Usually, northerners flock south to explore the warmer climates of the Carolinas, Florida or Louisiana in search of jobs or to find an escape from the weary northeast winters.

A bona-fide New Orleans brass band roams to Western New York for a pre-Mardi Gras show that’ll whet Buffalo’s appetites for next Tuesday’s festivities. The Dirty Dozen Brass Band will perform at 8 tonight at Tralf Music Hall, 622 Main St., Buffalo, for the Big Easy Mardi Gras Jam.

Tickets are $29 and can be purchased online here or at the door. It’s the sixth annual Mardi Gras Jam, and recent performers have included Tab Benoit (pictured right) and Carl LeBlanc.

Through the band’s website bio, Dirty Dozen Brass Band trumpet player Gregory Davis lends a particularly “New Orleans” analogy in explaining DDBB’s 35-year adventure as a band:

“It ends up being like a pot of gumbo – you drop in a little okra, drop in a little shrimp, you drop in some crabs. Before you know it, you’ve mixed in all these different ingredients and you’ve got a beautiful soup. That was our approach to music early on and it still is today.”

Although you’d expect a band called “The Dirty Dozen” to have 12 members, it’s actually a seven-piece squadron featuring a sousaphone, two trumpets, a tenor and baritone sax, a keyboard and a drum set.

The brass bombardment—with influences Marvin Gaye and the Streets of New Orleans—will have Buffalo poised for Fat Tuesday.

(Header photo courtesy of Chuck Alaimo from the 2011 Big Easy Mardi Gras Jam— full gallery here).