Style Weekly
Richmond's alternative for news, arts, culture and opinion
click to enlarge
Fans of old school New Orleans jazz: We know you've been missing new episodes of HBO's “Treme,” but your fix is here. Heavily tattooed singer Meschiya Lake is a real jazz chanteuse. From her youth hopping trains, eating glass and insects with a traveling circus to playing Depression-era standards off Bourbon Street, Lake has earned her bold vocal stripes. Backed by the improvisational Little Big Horns, Lake belts out steamy renditions of old-time jazz with in-your-grill wallop (she don't need no stinkin' microphone). Expect a little Jelly Roll and Bessie Smith in a stage show that, as New Orleans expert and former New Yorker writer Dan Baum once observed, is equally capable of transporting you to a “campfire in a railroad yard or a Budapest nightclub in 1938.” If you need more encouragement, she's also recorded a song with Tom Waits, the patron saint of hipsters. Meschiya Lake and the Little Big Horns Jazz Band perform at Balliceaux on Saturday, Dec. 4, at 10:30 p.m. $10. 355-3008.
Other Publications
