executed, and audiences are left wanting more."
Phil Nusbaum
Jazz88/KBEM-FM Programmer; Folklorist
Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota
FULL REVIEWS
