If your definition of jazz doesn’t include tuba, banjo, and washboard, it might be time to broaden your horizons and hear jazz as it was played in its earliest years. These days, the best way to do that is to catch a New Orleans band called Tuba Skinny.

Fortunately, the band visits the Commodore John Barry Arts and Cultural Center (aka The Irish Center), this weekend. It’s a benefit for the Philadelphia Unemployment Project, and it’s a hot ticket.

All the gifted itinerant musicians who formed Tuba Skinny in 2009, busking on Frenchmen and Royal Streets in New Orleans, had their origins in punk rock, and not one hails from the Crescent City.

“We were kind of like part of a new generation of post-Hurricane Katrina kids that weren’t from here. We were all transplants,” said multi-instrumentalist and washboard player Robin Rapuzzi, who came to New Orleans from Seattle.

“All of us were artists and travelers and writers, and sure, we played music, but we just started playing jazz together. It was fun. And yeah, sure, we could make some money playing music on the street, but it was never our intention to move to New Orleans to play jazz, which I think some people don’t understand about us. It wasn’t our intention to make a living from playing this music.”

Finding their groove

Now, here they are, well over a decade later, critically acclaimed, with fans around the world. That they have such a following is also happenstance. Rapuzzi is the first to admit social media prowess is not one of the band’s skills. But YouTube was just starting to grow in popularity, and people recorded their performances and posted them to the web.

Then along came COVID-19, and the band, like so many, struggled until a friend taught them how to livestream their performances. The support poured in.

“Because of the internet and YouTube, we were kind of in the right place at the right time,” Rapuzzi said. “And a lot of our fan base is quite old, and from Europe. They’re in their 80s and 90s. They’ve meant the world to us because they supported us, especially during COVID. We did struggle, big time, but we would have had a much harder time if our older fan base from around the world didn’t send us digital tip money.”

That fan base has gradually broadened and encompasses many age groups, Rapuzzi explained. The band’s older fans helped ensure Tuba Skinny’s survival, but now those older fans are passing on, and their children are taking up the mantle. “They come to our concerts with their little ones, and we get to meet a generation or two that are closer in age to us,” he said. “And, I think our fan base is a collective, because some of our friends are really into metal and punk and they love listening to our music, too.”

Much of what members of the band play they learned by listening to the music of others who came long before them. Take Rapuzzi, for example.

“I didn’t start playing washboard until I had to sub for a friend in a jug band, and I’d never really played ragtime or blues before,” he recalled. “We were playing some Blind Boy Fuller music and I thought, ‘Oh, this kind of reminds me of punk music. It’s got momentum; it has angst.’ And then I went down this rabbit hole of ragtime and blues and traditional jazz. I learned to play it by listening to old 78 r.p.m. recordings of groups like [jazz pianist] Clarence Williams, with Floyd Casey on washboard, and the Washboard Serenaders, with Bruce Johnson on washboard, two of my heroes. Then there was Bull City Red — his real name was George Washington — who played with Blind Boy Fuller.”

One of the questions everybody asks is where the name for the band came from. So, of course, the Local asked.

Back in the day, Rapuzzi said, there was a well-known street performer in the city’s Tremé neighborhood called “Tuba Fats.” He was known for standing up for street performing rights, and he educated younger musicians and carried on the traditions of jazz and parade music in jazz.

Todd Burdick, the band’s tuba player, is anything but rotund. Rapuzzi said, “Right before, and then right after Hurricane Katrina, we would busk out on Royal Street and a lot of our neighbors and friends would yell out, in reference to Tuba Fats, ‘Hey man, who are you? Tuba Skinny?’”

The name stuck

Along with Rapuzzi and Burdick, the band features Shaye Cohn on cornet; Barnabus Jones, trombone; Craig Flory, clarinet; Gregory Sherman, vocals and guitar; Max Bien-Kahn, banjo and resonator guitar; Jason Lawrence, banjo and guitar; and Erika Lewis, vocals and bass drum.

They have a huge repertoire, including tunes you might never have heard before — and maybe some you have heard — including “Jubilee Stomp,” “Gotta Give Me Some,” “Fourth Street Mess Around,” “Maple Leaf Rag,” and “If You Don’t, I Know I Will.” Either way, watching them play live is a joyous experience.

Tuba Skinny plays 7:30 p.m., Sunday, Aug. 31, at the Commodore John Barry Arts and Cultural Center, 6815 Emlen St., Mt. Airy. For more information, visit the Philadelphia Unemployment Project website: philaup.org/web/tuba-skinny-live-in-philly