{"id":2445508,"date":"2019-06-19T21:00:00","date_gmt":"2019-06-20T03:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/?p=308181"},"modified":"2019-06-19T21:00:00","modified_gmt":"2019-06-20T03:00:00","slug":"new-orleans-band-cha-wa-to-open-jazz-aspen-june-experience","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/local-news\/new-orleans-band-cha-wa-to-open-jazz-aspen-june-experience\/","title":{"rendered":"New Orleans band Cha Wa to open Jazz Aspen June Experience"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
Cha Wa band portraits taken on February 19, 2018, in New Orleans, LA. \u00a9 Erika Goldring.<\/strong>
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The spirited New Orleans band Cha Wa will make its local debut tonight to mark the premiere of the reimagined Jazz Aspen Snowmass June Experience as the long-running annual music festival moves downtown with four days of music spread across small venues featuring bands running the spectrum from jazz to blues, funk and soul.<\/p>\n

Cha Wa, Grammy-nominated for the 2018 album \u201cSpyboy,\u201d offers a similar mix of styles within itself. The band, which plays two sets on the rooftop of the Aspen Art Museum tonight, brings together the sounds of New Orleans funk, brass bands and the Mardi Gras Indian tradition with the spirit of the city\u2019s street music and parade music.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe base our sound off of what is essentially the street music culture of New Orleans, which includes second lines and Mardi Gras Indian parades and that really is the fabric of the city both culturally and musically,\u201d drummer and band leader Joe Gelini said in a recent phone interview.<\/p>\n

In terms of authenticity, it doesn\u2019t get any more New Orleans than the Cha Wa personnel, including members of Mardi Gras Indian tribes and street bands. Singer J\u2019Wan Boudreaux parades with the Young Man Olympians and is the grandson of the legendary Big Chief Monk Boudreaux, of the Golden Eagles and the Wild Magnolias. (Cha Wa takes its name from the Mardi Gras Indian slang for \u201ccoming for you.\u201d)<\/p>\n

Translating the sounds of the street to the stage can be tricky, especially pulling it out of New Orleans and into far-flung environments like Aspen. When it\u2019s a fake, it\u2019s easy to spot.<\/p>\n

Gelini noted that he couldn\u2019t call up a New York jazzman, or the best player in Colorado, and ask them to play in Cha Wa because its rhythms and sound and communication are based on its members lifelong experience in the New Orleans street music scene.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s something that can\u2019t be taught,\u201d said Gelini, who learned the ropes playing percussion at Uptown Mardi Gras Indian practices. \u201cYou really have to be a part of it.\u201d<\/p>\n

The members of the band are a uniquely New Orleans brand of musician who play constantly. The two shows Thursday night in Aspen are a light load for many of them.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel like they play 100 gigs a week,\u201d Gelini said of his bandmates. \u201cThey\u2019re playing second lines and weddings and funerals \u2014 so it\u2019s something that\u2019s ingrained in them.\u201d<\/p>\n

And yes, following the recent deaths of revered chef Leah Chase and musician Dr. John, members of Cha Wa were out in the streets playing the city-wide second lines mourning their losses and celebrating their lives.<\/p>\n

While most of the band\u2019s songs are dance and party oriented, they also often voice of protest in keeping with the Mardi Gras Indian tradition, which traces back to the unions of oppressed slaves and Native Americans.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe dress up in the Indian suits to pay homage to the Native American Indians, because around the time of slavery, they were the first ones to take us in,\u201d J\u2019Wan Boudreaux says in the spoken word piece \u201cJ\u2019Wan\u2019s Story\u201d on \u201cSpyboy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Among the album\u2019s scorchers is \u201cVisible Means of Support,\u201d featuring vocals by Monk Boudreax and recalling his experiences under the racist Jim Crow laws of the South in the 1950s and \u201960s and police harassment.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe wanted to start to feel more comfortable expressing our feelings about social injustice, being able to write protest songs in our own words,\u201d Gelini said. \u201cI think that we accomplished that. \u2026 This music is about freedom and about protest. We wanted to embody that tradition.\u201d<\/p>\n

The new album also includes one of the few studio recordings of \u201cHey Baby,\u201d a song familiar to anyone who has been to New Orleans during Carnival season or to a second-line though it\u2019s rarely been recorded.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think part of the magic of what we do in Cha Wa is that these worlds all collide and they do intersect with each other musically because that is what happens in New Orleans,\u201d Gelini said.<\/p>\n

The show opens the reimagined Jazz Aspen Snowmass June Experience tonight, beginning a four day, seven-venue downtown music festival with some 10-plus nightly performances on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. It\u2019s the first downtown offering for Junefest, which in recent years had been held in the Benedict Music Tent.<\/p>\n

Thursday\u2019s performances mark the band\u2019s Aspen debut.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a bucket list show for us and we are excited to be sharing the stage with such amazing artists,\u201d Gelini said.<\/p>\n

atravers@aspentimes.com<\/a><\/p>\n

via:: The Aspen Times<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Cha Wa band portraits taken on February 19, 2018, in New Orleans, LA. \u00a9 Erika Goldring. The spirited New Orleans band Cha Wa will make its local debut tonight to mark the premiere of the reimagined Jazz Aspen Snowmass June Experience as the long-running annual music festival moves downtown with four days of music spread […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-2445508","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-20 00:12:16","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSPN The Valley's Quality Rock","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2445508","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2445508"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2445508\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2445508"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2445508"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2445508"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}