Trombone: it's not just for jazzers, symphony cats, or band geeks anymore. It's often bigger, badder, bolder, beautifuler, and more unavoidable than the electric guitar. And the way Rochester's The Po' Boys Brass Band uses, abuses, and infuses the instrument, it's straight up rock 'n' roll.

It all began in New Orleans. Erik Jacobs had been marching in the United States Marine Corps Band, puffing on the old trombone in the Louisiana heat. He was tired of being told what he could and couldn't do with the instrument. He was tired of seeing guitar players getting all the chicks. The boy was tired.

But he stumbled into a New Orleans bar one night and saw the light. It was Bonerama, a rock/funk/soul outfit fronted by four trombones. It made Phil Spector's "wall of sound" sound like a cardboard fence, and it knocked his block off. Jacobs was jacked; Jacobs was hooked.

"They were playing like Hendrix," he says. "It just blew me away that these trombone and tuba players were like rock stars."

Jacobs became a Bonerama student - a disciple, if you will - taking lessons and attending all the band's shows religiously.

"I promised myself that one day, if I ever could, I would make a New Orleans-style brass/funk/rock band," Jacobs says. "When I came to Eastman I met all these great guys and decided, it's time to do this."

Jacobs needed three more trombones for the front-line assault. Enter Evan Dobbins, Nick Finzer, and Chris Van Hof. TJ Ricer came in on sousaphone along with guitarist Mike Frederick, and drummer Chris Teal. All of them were serious musicians - Eastman students or alumni - who had to abandon certain maxims and creeds stressed by higher learning. They had to embrace some wrong.

"I guess there are things that I play now that are wrong," says Finzer.

But it sounds so right. Finzer runs his trombone through stomp boxes that bend and twist and distort his sound into a creamy stratospheric tapestry. It's like Dumbo on an acid trip. If Hendrix had played the trombone, it might've sounded like this.

But as quickly as the band whips out the 3-D psychedelia, the Po' Boys pulls off a second line march in all its woeful beauty, as if trudging down Rampart Street in the rain.

The difference in the two sides of the band's style is felt most by sousaphone player TJ Ricer, he of the cast iron diaphragm.

"It's really different as a tuba player," he says. "Because I'm playing the bass role, I never stop playing. So I end up circular breathing a lot, sneaking sniff breaths through my nose and dropping in little things you wouldn't ordinarily do."

According to Finzer, it's tough all around.

"It's much louder," he says. "There's a lot more endurance. You're not resting for 56 measures and then coming in on one note, like in classical. Or you're not pacing yourself with different dynamics as in jazz. There are some dynamics, but it's harder. It's balls to the wall most of the time."

Since its inception a year ago, The Po' Boys Brass Band has gone beyond its initial influence and mission.

"When we first started, there was this ‘Where are we headed?' kind of thing," Jacobs says. "It was just going to be a weekend for beers kind of thing. And as it kept progressing, and we started writing our own music and people were really digging what we were doing, we were like, ‘What the hell is this? This was supposed to be a joke."'

Rehearsal last Tuesday night at Black Dog Studios was a serious matter. The music is charted and discussed in detail. All Po' Boys speak fluent music-theory Italian as if they were opera singers. They work on a couple new tunes, including one that will ultimately feature a rapper over its funk-leaning-toward-hip-hop beat. But just when the music seems like it's getting a little too cerebral, the band breaks into Michael Jackson's "Thriller." Yup, the covers can come out of nowhere, but the band re-tools them until it owns them.

Finzer explains the criteria for considering a cover on the Po' Boy repertoire. "The less likely that we could play it, makes it more likely we'd want to play it," he says. "If someone's like, ‘That'd sound good on trombone...' nah, we're not going to do that."

The finishing touches are being put on the bands debut disc, "Bonebreak," as the band's fan base swells. The Po' Boys take it seriously now. The first gig? Not so much.

"I don't think the club - which shall remain nameless - took us seriously," Jacobs says. "I don't think we took us seriously. I don't know if the five people in the club took us seriously. Even now, any new club we walk in, people think we're crazy. And then we blast into Zeppelin or Edgar Winter or an original hardcore funk tune, and people are just instantly won over. They really dig it." 

Po' Boys Brass Band

High Fidelity, 170 East Ave

Friday, September 12

9 p.m. | $5 | 325-6490, poboysbrassband.com