Cha Wa! + Alex Maryol Opens

Presented by The New Mexico Jazz Festival in partnership with AMP Concerts 

Free!

The New Mexico Jazz Festival, in partnership with AMP Concerts is pleased to present two events featuring New Orleans brass band, Cha Wa, who last wowed audiences with their colorful, high energy performances at the 2019 New Mexico Jazz Festival! First, the New Mexico Jazz Festival returns to Santa Fe Plaza (formerly Santa Fe Bandstand) on August 3 as part of AMP Concerts’ Santa Fe Plaza Concert Series. New Mexico's own Blues singer-songwriter, guitarist Alex Maryol, opens. Then, in Albuquerque, in partnership with AMP Concerts’ Emerge From The Pandemic live concert series, Cha Wa performs in the beautiful outdoor venue of Casa Flamenca.  Created as a way to get audiences used to going out again, Emerge from the Pandemic, which began in June and runs through August, features an exciting lineup of many of Albuquerque's best artists, as well as touring artists like Cha Wa. 

Cha Wa – which means “we’re comin’ for ya” in Indian vernacular – is a New Orleans Mardi Gras Indian funk band that radiates the fiery energy of the best features of the city’s street culture. Described as “...a grand gumbo of singing, chanting, intoxicating rhythms, and some deep funk grooves that are simply impossible to resist!” (PopMatters), Cha Wa, founded in 2014, has released three albums, including their Grammy nominated 2018 CD, Spyboy. Their latest release, My People, their first project with the respected Muscle Shoals and New Orleans based label Single Lock, “draws a map of Southern music – and the South’s – diverse identity,” and was described as “pure joy, a distillation of generations of New Orleans expression…that also never fails to remind us how hard-won that joy was and still is.” Dating back to the late 1800s, the Mardi Gras Indian tradition began when African-American men first marched in Native American dress through the streets of New Orleans on Mardi Gras day. The tradition, which includes a host of songs shared among the various tribes, has been kept alive for over a century and is as vital today as ever. Mardi Gras Indians have influenced the biggest names in New Orleans music including The Meters, Dr. John, the Marsalis family, the Neville Brothers, Trombone Shorty and others. "Cha Wa, with bass lines played on sousaphone plus trumpet and two trombones, bring the city's brass band tradition to bear. Add sick jazz-funk guitar, and two frontmen in full-beaded holiday regalia, and the result was a portable Mardi Gras Dance Party!" - Rolling Stone

Opening the evening at the Santa Fe Bandstand is New Mexico born and raised alt-blues artist, Alex Maryol, who has opened for a wide array of artists, including Etta James, G. Love and Special Sauce, Bo Diddley, Bonnie Raitt, Lyle Lovett, Leon Russell, Corey Harris, Blues Traveler, and Otis Taylor, among others. His vocals exude a sweet grit, and, his slow-burn virtuoso guitar playing "conjures muddy Mississippi river blues, gritty indie rock, buttery R&B, and sweat-soaked Chicago-style blues with an unmistakable swagger."

Founded in 2006, the New Mexico Jazz Festival is a partnership between the Outpost Performance Space and the Lensic Performing Arts Center. It is made possible with major support from the National Endowment for the Arts; the Kaman Foundation; the McCune Charitable Foundation; the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation; the City of Albuquerque—Mayor Tim Keller, Dr. Shelle Sanchez and the Arts and Culture Department; the Albuquerque City Council; the New Mexico State Legislature; Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham and more.