Leyla McCalla

FEB 7–10 | BANJO, BLUES, & THE BAYOU

Feb 09 - Feb 10

Joe Henderson Lab

A former member of Carolina Chocolate Drops, cellist, banjoist, singer, and guitarist Leyla McCalla embraces American roots music at its most fundamental, with a deep personal connection to the cultural legacy built by the immigrants who settled here over the generations. She returns with music from her new Jazz Village/PIAS album, The Capitalist Blues. A “musical virtuoso” (NPR), McCalla was born in New York to Haitian parents and spent several formative teenage years in Africa, before returning to the States to study cello performance and eventually settling in New Orleans, where she found a renewed connection to her Haitian heritage.

She appeared on the Carolina Chocolate Drops’ GRAMMY-nominated 2012 release Leaving Eden and toured extensively with the group before departing to focus on her own work, which began in earnest on 2013’s Vari-Colored Songs, a tribute to Harlem Renaissance icon Langston Hughes that was named album of the year by Songlines magazine and London’s Sunday Times. With The Capitalist Blues, Leyla McCalla brings a collection of songs of struggle and social consciousness that reflect, in her words, “my experience living in a capitalist society, where we are always expected to do more, be more, and have more. While many of these songs are drawn from my most personal experiences of motherhood, I also find myself questioning the myriad inequities of the world that we live in and how that juxtaposes our ideals in a democratic society.”

McCalla returns with music from her new album, The Capitalist Blues, a collection of songs of struggle and social consciousness that reflect, in her words, “my experience living in a capitalist society, where we are always expected to do more, be more, and have more."