If you go
Galactic featuring Cyril Neville with Cedric Burnside and Lightnin’ Malcolm
Where: 9:30, 815 V St. NW
When: 8 p.m. Saturday
Info: $25; 930.com
Think of Galactic as rebuilding New Orleans one song at a time. The effort started in 2007 when the band released “From the Corner to the Block,” a collaboration with a host of top hip-hop artists that combines their vocals with the band’s urban sound, which is part hip-hop, part rock and part funk. Now comes “Ya-Ka-May,” which also features a series of guest artists, this time each connected to New Orleans.
“This is the album we have been wanting to make for a very long time,” keyboardist Rich Vogel said. ” ‘From the Corner to the Block’ had a couple tracks that pointed toward this record.”
Like residents of many large cities, those who live in New Orleans form such close associations that it seems almost like a large-sized small town. That’s especially true in the Crescent City’s music community, where nightly jams among newcomers and veterans are nightly rituals. Think of “Ya-Ka-May” as a road map to those connections.
“We’re excited about that aspect,” Vogel said. “We’re trying to connect those elements of the classic New Orleans with the music of the [contemporary] New Orleans. New Orleans is about music history and music today — a living, breathing place that doesn’t exist in the same way anywhere else. This gives us a chance to distill it through the Galactic lens.”
Irma Thomas, Big Chief Bo Dollis, Allen Toussaint, Trombone Shorty, Walter “Wolfman” Washington and many others who hail from New Orleans’ musical world of jazz, brass, R&B, gospel, rock — and bounce (a New Orleans precursor to rap and hip-hop) are among the guest artists who help sharpen that “lens.”
Of course working with those from such divergent genres could create chaos. Although such an outcome was a concern, Vogel credits the musicians, who “love music and see New Orleans through all of this [music].”
As you’d expect, the album is full of Galactic’s trademark fusion of hip hop, rock and funk, but it takes wild dips into other genres to best use the vocal talents of its A-list guests.
Consider “Friends of Science,” which is all urban funk. The funk’s still bold but brass takes the limelight in “Double It” featuring Big Freedia (who, along with Cyril Neville and other vocalists, has taken a turn playing live with Galactic). That shift to best use vocalists’ voices while staying true to Galactic’s best sound is the element that makes the album work.
If anyone thinks that an album of New Orleans-style songs played by a cross section of the city’s finest musicians and vocalists won’t work, he hasn’t experienced live New Orleans music.
“It’s all about making music to rock the club all night,” Vogel said. “That’s how Galactic started. It’s the necessity of keeping the energy up and the vibe going all night. All New Orleans music has that in common, and everyone in this lineage shares it.”
