Reginald Steward
Trombone
Reginald grew up in the Tenth Ward of New Orleans. He started playing trumpet at the age of 11. He also played the baritone sax and the tuba before settling on the trombone. His mother played bass clarinet. While most kids were playing sports, Reginald was playing music. He played in both his elementary school and high school marching bands. Reginald played in The Rebirth Brass Band before joining New Birth.

Kenneth Terry
Trumpet / Vocals
Kenny "Little Milton" Terry is a protégé of the legendary Milton Baptiste. "The first lesson from Milton was to stick with the traditional music," says Terry, who is now adept at both old and new styles. "We would go to Milton's house and sit in the back in the shade and we'd always have a talk session first. We'd listen to the music first to understand who wrote a song, what a song meant … [and] then get our horns out." He is a cousin of Tanio Hingle and was the Original Leader of the first Junior Olympia Brass Band. He was also a founding member and co-leader of New Birth Brass Band in 1990. He plays and has recorded w/ ReBirth, Soul Rebels, Pinstripe, and Olympia Brass bands, to name just a few.

Kerwin James (R.I.P. Sept 29, 2007)
Tuba
Kerwin grew up in the Sixth Ward of New Orleans. He began playing the snare drum at the age of eight at the Albert Wicker School and picked up the tuba a few years later. Kerwin is the brother of Philip Frazier of the Rebirth Brass Band. Kerwin would accompany Rebirth to their French Quarter performances and act as Grand Marshall. At these performances, he would dance and occasionally the band would let him play. By the time Kerwin was eleven years old, he had made enough tips playing in the French Quarter to buy his first horn. Kerwin has played with Jr. Olympia Brass Band, The Allstars and The Rebirth Brass Band.

FROM THE HOUSTON PRESS Oct 3, 2007

Kerwin James, who walked out of devastated New Orleans with his instrument on his back, passed away Friday at a Houston hospital. He had been in a coma since the summer of 2006, when he suffered a devastating stroke at a gig in the Galleria area. James, the brother of the Rebirth Brass Band’s tuba player Phillip Frazier and bass drummer Keith Frazier, was 35.

The aftermath of his death says a lot about both Houston and New Orleans. They seem to be becoming the same place in some ways.

When the news of his passing hit James’s native Treme neighborhood in New Orleans, a spontaneous parade erupted on St. Phillip Street. That’s just the way they have always rolled over there, the way, as one attendee put it in this NOLA.com report, they honor fallen musicians "from the day they pass until the day they're put in the ground."

But this procession was different. This time, while the band played the old hymn “I’ll Fly Away” with tears streaming down their faces, the cops decided to make the parade fly away. Twenty squad cars descended on the procession, and in an ensuing fracas, snare drummer Derrick Tabb and trombonist/singer Glen David Andrews were arrested for disturbing the peace.

It seems that for the first time in anybody’s living memory, you now need a permit to have a jazz parade in the Treme. The police say that they are responding to noise complaints, most coming from post-Katrina newcomers to the neighborhood.

Many of these people were attracted to the neighborhood because of its jazz history. And now they want to see to it that it remains just that – history. They can’t handle the reality of jazz musicians playing in the streets whenever they damn well please, even if that’s the way the neighborhood has been for the past century or more.