Upcoming: Preservation Hall Jazz Band 50th Anniversary at Carnegie Hall (onsale Friday)

Listen: New Galactic Single

Hey Na Na feat. David Shaw (of the Revivalists) and Maggie Koerner by Galacticfunk

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. 

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.

Prince Paul: New Orleans Bounce

Win 2 Free Tickets to Porter Show, Dinner for 2 @ Bourbon Street Bar & Grille

WIN A PAIR OF TICKETS to see GEORGE PORTER JR. & RUNNIN' PARDNERS and DINNER FOR 2 at Bourbon St. Bar & Grille December 3 | Hiro Ballroom
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Winner will be chosen on Monday, Nov 28th and notified by e-mail.

Nov 3-Hiro Ballroom-Papa Grows Funk-To Benefit The Hole In The Wall Gang Camp‏

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Daytrotter Session: Trombone Shorty & Orleans Avenue

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Download Free Session

Stream Session HERE

Whatever Spooks, Rattles Or Romps

Words by Sean Moeller, Illustration by Johnnie Cluney, Recording engineered by Jon Ashley

The New Orleans that I'd like to go to, for my first visit, is the one that Trombone Shorty gives us a guided tour of with everything that he and his group, the Orleans Avenue, give us with every number and every interpretation they play. We've heard that there's some great food down there, but where isn't there something special to sample when considering local cuisine? We've heard that it's beautiful and that things are shaping back up down with rebuilding and recovery efforts, but lots of places are beautiful. Beauty's kind of a dime a dozen. The eyes can always be full, anywhere you go. What we sense the most in Trombone Shorty, the stage name of 25-year-old Troy Andrews, is the voodoo that we've been told is synonymous with that city down on the Bayou. It's that twinkling black magic or something that feels forbidden or unattainable that comes through his instrument. It feels like new language, a purple haze, something that's not quite of this world. There's a haunting that Andrews puts to the notes that he blows out. They have within them the funkiness and soul that provide a commonly accepted stepping off point for discussion, but he takes them into darker corners of the swamp, where they pick up their scruff and scuffings. They come out on the other side of his head and his mouth fully diabolical, completely consequential. They have life that's been given to them by some unknown power and the songs carry with them a certain pluck that would have made mothers and fathers calling it the devil's music had Shorty been making it back when Elvis was deemed Satanic for the swivel of his hips and the playing of such unwholesome R&B-infused rock and roll. Trombone Shorty would have stood at the top of the list of banned musical substances should he have been around back in the 1950s. These days, he's still able to steam up the windows and he brings the humidity of something frisky happening between the sheets to much of his music, allowing it to be heard in the way that anyone wants to hear it. He's a true master, already, at his tender age, the product of and interpreter of past greatness. He sounds intent upon giving new life to the music that he grew up with, adding to it whatever gets into his cage at night, whatever spooks, whatever rattles, whatever gives him a romp.