When the temperature in New Orleans hit triple digits this summer, Brandon Tarricone, founder and leader of the band Brotherhood of Groove, hit the road with his German shepherd, Lily, and returned to New England to hike, swim and relax with friends and family.
"I came home to recharge my batteries and for a change," said Tarricone, a Hamilton native who moved to New Orleans in 1997 to attend Loyola University and settled there, starting Brotherhood of Groove, a jazz-fusion and funk outfit, in 2001.
While home, the industrious Tarricone has sat in with several North Shore musicians while gearing up for a short tour around New England.
"It's nice to be a musician with connections, and it's nice that I can travel and still work," he said.
Tarricone's family has a lake house on Lake Winnepesaukee, and that's where he and his band gathered earlier this week to rehearse for the tour, which stops at the Edgewater Cafe in Salem on Saturday night.
The show will be a CD release party for Brotherhood of Groove's latest, "Live on the East Coast," some of which was recorded at the now-closed Bay Bridge Restaurant and Nightclub in Salem in 2006.
Since it's a Saturday night show and most area players have other gigs, Tarricone won't make promises, but he hopes some local guys will sit in.
He's familiar with the North Shore music scene, having performed with bassist Michael Mixsis, saxophonists Mike Tucker and Henley Douglas Jr., and Sam Kininger of the bands Lettuce and Soulive, who regularly plays at Mandrake in Beverly and The Rhumbline in Gloucester.
As he did with Brotherhood of Groove's past CDs — for which he said he recorded with professional jazz musicians from New Orleans and New England — he said he put the same hard work into "Live on the East Coast."
His bandmates — who include Geoff Vidal on saxophone, Paul Chase on bass and Jon Massing on drums — have flown in from New York and New Orleans for the tour.
