The Algiers Brass Band is a true New Orleans neighborhood brass band, based in a section of the city called Algiers, which is located directly across the Mississippi River from the French Quarter. While most of its members may be family men who work at jobs outside the band, when they get together, make no mistake about it: these are no amateurs.

Lord, Lord, Lord -- considered by many music lovers to be one of the most-essential New Orleans brass band recordings ever made -- shows the band off to its best advantage by mixing a variety of selections representing jazz, blues, and gospel, including casual-style vocals that evoke the full depth and passion of the classic brass-band style.

The instrumental make-up -- with double trumpets and doubled reeds -- gives the band an especially robust sound that can be heard full force on the opening chorus of “Bourbon St. Parade,” that modern-day anthem to New Orleans tourism -- “Let’s fly down, or drive down, to New Orleans …” -- and the band’s gutsy arrangement of the Louis Armstrong hit, “What a Wonderful World.”

But the band’s characteristic ragged-but-right sound also provides classic settings for gospel numbers, like “Lord, Lord, Lord,” “Lay My Burden Down,” and “Just a Little While to Stay Here,” and shines especially bright on some of the oldest tunes associated with New Orleans jazz, like “Panama,” “Whooping Blues,” and “Hindustan.”