Tom McDermott and Meschiya Lake

1001 Esplanade Avenue,New Orleans LA 70116

29 April, 2021

Description

The Dynamic duo of Tom McDermott and Meschiya Lake are always crowd favorites. Jazz Standards and Surprises Tom McDermott is a pianist and composer born in St. Louis, Missouri, in 1957. He began studying piano at age seven, became a professional musician at 16, and received a Master of Music degree from Washington University in St. Louis in 1982. Two years later he moved to New Orleans and became noted for the styles of music associated with that town, especially traditional jazz and New Orleans R&B. He was in the group Dukes of Dixieland through much of the 1990s. In 1994 he co-founded and wrote arrangements for the innovative brass band the New Orleans Nightcrawlers. He has released 17 CDs as a leader, and has received praise from The New York Times, Rolling Stone, the Los Angeles Times and other publications. Since 2001 he has devoted much time travelling to Brazil, where he has studied and recorded choro music. Meschiya Lake began her singing career at the age of nine, earning a regular gig and winning $500 upon winning an adults only singing contest in a South Dakota Steakhouse. In 2000 as a young woman, she met and began traveling with the Know Nothing Family Zirkus Zideshow and End of the World Circus - a troupe blending traditional circus arts with modern sideshow varieties where Meschiya honed her performance skills with such thrilling acts as glass and insect eating and fire dancing (dangerously twirling around on stage with flame-doused nunchucks). It was while touring with this troupe that she fell in love with and felt immediately embraced by the culturally rich and one of a kind city of New Orleans, her home base for the last decade and counting. Meschiya delighted in participating in and watching the jazz revival unfold around her, with jazz and jazz dance fever bringing more and more musicians and dancers to town. Meschiya formed The Little Big Horns Jazz Band in the Spring of 2009 and, saving pennies from the street, she produced the first Little Big Horns album Lucky Devil to National Acclaim. On the 5th anniversary of Katrina, DJ David Kunian of WWOZ cited Lucky Devil as one of his four favorite releases of 2010 on NPRs All Things Considered.