David M. Brown was born in New Orleans in October 1957, and grew up in the suburb of Metairie. He began playing music professionally in 1972 in a wedding and dance band called "The Cabarets", one of the later offshoots of the kid's jazz band "Dunk's Honky-tonks". David played bass, guitar and tenor banjo, performing swing, Dixieland, pop and other styles with "The Cabarets", in virtually every VFW, American Legion and DAV hall in the Greater New Orleans Area, and popular wedding places like the Balcony, the Arrow and Champagne rooms, etc. David also played with many other bands in addition to "The Cabarets", particularly the "Third Line Jazz Band, both of which still played street jazz for the marching clubs for their Mardi Gras and St. Patrick's day parades.