BY RYAN GREEN

FOR THE FREE LANCE-STAR

Fredericksburg's own mobile funk band, Elby Brass, has amassed a large following and ample buzz after just a few gigs across town.

When the 11-piece band returns to Sammy T's tomorrow night, the wait staff will surely don flat-soled shoes, their joints still stiff from the last Elby show in which the dance floor gave way to dancing on tables and a dance-on bar.

Elby debuted not in a crowded music hall but at a small backyard party. The band arrived almost as an afterthought at the end of a practice, marching through the park to surprise the host with horns blaring.

After a short set, the band members left their instruments and settled into the crowd, but not before sparking the desire for more.

That debut seems fitting to the band's conception of itself as both impromptu--a half- serious assemblage of ideas by several of Fredericksburg's most established musicians,-- and destined, determined by a Craigslist advertisement for Lake Braddock Secondary School band outfits--the LB of Elby--to be claimed by anyone willing to take at least 50.

Seth Casana, an alumnus of the Fairfax County school, discovered Lake Braddock's ad last April.

"That was the linchpin," said Casana, sousaphone player, ad hoc ringleader and the owner of the 150 outfits claimed from Lake Braddock for Elby purposes. The uniforms, oddly fitting on most of the members, include purple blazers with yellow accents, high-waist white pants and white Stetson hats.

Now dressed, the founding trio, Casana, Chris Park and Lars Holmstrom, turned their attention to finding enough members to fill a respectable brass roster.

"We just went out on recruitment for the next two weeks," said Park, who leads the percussion on the snare drum. The band now has a four-man percussion section and an ample brass septet made up of a double-trumpet, double-trombone, double-sax, sousaphone combo.

"We wanted a band where the horns weren't just a sectional," said trumpet player and brass leader Holmstrom. "We wanted just the horns and drums."