Patrick Farrell

The members of Stagger Back Brass Band are current and former members of every top brass band working in New York City:
Frank London's Klezmer Brass All-Stars, Slavic Soul Party!, Zlatne Uste, Hungry March Band, Rude Mechanical Orchestra and Veveritse, as well as bandleaders, composers and in-demand session players in their own right. Though young in age, their collective brass band experience spans decades, thousands of concerts, parties and parades, and far too many weird, sketchy, or otherworldly situations to relate here. Stagger Back is a conglomerate of some of the most daring, experienced and absurdist brass musicians in the great city of Brooklyn.

Patrick Farrell- bandleader, accordion and alto horn Patty writes the tunes, tugs the ropes, prods the behinds, herds the cats and mollifies the youngsters. For a full bio, please visit the main bio page.

Aurora Nealand- soprano and alto saxophones Aurora is a composer-performer based in New York and New Orleans. She received a BM in Contemporary Music from Oberlin Conservatory and attended the Jacques Lecoq school of Physical Theatre in Paris, France for one year. She moved to New Orleans in 2005 where she plays saxophone for Panorama Jazz Band, VaVaVoom and Why Are We Building Such a Big Ship. In New York she performs regularly with Stagger Back Brass Band, Veveritse, and the Blue Vipers of Brooklyn. She has written and produced 2 large scale original theatre works “In Memoriam” and “Outside Over There”, and her shorter play “Earhart Eclipsed” was staged as part of the New Orleans DramaRama theatre festival and the Awkwards Fringe Festival in London. She is on Faculty at the Walden School for Young Musicians where she teaches Composition and Electronic Music.

Greg Squared- alto saxophone and clarinet Greg Squared is the preferred alias of NYC-based woodwind player/composer Greg Schneiderman. Greg has studied with influential Balkan musicians like Selim Sesler, Sami-Buco Zekirovski (of Esma Redzepova’s group), and Souren Baronian, as well as with ground-breaking 20th century improvisers George Lewis and Bertram Turetzky. He was a mainstay of the Hungry March Band for almost a decade, and his expressive playing style figures prominently in the sound of such NYC-area music ensembles as the Zagnut (Cirkus) Orkestar, Veveritse Brass Band, and Stagger Back Brass Band. He also leads his own group, Ansambl Mastika, which features his original Balkan compositions.

JR Hankins- trumpet and darbouka When J.R. Hankins pulled out his dusty trumpet seven years ago, he never figured it would come again to be his instrument of choice. Since then, he has played with Panorama Brass Band in New Orleans, Hungry March Band, Zlatne Uste, and Stagger Back Brass Band in New York. He even started his own brass band in NYC, Veveritse. His love and study of trumpeters from the Balkans is a main inspiration to his sound, as well as his love of all that is quirky. He hopes never to have to go digging for his trumpet again.

Ben Holmes- trumpet Trumpeter Ben Holmes is heavily involved in the Brooklyn Jazz & Eastern European musical communities, having extensively toured and recorded with Slavic Soul Party!, Romashka, One Ring Zero, Cynthia Hopkins and others. His area of musical interest at the moment is the combination of Balkan and Turkish melodic and rhythmic concepts with the improvisational flexibility and harmonic possibilities of small group Jazz. He performs his own compositions as bandleader with a trio and a sextet, imaginitively dubbed "The Ben Holmes Trio" and "The Ben Holmes Sextet". His avian obsessions include: birds, 'The Birds', 'The Byrds', Donald Byrd, Charlie Byrd, Big Bird, Charlie 'Bird' Parker, 'Bye Bye Birdie', Larry Bird, and the discography of Donald "Duck" Dunn.

Brian Drye- trombone and tenor horn Brian Drye plays trombone and piano and lives in Brooklyn, NY. Brian has toured Japan, Eastern and Western Europe, Turkey and throughout the US. He keeps a busy performance schedule in NYC and has performed with Frank London of the Klezmatics, John Hollenbeck, ABC Television’s Hit Series “My Kind of Town”, The Brooklyn Qawwali Party, Slavic Soul Party, The Four Bags, Brazilian Forro, Matt Darriau and Clark Terry. He has also recorded and performed with many famous pop stars and big bands including Yo La Tengo, Arcade Fire, Firewater, The Tommy Dorsey Orchestra, The Four Tops, Dianne Schuur and Paul Anka. Brian keeps a busy schedule teaching improvisation, trombone and piano in the NYC area and is a partner in the Creative Music Workshop. He has served as Director of Jazz at the JCC in Tenafly NJ and as faculty at the CPSM Jazz Program at Queens College.

Joe Keady- tuba Joe Keady is a Brooklyn-based composer and tuba player. Apart from Stagger Back, he is also a member of Romani-style brass band Veveritse, roots band The Woes, traditional jazz band The Red Hook Ramblers, chamber pop group Squeezebox, and jazz rehabilitaters Funk Monk. He is a co-founder of the Rude Mechanical Orchestra and has performed and/or recorded with the Hungry March Band, Circus Amok, The Bindlestiff Family Circus, Slavic Soul Party!, Brooklyn Chamber Opera, and Clay McCleod Chapman's Pumpkin Pie Show. His compositions have been used in theatrical and dance performances by Clay McCleod Chapman and Dance Continuum SF. His favorite book is Moby Dick.

Quince Marcum- percussion and alto horn Quince Marcum, XI '16, plays percussion and peck horn in the Stags, but would like you to know that he will perform a solo on any instrument that you mail to him. Please note: he already has a perfectly acceptable comb. You should look forward to hearing cadenzas from The Rape of the Lock interpolated with Patty's sonorous Upchuck Cocek. In fact you may want to remind Patty that you have been waiting for this for some time and that a person can look forward for only so long before their eyes start to water. Apparently the vacuum tube that runs from this so-called "garden floor" up to his romantically sunlit aerie is out of order.

Don Godwin- bass drum Don Godwin is a multi-instrumentalist (specializing in percussion, low and mid-brass), producer and Brooklyn resident of four years who has relocated from New Orleans. Aside from Stagger Back, Don currently plays tapan and tenor horn with Zlatne Uste Balkan Brass Band, drumset and tenor horn with Callers (LP "Fortune" on Western Vinyl, Italy tour 2008), tenor horn with the Balkan brass band Veveritse and migrates to New Orleans every carnival to play tenor horn in Panorama Brass Band. Previous projects include: Hungry March Band (helicon; LP "Portable Soundtracks For Temporary Utopias"; France, Spain, Germany tour 2007), and Reanimator (drum machine, mixer, effects; LP "Special Powers" on Community Library, invited guests at WIRE25 festival in London 2007; UK, France, Holland, Germany tour 2007). Don can be seen riding his bike around Brooklyn with his dog Daisy in the front basket while people in the street shout, "ET phone home!"