#cha wa

[musiconspotify]

Cha Wa

My People (2021) ... soul-warming ...

#ChaWa

[larryland]

New Orleans Comes North for Mardi Gras 2019 at Proctors SCHENECTADY, N.Y.—FEB. 5, 2019—Get your krewe ready, carnival is coming! It’s time to light the flambeaux, toss the doubloons and Laissez Les Bons Temps Rouler!

[dustedmagazine]

Cha Wa — Rise Up (Single Lock)

Cha Wa fuses funk, soul, jazz, rock and Mardi Gras in a particularly New Orleans way, its swaggering syncopations shot through with horn blasts, its beats unstoppable, its choruses full of a tough, resilient joy. The band, which took shape around a non-NOLA native, one Joe Gelini, has nonetheless a deep connection to a Mardi Gras Indian tradition, revered in that city for their willingness to shelter escaping slaves. In other words, the bonds between black and native Americans run very strong in the Crescent City, and you can hear it in the music, which sounds like James Brown bedecked with plastic beads, sipping a Hurricane out of a to-go cup.

“Here We Come” brings Cha Wa into view, a multi-layered patter of percussion kicking up the dust, blurts of trombone, blares of trumpet throw bright lightning bolts into the mix. “Welcome to New Orleans,” chants the band leader, as an organ surges, pitched somewhere between a country funeral and the wavery joys of Stax soul. There’s a little rap in there, too, amid the 1960s funk-soul grooves; the party continues on the streets of New Orlean, picking up new traditions as it goes.

“Music Is My Medicine” taps into a classic Soul vibe, not too far from the Temptations’ “Papa Was a Rolling Stone,” with its bass pulse and guitar twitch, akin to certain Al Green anthems with its celebratory grit and vibrato. “Won’t Back Down” is even more exuberant, erupting into all hands shouts of “Let’s go get ‘em” and “We won’t back down” that beg for audience participations. The highlight, though, comes when the Soul Queen of New Orleans, Irma Thomas, steps up to the mike for “Why You Wanna Do Me Like That?” It’s a cow-bell-laced, low-brass blatting, organ frolicking boogie, taut and lean in the verse but flowering into everybody-sing-hands-in-the-air choruses. To paraphrase Omar from The Wire, if you’re going to come at the queen, you’d best not miss, and they don’t. Not Cha Wa.

Jennifer Kelly

[originalharmonysalad]

Cha Wa - My People (2021)

[sonicziggy]

"Why You Wanna Do Me Like That" by Cha Wa, Irma Thomas https://ift.tt/URrS53t

[thejoyofviolentmovement]

New Audio: New Orleans' Pocket Protection Releases A Strutting and Funky New Single

New Audio: New Orleans' Pocket Protection Releases A Strutting and Funky New Single @colorredmusic

https://soundcloud.com/colorredmusic/pocket-protection-paul-p-sure-color-red-music Pocket Protection is an instrumental groove project that features a collection of accomplished New Orleans players including — The Revivalists‘ George Gekas (bass), Ed O’Brien (EOB)‘s PJ Morton‘s, Raphael Saadiq’s and Pretty Lights touring musician Alvin Ford, Jr. (drums), Lembo‘s and Deltaphonic‘s Paul Provosty…

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[thejoyofviolentmovement]

New Audio: Cha Wa's Sweaty and Raucous Rendition of a New Orleans Standard

New Audio: Cha Wa’s Sweaty and Raucous Rendition of a New Orleans Standard

Last month, I wrote about New Orleans-based septet Cha Wa. Led by its founding members and bandleaders, vocalist/percussionist Irving “Honey” Banister, Big Chief of the Creole Wild…

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[thejoyofviolentmovement]

New Audio: Cha Wa's Loose, Gritty Street Funk Cover of Dr. John's Classic "All On A Mardi Gras Day"

New Audio: Cha Wa’s Loose, Gritty Street Funk Cover of Dr. John’s Classic “All On A Mardi Gras Day”

  Led by its founding members and bandleaders singer/percussionist Irving “Honey” Banister, Big Chief of the Creole Wild West Tribeand drummer Joe Gelini, who have both been involved…

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