With a unique sound born on the streets of New Orleans and influenced by everything from funk to gospel, the Dirty Dozen Brass Band’s influence is nearly universal.

Since its formation in 1976, the eight-piece band has performed just about everywhere.

“We’ve been around the world 30, 40 times,” says saxophone player and founding member Roger Lewis. “There’s a couple of countries we missed, but we’ve been all over.”

He lists Indonesia, Japan, New Zealand, Iceland and Brazil as a few of the many countries the members have entertained in, but is completely unable to choose a favorite place to play.

“New York is exciting, and we play a lot in Colorado, but you enjoy everywhere you go because it’s different,” he says.

The Dirty Dozen has received almost universal praise from jazz critics and fans worldwide. Lewis says part of the band’s appeal comes from its flexibility.

“We’re really a jazz band, but we also play rock ‘n’ roll, r&b, country and gospel — whatever,” Lewis says. “When we set up our band, we set it up to play all different kinds of music. We have a lot of original material. Whatever musical ideas you have, you can put it into the tune, whatever it was, you can get it through. We have a lot of freedom to expand our talent.”

That freedom extends to the band’s performances as well, he says. Most of the shows are not planned out in any traditional sense.

“The only time we will have a setlist is when we’re doing TV or radio,” Lewis says. “When we do live performances, we never use a setlist. We always read off the audience; we change our music to accommodate the audience. We try to give everybody a little taste of what we do.”

Lewis says the band’s sound has evolved greatly over the years as members have come and gone.

“When we first started out it was a traditional New Orleans band — not a jazz band, a marching band,” he says. “We did a lot of parades. We had trombone, tenor sax, bari, small drum, bass drum and sousaphone. That part of the band’s been together for 25 years.”

Lewis says it later added guitar, trap set and trumpet players.

Over the years, Dirty Dozen’s diversity and tenacity has attracted the attention of many artists interested in collaborating with it. The group has recorded with Modest Mouse and the Dave Matthews Band, among others.

“Dave Matthews is a really wonderful person; he’s a really nice guy,” Lewis says. “He likes to play a lot of jokes; a lot of character, incredible musician. We had a lot of fun.”

The band’s upcoming M-Shop performance will include a special guest artist known only as “The Dirty Old Man.” Lewis says he is “really uplifting.” In addition, the band, which closed last semester’s M-Shop season, is looking forward to returning to the venue.

“People [in Ames] are warm and very lovable and love the music and the band,” Lewis says. “We intend to give everybody something for their mind and their body and their soul, all connected into one big beautiful package.”

Who: The Dirty Dozen Brass Band

Where: M-Shop

When: 9 p.m. Friday

Cost: $12 students, $15 public