Sitting around at the OC Fair, there’s a lot for your senses.
There are the bizarre food combinations and big smoke clouds from the stands, the thrill rides and the carnival games, the costumed characters and the ever-persistent Southern California sun. But all that can take a backseat for a few moments every day when the Red Light Brass Band sets up and starts jamming New Orleans jazz.
“We bring a party-type atmosphere to the fair,” said Steve Wade, a trumpeter in the band. “We’re making it personal by performing to groups of people wherever they’re at. They’ll stop, they’ll walk over, and then you’ll see the little kids dancing out there. It’s just like a little bit of joy to their day.”
Since 2017, the Red Light Brass Band has been roving around the OC Fair daily, creating a bit of a street party whenever they stop to play.
The approach isn’t to reinvent the wheel, said Walter Simonson, who created the band. Playing for people at the fair is freeing, he said, because people just want to have a good time.
“Pretty much all the time there’s high energy — people are enjoying it,” Simonson said. “They’re clapping, dancing, singing along, grooving along, which is huge and is so awesome.”
Simonson cobbled the band together ahead of the 2017 fair. He got a message from OC Fair Entertainment Supervisor Katie Hastings, a childhood friend, who said the fair was looking to add strolling entertainment and settled on the idea of a New Orleans brass band. Did he know of any bands?
“I said, ‘Yeah, of course I do,’” Simonson said.
A musician who’s spent his life studying and playing jazz, Simonson figured that he could put a band together that would be exactly what the fair wanted.
He then called a bunch of friends, wrote some arrangements so that by the next day he and five others could record a video to serve as an audition to get the gig. They played their takes on the funk song “Pass the Peas” by The J.B.’s and jazz classic “St. James Infirmary” by Louis Armstrong, with Simonson’s dog as their audience in the video.
“We sent it off,” Simonson said, “and they loved it.”
In a bit of a recurring theme, the band also got its name in a spur-of-the-moment act. Hastings called Simonson after the fair agreed to book the newly-formed band to ask its name. Simonson was sitting at a red stoplight and took the cue from the environment.
The Red Light Brass Band plays five sets daily. It’ll play New Orleans classics: “When the Saints Go Marching In,” “Bourbon Street Parade” and “Mardi Gras in New Orleans,” pairing them with New Orleans jazz-infused takes on current hits: “Espresso,” “HOT TO GO!,” “Cake by the Ocean” and “Thrift Shop.”
When the band sets up, they’ll get people dancing in front, letting loose.
“They’re super fun,” Hastings said. “They bring such good energy, especially when Walt is here.”
When the full seven-piece band plays on the weekends, it will have two trumpets, two saxophones, a trombone, a sousaphone and a drum set. As part of its, Simonson will sing lyrics on a bullhorn and give shoutouts to vendors.
“We call it the eighth member of the band,” Simonson said.
A rotating cast of about two dozen people will play in the band throughout the fair, which this year opened on July 18 and ends after this weekend. While the Red Light Brass Band has branched out to play at fairs throughout the state, weddings and funerals, the OC Fair is where the band comes back together yearly.
Simonson, 43, grew up in Mission Viejo playing in the marching band at Mission Viejo High School before going to the University of North Texas and USC for music degrees. He now teaches at Mt. San Antonio College, but plays gigs and works with other musicians in the hustle of the Southern California music scene.
For him, jazz is “America’s truest art form, because it couldn’t exist anywhere else but here.”
Jazz dates back to Congo Square in New Orleans in the early 1800s, when enslaved people from around the world would congregate and blend traditions from different cultures in music that would be end up being called jazz.
When working on adding songs to the setlist, Simonson said he will look at what’s popular on Spotify. He then consults with his music students at Mt. SAC to see if what he found is something people will want to hear and then take any of their suggestions.
“I’ll get clarification and make sure it’s a cool song that people like, cause I’m not really listening to Top 40 music anymore,” Simonson said. “Then I’ll arrange it on a Tuesday afternoon or a Tuesday night, and we’re playing it at the fair the next day on Wednesday.”
The Red Light Brass Band isn’t the only music at the fair. There are the ticketed acts at the Pacific Amphitheatre and The Hangar nightly, but also at any given time, fairgoers can catch a band performing at one of several stages throughout the day.
The Red Light Brass Band plays from around 1 p.m. to 6 p.m., setting up at a different spot every hour. And if you still want to catch the band, the OC Fair runs through Sunday.
“Whenever you’re working with your friends and making music, there’s nothing better,” Simonson said. “We’re like the luckiest people in the world.”