According to bandleader Sunny Jain, Red Baraat is all about integration. But it’s not so much that the Brooklyn-based brass band’s members come from diverse ethnic backgrounds, although they do: more that the octet offers its leader a way to unite both sides of his own personal history.

“I was born and raised here in America, in upstate New York,” says the percussionist and singer, reached at home. “My parents emigrated here in 1970. I grew up with a very strong Indian background, and an American background as well. But the two worlds never intertwined, for whatever reason, for me. I always had conflicts of reconciling differences when I was growing up—like playing basketball or baseball with my friends versus every Sunday going to Jain pujas, or prayer ceremonies.”

This cultural dichotomy only deepened when, at the tender age of 10, Jain became infatuated with that particularly American art form, jazz. Juggling the demands of a strict religious upbringing with the no-less-stringent discipline of mastering complex polyrhythms was mitigated, to some degree, by success. But even with several well-received albums under his belt, Jain felt something was missing from his musical life.

“I was leading bands with electric guitar and saxophone with effects, and I was doing laptop sound-design kind of stuff, but I wanted to do a straight-up acoustic, primal band that was just drums and horns,” he explains. “Something that could easily take to the streets, or that could meld in right with the audience—something that was very much community-oriented.”

It’s no coincidence that around the same time Jain became infatuated with the dhol, the large, barrel-shaped drum that powers bhangra music. Somehow this extroverted instrument lined up perfectly with his outgoing personality—but there was more to it than just that.

“There was also the influence of remembering when I was five years old, being in India at my uncle’s wedding, and hearing an Indian marching band play for the baraat ceremony,” the drummer recalls. “That’s really the seed of where Red Baraat comes from: that seed of inspiration from when I was five years old.…I was really coming from that tradition, that Punjabi bhangra tradition, that marching-band tradition of India, but also the American music I grew up with: jazz, rock ’n’ roll, hip-hop. Just all different genres of music. It was just as simple as that.”

So far, the audience reaction to Red Baraat’s ineffably funky brass-band sound indicates that Jain’s intercultural aspirations have been very happily realized.

“People hear so many different types of things in our music, and I’ve found that it really depends upon what their musical background is,” he says. “South Asian people hear bhangra music, they hear Bollywood, they hear baraat music. Jazz musicians hear some of the jazz influences. When we go down to D.C. or Virginia, they hear go-go. When we’re in New Orleans, everyone feels ‘Oh, this is just a straight-up New Orleans band.’ So at the end of the day it comes down to whatever people’s backgrounds are with music; that’s what they end up hearing with us.”

And if what they see bears a strong resemblance to our increasingly multicultural society, that’s fine with Jain.

“At the end of the day, our political message is about tolerance, it’s about pluralism, and it’s about dialogue,” he says. “To me, that advances civilization, that advances understanding and compassion towards one another. And that’s what we aim to do.”