The Max Rebo Band consisted of twelve musicians and performed their music throughout the Imperial Era.
Initially, the group included the Ortolan Max Rebo, known for playing the red ball jett organ, Sy Snootles, the lead Pa'lowick singer, and Droopy McCool, who played the chindinkalu flute. Jabba the Hutt eventually hired the band to perform at his palace located on the planet Tatooine. The band grew over time, adding percussionists like Ak-rev and Umpass-stay, and singers like Joh Yowza. Jabba particularly enjoyed one of their most popular songs, "Lapti Nek."
About four years following the Battle of Yavin, the band performed the song "Jedi Rocks" for Jabba and his court, which he insisted on hearing again. However, during the second performance, Jabba disrupted the band by dropping his slave dancer Oola into the rancor pit beneath his throne room, where she was eaten. This shocked and slightly annoyed the band. Later, they witnessed Leia Organa enter the palace disguised as the bounty hunter Boushh to collect the bounty on the Wookiee Chewbacca. When Organa later released the smuggler Han Solo from carbonite, several band members were present with Jabba in hiding. The band then traveled on Jabba's sail barge to the Great Pit of Carkoon, where they survived the explosion and subsequently disbanded.
Despite the Max Rebo Band's name not being explicitly mentioned in Star Wars: Episode VI Return of the Jedi, the scene in which they are introduced is labeled "the Max Rebo Band" in the scene selection menu on the DVD releases.