The Lowertown Sounds series is underway, with free, weekly Thursday performances in downtown Saint Paul’s Mears Park. On this superb evening (weather in the low 70’s, with a clear sky and a bit of breeze), the people turned out in droves for a great night of music with local favorites The New Standards highlighting the evening. With food trucks and drink tents busy, a ton of puppies loving the smells, and the ever growing crowd, it was a perfect night for some outdoor live music.

I caught the latter half of Black Market Brass, who you could hear from over a block away as I approached. I’m not sure you could have had a much better fit of a band with the happy vibe of the outdoor crowd. With ten performers on stage, this was a good, snappy jazz, with instrumental numbers that were longer, but with good hooks and sections. That front line of brass (trumpet, trombone, and sax) were the rightful center of things musically, but the rest of the crew in rhythm (guitar and bass) and percussion (drums and oh so much more) made great support, allowing the free flowing music to shine. The build up on a number of those songs had all the right moments, from the brass giving way for guitar or percussion, but always chiming back in, as a great brass solo would carry to the next section. The front line also did the hype up of the crowd, getting the audience clapping at various points. We even had a few brave souls dancing up near the stage, and that perfect weather combined with the boisterous music kept spirits high. With good audio from the Lowertown Sounds crew, the sound felt large and inviting and the band was soaring. A final marathon number was particularly funky and Black Market Brass had kicked off a perfect start.

The New Standards were up next and I was looking forward to a full set of their special brand of covers. Our last viewing of the band was in February 2026, as they organized Our Neighbor: A Benefit with a huge number of guests at The Dakota. The trio (Chan Poling on vocals & piano, John Munson on vocals and bass, and Steve Roehm on vibraphone) have re-cast some of the great rock songs in a jazzier version, and their 2015 album Decade is a great starting point to their sound. Hitting stage as a septet (the trio, plus trumpet, trumpet, sax, and drums) started with I Scare Myself, and the late vibraphone solo combined with the brass was rock solid. A quick moment to get monitor sound levels correct had them launch into Queen’s Crazy Little Thing Called Love and Poling’s nearly spoken vocals were the front end to a mini-jam session. The switch of lead singer from Poling to Munson was a great contrast and Munson was well suited to Gnarls Barkley’s Crazy, flying through the wide vocal scale and dynamics. Though Poling and Munson command a lot of attention, Roehm’s tremendous work on vibraphone was a critical foundation and it’s impressive to watch everything going into that instrumental work. Video Killed the Radio Star was bubbly and was a top vibe song for the evening, with both Poling and Munson singing and clearly enjoying themselves, with some shouted “Merry Christmas” and just general goofiness.

We got the first of what turned out to be a number of guest performers, with a couple of back up singers (Cameron Kinghorn and Aby Wolf) for Michael Jackson’s The Way You Make Me Feel, that had a great combo of piano and vibraphone. Wolf took lead vocals on the next song and wow, she can sing, and Cruel was pure soul in her hands. Just as you thought the energy couldn’t go higher, Wolf was back to lead a passionate version of Tainted Love. The New Standards were throwing some shade at current politics, with a deft version of Compared to What, with that added brass section getting to shine. It was highly amusing to have Munson singing falsetto for Janet Jackson’s What Have You Done for Me Lately. A new guest, The Suburbs’ drummer Hugo Klaers came on to sing Cars, crashing a cymbal one-handed. And when Jeremy Messersmith appeared on stage for a version of With a Little Help from My Friends, the crowd went absolutely bonkers. The sequencing by The New Standards was outstanding and they had created such momentum that the ride to the end was peak upon peak. A version of The Boxtops’ The Letter was probably most memorable for being at least twice as long as the original, but then Wolf was back to lead a glorious rendition of I Will Survive, with nearly all of the crowd on their feet and singing along. The main set was over with a blistering paced Life During Wartime, but you knew what the encore would be and Love Is the Law was the cherry on top of what had been a truly fantastic evening in the park.