The late Dewey Balfa once said “A culture is like a tree, you have to water the roots, but you can’t go cutting off the branches every time the tree tries to grow”. Well, Racines (which means “roots” in French) both waters the roots and stretches outward. A collaborative project of five gentlemen who are all well-known Cajun musicians in their own right, Racines explores the varying musical traditions that call Southwest Louisiana home: Cajun music, Zydeco, blues, and more.
Venue: The Loft
Connie Han Trio
Pianist and provocateur Connie Han has created an edgy blend of modern and traditional jazz with her incendiary Mack Avenue Records debut CRIME ZONE. At 26, this young lioness is on a fast-climbing trajectory to jazz stardom with rave reviews from the New York Times, Jazziz magazine, Downbeat magazine, and more. The New York Times describes her as “the rare musician with fearsome technical chops, a breadth of historical knowledge and enough originality to write tunes that absorb your ear easily.” Weaving in and out of the
tradition, Han pays tribute to McCoy Tyner, Mulgrew Miller, and Kenny Kirkland with her own unique edge and fire at the piano.
Brandon Coleman
Bending the future of sound, taking ivory and ebony to destinations unknown, is keyboard maestro, vocalist, composer, producer, arranger and astral traveler Brandon Coleman. A regular fixture with Babyface, Donald Glover, Flying Lotus, and Kamasi Washington’s band, Coleman represents a new chapter in the evolution of jazz and funk fusion.
Coleman’s latest electronic funk odyssey, Interstellar Black Space, launched in May 2022. He explains, “I wanted to write some music that reflected how I felt about time, space, and celestial energy. I love space movies like Interstellar and The Martian—and I thought to myself, if I was traveling through space what would I want to hear? I wanted to create some astral Negro music.”
Marquis Hill: New Gospel Revisited
One of the finest trumpeters in jazz today, Marquis Hill is also a composer and bandleader whose comprehensive vision highlights the unity and continuity within the musical heritage of African Americans. On acclaimed albums like his latest, Modern Flows Vol. II, and his 2016 breakout project, The Way We Play, Hill and his working band, the Blacktet, use their next-level musicianship and deeply interactive dynamic to break down the barriers separating bop, hip-hop, R&B, and electronic music. At ArtPower, Hill performs from his latest album, a live reinterpretation of his 2012 debut album New Gospel.
Cyrille Aimée
Winner of the Montreux Jazz Festival Vocal Competition and a finalist in the Thelonious Monk International Jazz Vocal Competition, Cyrille Aimée is a riveting performer of new world jazz. She is all about finding herself in each and every moment! Aimée returns to ArtPower to perform new, original songs and music from her roots around the world, always with a focus on groove. In three different languages and with an international band who met in New Orleans, this show is sure to make your heart dance!
Joel Ross ‘Parables’
Joel Ross continues refining an expression that’s true to his sound and his generation. In 2019, the vibraphonist-composer issued his anticipated Blue Note debut, Edison Award-winning record KingMaker to eruptive critical acclaim, followed by his 2020 release Who Are You? which features his band Good Vibes at their most synchronous. New York Times critic Giovanni Russonello praised the album for the ways it “speaks to a new level of group cohesion…more tangle, more sharing, more possibility.”
He returns to ArtPower as bandleader with The Parable of the Poet, his third release for Blue Note Records. The album explores feelings self-awareness— confidence, doubt, regret and forgiveness—through storytellings and retellings.
Cedric Watson & Bijou Creole
Spearheading the emerging generation of Cajun and Creole musicians, Cedric Watson is a fiddler, vocalist, accordionist and songwriter of enormous talent and potential. With an apparently bottomless repertoire of songs at his fingertips, Watson plays everything from forgotten Creole melodies to more modern Cajun and Zydeco songs, even occasionally throwing in a bluegrass fiddle tune or an old string band number.
Cedric Watson & Bijou Creole resurrect the ancient sounds of the French and Spanish contra dance and bourré alongside the spiritual rhythms of the Congo tribes of West Africa, who were sold as slaves in the Caribbean and Louisiana by the French and Spanish. Moving with ease between fiddle and accordion, and adding his strong blues-inflected vocals, Watson’s albums are a tapestry of pulsing rhythms and Creole poetry, and his live performances are unforgettable, at once progressive and nostalgic.
Charly Lowry
Charly Lowry, a musical powerhouse from Pembroke, NC, is proud to be an Indigenous woman belonging to the Lumbee/Tuscarora Tribes. Since her teenage years, Charly has established a career as a professional singer-songwriter with unique passion and voice. In addition to performing solo, for over ten years Charly has been the front-woman for the multi award-winning band, Dark Water Rising.
Among her community, Native women are traditionally barred from the hand-drum, singing behind the men’s drum and/or dancing instead. Lowry defies that norm, following in the footsteps of her mentor, an artist and heir to the Tuscarora Indian Nation, Pura Fé; choosing to battle with her songs, hand drum, and guitar to deliver songs that not only tell the plight of her people but all humankind that face oppression.
She serves as a voice for her ancestors, as well as the youth of today, and remains committed to music that honors roots but lives vibrantly in the here and now.
Yamma Ensemble
Israel’s leading world music ensemble, Yamma Ensemble presents original contemporary Hebrew music. Staying true to the character of the Middle East, the group performs soulful, exotic music accompanied by ancient musical instruments (kopuz, duduk, hand drums) from the region. In addition, Yamma performs traditional music and material from the various Jewish diasporas—songs of the Jewish communities from Yemen, Babylon, and Sepharad, as well as Hasidic music, with the fascinating forms and rhythms that have been preserved by generations of Jewish traditions.
Wong Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
After touring Wong Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest across the country for five years in over 40 live engagements, Wong’s critically acclaimed one woman show is finally captured in her first ever concert film through the dynamic direction of Michael Closson. An unforgettable tour de force performance.
Wong Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest is Kristina Wong’s raucous and whip-smart take on the high rates of depression and suicide among Asian American women. She sets out to single-handedly save them all by the end of her 80-minute film! She fails fantastically, creating hysterical laughter and a sobering coda. It’s one hell of a roller coaster ride! But don’t worry… it’s all fiction.