Southern Music Research Center Fundraiser

ALL ticket sales will directly support that work, helping fuel ... our growing online music archive (southernmusicresearch.org) The Lost Child radio show digitization & preservation services community archiving days original documentary projects, including Season 2 of Alabama Hip Hop: 101 -- and more. Founded in 1883, Mobile, Alabama's Excelsior Band is likely this country's oldest marching jazz band. For more than 140 years they've played a key role in shaping the culture (and the sound) of Mobile, establishing themselves as beloved and enduring mainstays of that city's historic Mardi Gras tradition. In addition to Mardi Gras, they play a steady year-round calendar of parties, parades, jazz funerals, and more. In 2022 the band was awarded a National Heritage Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts; they are also recipients of an Alabama Folk Heritage Award from the Alabama State Council on the Arts. This event represents a rare opportunity to see them in Birmingham. For its 2026 fundraiser, the Southern Music Research Center presents the Excelsior Band, live on stage, for a Sunday afternoon show at Birmingham's Lakeview Marina. The great djcasequarter kicks things off with a soulful southern vinyl set at 3, with the band to follow at 4. Along the way, SMRC director Burgin Mathews will provide a glimpse into the nonprofit's ongoing efforts to document and preserve the musical history and culture of the South.