So far this year at Downtown Sounds we’ve had a taste of jazz, a taste of reggae and a taste of the blues. We even had a fusion of reggae and blues with Michael Wolf and the Voodoo Brothers.

Tonight, we have a fusion of another sort with the Firecracker Jazz Band. According to the band’s Web site, their sound is a marriage of Dixieland and New Orleans jazz, while the band strives to “carry the torch that was once lit by such greats as Jelly Roll Morton, Louis Armstrong, and Bix Beiderbeck.”

The band is a mainstay in the southeast and beyond, having played numerous street festivals similar to Downtown Sounds. The band also ventures beyond our area, having played such high profile shows as the Bonnaroo music festival, the Sacramento Jazz fest and the Highline Ballroom in New York City.

The band incorporates a smorgasbord of instruments including the trumpet, cornet, trombone, piano, guitar, tuba, ukulele and even the banjo. Attendees should come expecting a wide range of sounds and songs that pull from the great jazz musicians of the 20th century.

The band is still touring behind their 2007 album release, the aptly named “Explodes.” The album includes covers of Jelly Roll Morton and Sydney Bechet as well as Firecracker originals. The band describes “Explodes” as having the “vaudeville audacity that once kept speakeasies roaring through the night.”

If the music sounds a little familiar, you’re probably hearing echoes of the Squirrel Nut Zippers, a band that achieved popularity in the late 1990s with their album “Hot.” Trumpet/cornet player Je Widenhouse and pianist Reese Gray were both members of that energetic jazz fusion band.

What: John Barrett-Bill Marcie Properties Downtown Sounds

Who: Firecracker Jazz Band

When: 6 to 9 p.m. tonight

Where: Anderson County Courthouse plaza, Main Street, Anderson

Admission: Free

Concessions: soft drinks, water, beer and wine; $1 for a wristband to buy alcohol; tickets required for beer and wine

Information: www.independentmail.com/downtown-sounds