Revolutionary Snake Ensemble
Simply put, this is one of the most successful combinations of booty-shaking & brain-stimulating music to be released this year, and it deserves your attention post-haste.Brett McCallon/Splendid Magazine
Our 5th album "Serpentine" is scheduled for September 26, 2025 release on Cuneiform Records!!! Album release concert at Regattabar on Saturday October 4th!
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"Touches all the right cornerstones of jazz, but also funks my socks off!" - WKDU, Philadelphia
Explosive!
Revolutionary Snake Ensemble is a wild and funky brass band led by saxophonist Ken Field. Known for their colorful costumes and New Orleans-inspired grooves, the group blends street beats, jazz, and improvisation into high-energy performances that are anything but ordinary. Their lineup features an enviable roster of top creative musicians, currently including leader Ken Field/alto sax & flute, Tom Hall/tenor sax, Dave Harris/trombone & tuba, Jerry Sabatini/trumpet, Blake Newman/acoustic bass, & Phil Neighbors/drums. Past members of the group have boasted credits ranging from Club d’Elf to Morphine, Al Kooper, Aimee Mann, G Love, Anthony Braxton, and Either/Orchestra. With past appearances at Mardi Gras in New Orleans, The Kennedy Center, Tipitina’s, Brooklyn Academy of Music, and even Sesame Street, they’ve brought their bold, celebratory sound to audiences from Mardi Gras parades in New Orleans to Venice (Italy), New York City, Boston, and Roswell (New Mexico), to mention a few! Guest soloists have included Charles Neville, Trombone Shorty, Godwin Louis, Jason Palmer, Amadee Castenell, Josh Roseman, Kenny Wollesen, Matt Darriau, Brian Richburg Jr, and vocalist Henri Smith. RSE albums have been included on best-of-year lists by no less than WNYC Music Director John Schaefer and the late Village Voice Music Writer Francis Davis.
Exotic!
From 2005-2009 the Snake Ensemble traveled by train five times from Boston to New Orleans, playing on board the Amtrak Crescent, to march with the Krewe of Muses in their annual Mardi Gras parade. The Ensemble can be heard on Parade of Numbers, an animated counting piece regularly aired on the television program Sesame Street.
Eccentric!
Leader Ken Field is a saxophonist/ composer/ improviser/ one of Boston’s most dedicated and versatile musicians. Since 1988, he has been a member of Birdsongs of the Mesozoic, a New Music/ chamber rock ensemble that began as a spinoff from the legendary Mission of Burma. Field assembled an improvisational horn and percussion group in 1990 with trumpeter and cartoonist Scott Getchell to entertain at a pagan women’s ritual celebration. Field decided to continue the project, conceiving it initially as an improvisational group rooted in Boston’s free jazz/ improv scene.