Old Town School (Chicago)
Ivan Neville with special guests Nicholas Tremulis 4
Date: Saturday, April 22, 2023
Venue: Old Town School
4544 N. Lincoln Ave., Chicago, IL
Phone: 773-728-6000
Showtime: 8:00 pm
Ticket price: $33-35
Website: https://www.oldtownschool.org
*See website for complete performance information
As a standard bearer for the musical culture of New Orleans, Ivan Neville takes his anointing as seriously as the swamp water that courses through his veins. From the ferocious funk he makes with his bandmates in the dynamic Dumpstaphunk to his high profile gigs with Keith Richards and Bonnie Raitt, he embodies the irrepressible spirit of New Orleans.
Touch My Soul - Ivan's first solo album in almost 20 years - is tough-minded but also tender, filled with joy, beauty, and pain. It exudes an unmistakable New Orleans ambience and breathes new life into his singular sound. It's both a love letter to the Crescent City and a celebration of his emotional and spiritual journey as an artist, a father and a man.
“I haven't written any new material for myself in a long time,” Ivan explains, “so this project is very special to me. I made it up as I went along, a song here and there, in between my work with Dumpsta and my work with good musical friends.”
Ivan Neville holds the keys to the Crescent City at his fingertips. He can summon the barrelhouse mambo of Professor Longhair and the spidery intricacies of James Booker. He can play spooky, atmospheric chords like Dr. John. He can riff like Sly Stone with catchy, melodic chord progressions. Or he can throw intense, impulsive jabs when he jams with his brothers in Dumpstaphunk.
Nicholas Tremulis is a classic Chicago product, born to a jazz piano-playing father and a blues-singing mother, and raised in Greektown and Northbrook, dubbed “the music mayor of Chicago” by veternan radio man Norm Winer (former, veteran WXRT program director). His household full of visiting musicians inspired Tremulis to pick up a guitar as a teenager. After an apprenticeship playing clubs, he formed the 13-piece Nicholas Tremulis Band to play Tremulis' energetic combination of rock, R&B, free jazz and soul, quickly becoming a top band in Chicago, signed by Chris Blackwell to Island Records, along with U2 and Melissa Etheridge.
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