By the early 20th century, New Orleans's omnipresent brass bands had been leading "second lines" of Crescent City revelers in both festive street parades and mournful funeral marches for decades. Excelsior, Onward, Olympia and other long-lived Big Easy ensembles added rhythmic swagger through the 1920s to drums and brass descended from military marching bands, with composer John Philip Sousa's eponymous sousaphone holding down the bottom end. Bandleaders drew on the sounds of ragtime, hot jazz and swing, which boasted rich harmonies and inventive counter-rhythms. During the '80s, however, bands like Rebirth and the Dirty Dozen began adding R&B and hip-hop to the style, producing loud, proud sounds that were more rhythmic and less melodic than their predecessors. And while the Treme Brass Band still gazes longingly on the past in its military finery, singer/instrumentalist Trombone Shorty proves that heavy metal isn't necessarily restricted to guitars by bringing star power and taking brass music to the world's biggest stages.