Galactic, featuring
Corey Glover (of Living Colour)
Corey Henry (of Rebirth Brass Band)
with special guests Orgone
- Crystal Hotel & Ballroom - Crystal Ballroom |
- Saturday, March 24
- 8 p.m. doors, 9 p.m. show |
- $25 in advance, $25 day of show |
- All ages welcome
Tickets on sale now!
About Galactic, featuring
It's incredible that GALACTIC has never made a carnival album yet, but now it's here.
To make CARNIVALE ELECTRICOS, the members of GALACTIC (Ben Ellman, harps and horns; Robert Mercurio, bass; Stanton Moore, drums and percussion; Jeff Raines, guitar; Rich Vogel, keyboards) draw on the skills, stamina, and funk they deploy in the all-night party of their annual Lundi Gras show that goes till sunrise and leads sleeplessly into Mardi Gras day.
Check out some tunes from Carnivale Electricos!
GALACTIC was formed eighteen years ago in New Orleans, and they cut their teeth playing the biggest party in America: Mardi Gras, when the town shuts down entirely to celebrate. CARNIVALE ELECTRICOS is beyond a party record. It's a carnival record that evokes the electric atmosphere of a whole city - make that, whole cities - vibrating together all on the same day, from New Orleans all down the hemisphere to the mighty megacarnivals of Brazil. Armed with a slew of carnival-ready guests-including Cyril and Ivan Neville, Mystikal, Mannie Fresh, Moyseis Marques, Casa Samba, the KIPP Renaissance High School Marching Band, and Al "Carnival Time" Johnson (who remakes his all-time hit)-GALACTIC whisks the listener around the neighborhoods to feel the Mardi Gras moment in all its variety of flavors.
***
CARNIVALE ELECTRICOS begins on a spiritual note, the way Mardi Gras does in the black community of New Orleans. On that morning, the most exciting experience you can have is to be present when the small groups of black men called Mardi Gras Indians perform their sacred street theater. Nobody embodies the spiritual side of Mardi Gras better than the Indians, whose tambourines and chants provide the fundament of New Orleans carnival music. These "gangs," as they call them, organize around and protect the figure of their chief. The album's keynote singer, BIG CHIEF JUAN PARDO, is, says Robert Mercurio, "one of the younger Chiefs out there, and he's become one of the best voices of the new Chiefs. Pardo grew up listening to the singing of the older generation of Big Chiefs, points out Ben Ellman, and "he's got a little Monk [Boudreaux], a little Bo Dollis, he's neither uptown nor downtown."
On "Karate," says Ellman, the band was aiming to "capture the power" of one of the fundamental musical experiences of Mardi Gras: "a marching band passing by you." The 40-piece KIPP Renaissance High School Marching Band's director arranged up GALACTIC's demo, then the band rehearsed it until they had it all memorized. The kids poured their hearts into a solid performance, and, says Mercurio, "I think they were surprised" to hear how good they sounded on the playback.
Musical energy is everywhere at carnival time. "You hear the marching bands go by," says Mercurio, moving us through a Mardi Gras day, "and then you hear a lot of hiphop." There hasn't been a Mardi Gras for twenty years that hasn't had a banging track by beatmaker / rapper MANNIE FRESH sounding wherever you go. "You can't talk about New Orleans hiphop without talking about MANNIE FRESH," says Ellman. His beats have powered literally tens of millions of records, and he and GALACTIC have been talking for years about doing something together. On "Move Fast," he's together with multiplatinum gravel-voiced rapper MYSTIKAL, who is, says Ellman, "somebody we've wanted to collaborate with forever. It was a coup for us."
Out in the streets of New Orleans, you might well hear a funky kind of samba, reaching southward toward the other end of the hemispheric carnival zone. There has for the last twenty-five years been a smoking Brazilian drum troupe in town: CASA SAMBA, formed at Mardi Gras in 1986. They're old friends of GALACTIC's from their early days at Frenchmen Street's Café Brasil, and the two groups joined forces for a new version of Carlinhos Brown's "Magalenha," previously a hit for Sérgio Mendes.
But the Brazilian influence on CARNIVALE ELECTRICOS goes beyond one song. "When we started this album, we all immersed ourselves in Brazilian music and let it get into our souls," says Mercurio. The group contributed three Brazilian-flavored instrumentals, including "JuLou," which riffs on an old Brazilian tune, though the name refers to the brass-funk Krewe of Julu, the "walking krewe" that Galactic members participate in on Mardi Gras morning. After creating the hard-driving track that became "O Côco da Galinha," they decided it would be right for MOYSÉIS MÁRQUEZ, from the São Paulo underground samba scene, who collaborated with them and composed the lyric.
If you were GALACTIC and you were making a carnival album, wouldn't you want to play "Carnival Time," the irrepressibly happy 1960 perennial from the legendary Cosimo Matassa studio? Nobody in New Orleans doesn't know this song. The remake features a new performance in the unmistakable voice of the original singer, AL "CARNIVAL TIME" JOHNSON, who's still active around town more than fifty years after he first gained Mardi Gras immortality.
The closing instrumental, ,"Ash Wednesday Sunrise," evokes the edginess of the post-party feeling. The group writes, "There is the tension you feel on that morning -- one of being worn out from all of the festivities and one of elation that you made it through another year."
But, as New Orleanians know, there's always another carnival to look forward to, and GALACTIC will be there, playing till dawn and then going to breakfast before parading.
***
GALACTIC is a collaborative band with a unique format. It's a stable quintet that plays together with high musicianship. They've been together so long they're telepathic. But though the band hasn't had a lead singer for years, neither is it purely an instrumental group. GALACTIC is part of a diverse community of musicians, and in their own studio, with Mercurio and Ellman producing, they have the luxury of experimenting. So on their albums, they do something that's unusual in rock but not so controversial an idea in, say, hiphop: they create something that's a little like a revue, a virtual show featuring different vocalists (mostly from New Orleans) and instrumental soloists each taking their turn on stage in the GALACTIC sound universe.
Mostly the band creates new material in collaboration with its many guests, though they occasionally rework a classic. Despite the appearance of various platinum names on GALACTIC albums, they especially like to work with artists who are still underground. If you listen to CARNIVALE ELECTRICOS together with the two previous studio albums (YA-KA-MAY and FROM THE CORNER TO THE BLOCK), you'll hear the most complete cross-section of what's happening in contemporary New Orleans anywhere - all of it tight and radio-ready.
Despite the electronics and studio technology, GALACTIC's albums are very much band records. Mercurio explained the GALACTIC process, which starts out with the beat: "The way we write music," he says, "we come up with a demo, or a basic track, and then we collectively decide how we're gonna finish it." The result is a hard-grooving sequence of tight beats across a range of styles that glides from one surprise to the next.
What pulls all the diverse artists on CARNIVALE ELECTRICOS together into a coherent album is that one way or another, it's all funk. GALACTIC is, always was, and always will be a funk band. Whatever genre of music anyone in New Orleans is doing, from Mardi Gras Indians to rock bands to hardcore rappers, it's all funk at the bottom, because funk is the common musical language, the lingua franca of New Orleans music. Even zydeco can be funky -- and if you don't believe it, check out "Voyage Ton Flag," the album's evocation of Cajun Mardi Gras, in which Mamou Playboy STEVE RILEY meets up with a sampled Clifton Chenier inside the GALACTIC funk machine.
- website:
- http://www.galacticfunk.com/
About Corey Glover (of Living Colour)
Even before forming the pioneering, Grammy winning, platinum selling rock band Living Colour, Corey's incredible talent as a personality and as an artist was brought to the attention of director Oliver Stone. The famed movie maker decided to cast Corey in his Vietnam epic, Platoon. Corey has also appeared in the films The Keeper, Reunion 81, and Loose Women.
As a founding member of Living Colour, Corey helped prove that not only could black guys kick out the jams, but that they could be embraced by a vast expanse of fans. Living Colour earned numerous industry awards including back-to-back Grammys for Best Hard Rock Performance of 1989 ("Cult of Personality") and 1990 (Time's Up) and emerged as one of the most influential rock acts of all time, regularly selling out arenas and selling millions of albums.
After their four Billboard charted albums, Living Colour disbanded in 1995. Almost immediately Corey began laying the foundation for his debut solo album, Hymns.
With a stint as a VJ for VH-1, a TV series (Signs of Life), and another movie, Reunion, released in 2002, Corey miraculously still found the time to form a new band, Vice, which enables him to satisfy his appetite to write in other genres and managed to impact a whole new set of followers.
Then, with the revival of Living Colour once again, Corey found himself once again singing to sold-out audiences around the world mesmerizing them with his captivating vocal performances.
Corey was recently seen as Judas Iscariot opposite Ted Neeley in the national tour of Jesus Christ Superstar. Although this marks Corey's national tour debut, he has also been seen in productions of Godspell and Fallen Angel.
Living Colour released new bodies of works, Collideoscope in 2003, and The Chair in The Doorway in 2009. Corey has been quite busy lately. To avail yourself of the Corey Glover experience you may currently catch him touring in support of The Chair in The Doorway, jamming with Galactic or fronting his solo-acoustic band.
About with special guests Orgone
Orgone
or·gone (ôr'g?n)
noun
1. A universal life force, a cosmic unit of energy, the creative force in nature.
2. Eight souls from Los Angeles who will move your ass and melt your face.
Pronounced with a long second "O," the Los Angeles band Orgone is dedicated to heavy, raw, adrenaline-fueled funk and sweat-dripping soul. With a core rhythm section of close friends and self-taught musicians steeped in local DJ culture, Orgone has spent the last decade expanding their roster and evolving a sound rooted in old school respect but pulsing with the force of the new millennium. Orgone has become a staple on the festival circuit while gaining a reputation among fellow artists as one of the baddest go-to backing bands on the planet. Always evolving musically and cosmically, Orgone continues to connect with kindred musical spirits throughout the universe with relentless touring and the upcoming release of their fifth full-length album.
Starting out as an instrumental five piece by friends with a love of funk records, Orgone cut their teeth putting their own gritty takes on cuts by the Meters, Booker T. & the MGs, Grant Green and Funkadelic among others. In 2002, the band independently released Orgone, a collection of tough, stripped-down, funk instrumentals that Relix Magazine called "intoxicating" and that quickly became a favorite of die-hard, funk fans. Orgone solidified that underground respect in 2006, adding a powerful horn section and releasing their second album, Bacano, a set of all-original, cold-blooded funk gems in the classic vein of War and Mandrill with improved, warm, organic production that matched the evolution of the band's sound. The release of their cover of "Funky Nassau" on both 7" and 12" became a an instant dance floor classic, inspiring a club edit by renowned DJ Danny Krivit and paving the way for The Killion Floor in 2007, Orgone's first full-length album for the legendary Ubiquity Records.
Orgone proved their continued evolution when the critically-acclaimed Cali Fever was released in 2010. The album was musical chameleon, shifting between West Coast cool, New Orleans grit, Lagos afrobeat, and heavy Mothership funk, taking, in the words of Dusty Groove America, "a rough, rugged, and uber soulful live funk vibe into a deeper and even livelier realm!" Released later the same year, an all-instrumental album The Killion Vaults showcased Orgone's growing mastery behind the soundboard and why their home studio, Killion, is becoming a favorite recording site for many acts. Orgone's roster and sound continue to grow with fiery, Louisiana soul singer Niki J. Crawford adding her powerhouse pipes to the music and sultry energy to live shows. And there are ample opportunities to catch Orgone on stage. Touring almost non-stop since the release of Cali Fever, including 288 shows in 2011 alone, Orgone has evolved into an incendiary live act, both as a headliner or opening for artists including the Roots, Al Green, Gil Scott-Heron, Rebelution, Galactic, Ozomatli, Snoop Dogg, Thievery Corporation, Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings, Groundation, and Aaron Neville. Whether playing a club show or slots at national festivals like Bonnaroo, All Good, New Orleans JazzFest, High Sierra, Bear Creek, SXSW, moe.down, Mountain Jam, Waterfront Blues Festival, Jam Cruise 10 and many others, Orgone is a live funk juggernaut that can do it all, weaving seamlessly between gutbucket nastiness, afrobeat, disco/house, and classic covers, creating a sweaty, dynamic dance experience.
With their critical success and tight, touring chops, Orgone has become one of the most sought-after backing bands for studio sessions. The band has flourished in the studio, appearing on the 2011 multiple Grammy winning Cee Lo Green track, "Fool For Love" and major recordings by Alicia Keys ("Teenage Love Affair, "Wreckless Love"), Estelle ("Pretty Please"), Big Chief Monk Boudreaux, and Anthony Hamilton. Orgone's musicians have also collectively and individually toured and played with Booker T Jones, The Pharcyde, Breakestra, Keb Mo, Plantlife, Macy Grey, Pharoahe Monch, Too Short, Brett Dennan, Slick Rick, and Bun B.
Armed with a new album and a take-no-prisoners live show, Orgone is bringing organic soul and orgasmic music to a stage near you, continuing their rise on everyone's "Favorite Band" list.
Experience the band that continues to evolve and redefine funk and make a cosmic connection with Orgone in 2012.
- Website:
- http://www.orgonespace.com/
