Mucca Pazza brings eclectic marching band fare to Big Top

The Big Top Chautauqua concert series in Bayfield has presented countless performers over the years and influenced numerous emerging musicians.

One is Anna Jacobsen of Elk Mound, who said she “grew up listening to the Blue Canvas Orchestra every week on Wisconsin Public Radio.”

On Sept. 13, she’ll be performing under the canvas as part of Mucca Pazza – which you could describe as a marching band on steroids.

The band consists of 30-odd musicians playing diverse instruments, expanding the typical marching band repertoire to include vaudeville, psychedelic, carnival fare and rock-n-roll. Founded 20 years ago in Chicago, they’ve performed around the country, including an NPR Tiny Desk Concert in Washington.

Jacobsen and the group’s co-founder and drummer, Andy Deitrich, joined WPR’s Robin Washington on “Morning Edition” to talk about their eclectic music. 

The following interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.

Robin Washington: Anna, did you hear any marching bands when you were growing up listening to Big Top? Or was that a school thing in Elk Mound? 

Anna Jacobsen: I primarily remember hearing folk music at Big Top. In high school, we had a great marching band. It was impressive for a small town. I didn’t do marching band in college.

Lawrence University in Appleton did not have a marching band, so I decided to go for classical French horn. 

RW: Andy, you went to Lawrence University too. Since there was no marching band, were you marching by yourself — to a different drummer, perhaps?

Andy Deitrich: We didn’t have a traditional marching band, but there were two ethnic drumming groups. One did Brazilian samba music and the other did traditional African drumming. We would march around the campus and do events around town. 

RW: Tell us about Mucca Pazza. First of all, what does the name mean?

AD: The name means mad cow in Italian. You’ve heard of mad cow disease — that’s the Italian name for it. The name just came from someone in the band saying, “I have this idea.”

RW: And the repertoire?

AD: The band sort of evolved into this mismatched marching band thing. At first, the idea was a mobile orchestra. Originally, it was made up of a lot of theatrical people and local musicians with the idea of doing street theater, playing arrangements of folk music from around the world and also original compositions.

RW: Do you actually march? That might be hard to do at Big Top, under the canvas.

AD:  We have played actual parades. We’ve played derby day parades for horse races. But we don’t look like your typical marching band. We do a lot of interacting with the audience and  spectators.

RW: What are the most unusual instruments?

AJ: We have a number of instruments that aren’t in your traditional marching band — electric guitar, electric mandolin, electric violin and electric cello as well. And accordion. They really are what makes the group sound so unique.

RW: You’re a trumpeter, but you’re also a fiddler and a violin teacher. Do you play those electric string instruments?

AJ: I do, and Andy also occasionally plays electric guitar. So we hop around sometimes.

RW: You perform on your own as well, including a Wisconsin tour. Is that so you can stop back in Elk Mound and get a few free meals?

AJ: Yes, I love coming back home. In the classical brass trio and a horn quartet I play in, every season we have at least one or two stops in Wisconsin.

If you have an idea about something in northern Wisconsin you think we should talk about on “Morning Edition,” send it to us at northern@wpr.org.