“A star of New York’s new-music scene.”—Los Angeles Times
The morning after the 2016 presidential election, singer-songwriter Gabriel Kahane took a two-week train trip across the United States with no phone or internet, embracing 8,980 miles of monkish Amtrak existence. The result is this hymn to the analog intimacy of American rail culture as antidote to the fragmentation and efficiency of modern life. Alone at the piano, Kahane draws from dining-car conversations he had with dozens of strangers—cowboys, postmasters, religious luddites, software engineers—to sing of his own upended assumptions about the body politic as revealed through his unplugged railroad exile.
“Sergio Mendoza is one of the great innovators of the Arizona music scene.”—Guardian
Led by multi-instrumentalist and bandleader Sergio Mendoza (Calexico), Orkesta Mendoza fashion borderless sounds that span the Americas, embracing mambo and cumbia with the same vigor as psychedelic pop, twang rock, and analog electronics.
Originally formed as a tribute to “King of Mambo” Pérez Prado, Orkesta Mendoza plays music that explores a myriad of directions, rhythms, and moods, delivering big-band orchestrations mixed with lo-fi electronica, vocals en Español, and moving instrumentals. Epic and soulful, they truly capture the positive spirit of the Southwest.
Featuring Petra Haden, Thomas Morgan, and Rudy Royston
Hailed as “the most innovative and influential guitarist of the past 25 years” (Wall Street Journal), Bill Frisell has seen collaborations with the likes of Elvis Costello, Bono, Paul Simon, and the Los Angeles Philharmonic over the course of his 35-year career. His Grammy-nominated album When You Wish Upon a Star features his arrangements and interpretations of music for film and television. The album is more than an homage to a set of iconic scores; Frisell draws upon the sentimentality of music heard on screen and how it shapes and informs our emotional relationships to what we see. The guitarist will be joined by bassist Thomas Morgan, drummer Rudy Royston, and singer Petra Haden in reimagining time-honored gems like “When You Wish Upon a Star” and “Somewhere Over the Rainbow,” as well as music from television favorites, including The Dick Van Dyke Show and The Honeymooners.
A former member of the Carolina Chocolate Drops, multi-instrumentalist Leyla McCalla ventured out on a solo career to pursue a personal sound. A New York–born Haitian American living in New Orleans, McCalla is deeply influenced by traditional Creole, Cajun, and Haitian music, as well as by American jazz and folk. Her music is at once earthy, elegant, soulful, and witty. It vibrates with three centuries of history, yet also feels strikingly fresh, distinctive, and contemporary.
McCalla’s latest album, A Day for the Hunter, A Day for the Prey, explores issues of social justice and pan-African consciousness. She has spent the last year and a half touring extensively around North America and Europe, and plans to release her third album in 2018.
Feufollet is Americana at its finest—reverential but wholly nonconformist. The young and vibrant southwest Louisiana band takes Cajun, honky-tonk, and string-band music as starting points, keeping an open mind about where their songcraft will lead them next. On their most recent album, Two Universes, Feufollet prove their Cajun roots don’t define them as much as propel them forward. Whispers of the swamp and its time-honored waltzes underpin a modern sound influenced by blues, old-time country ballads, and rock ‘n’ roll. The band accomplishes the unusual feat of creating a sound that is at once familiar and fresh, classic and yet unmistakably original.
“With a voice reminiscent of Aretha Franklin, Liz Vice offers up a tasty mix of R&B and gospel on her debut album, There’s a Light.”—KCRW
Gospel, soul, and R&B–inspired artist Liz Vice’s music features dynamic, beautiful vocals and classically influenced lyrics that reference her deep-rooted spirituality. After overcoming a debilitating autoimmune disease in her youth, Vice found music offered a new lease on life. “I didn’t think I was going to live past 20 years old,” she says. It’s a surprising revelation considering the vitality and energy she exudes on stage, but it brings context to the utter joy, gratefulness, humility, and magic that imbue her soulful voice throughout There’s a Light, her debut album.
“The way I see it, the future of the New Orleans brass band tradition is in their hands.”—Troy “Trombone Shorty” Andrews
New Breed Brass Band live and breathe the culture of New Orleans, infusing funk, rock, jazz, and hip-hop into a custom-made enhancement of second-line brass-band tradition. With a founding core of five New Orleans natives, the band made their street debut as a nine-man unit in 2013. Since then, they have showcased their originality opening for such diverse bands as the Fray, Red Baraat, Dr. John, the Waterboys, and Trombone Shorty & Orleans Avenue. New Breed Brass Band are certain to sweep the audience away with the spirit of NOLA!
Loosely translated as “Get Funky!” or “Work It,” Ranky Tanky is a band of South Carolina natives who keep the Gullah musical tradition alive and fresh with a repertoire of playful game songs, heartbreaking spirituals, and delicate lullabies. “Gullah” is a West African word meaning “a people blessed by God,” and is a storied culture prevailing on the Sea Islands of South Carolina’s Lowcountry. In 1998, four musicians (Clay Ross, Kevin Hamilton, Charlton Singleton, and Quentin Baxter) came together to form a seminal Charleston jazz quartet. Now, united by their years apart and a deeper understanding of home, these accomplished artists are joined by one of the most sought-after voices in the Lowcountry, Quiana Parler, to celebrate a “Heartland of American Music” born in their backyards.
