Ranky Tanky, a two-time Grammy Award winning, Charleston, SC-based quintet, performs timeless music born from the Gullah culture of the southeastern Sea Islands. Gullah is a culture that originated among descendants of enslaved Africans in the Lowcountry region of the US Southeast. Their debut album, ‘Ranky Tanky’, was released in October 2017. By the week of February 10, 2018, it was listed number one in the Billboard jazz charts, a position it held for two weeks. For their album ‘Good Time’, the band won the 2020 Grammy Award for Best Regional Roots Music Album. Now we are in 2023, and they just won a second Grammy in the Best Regional Roots Music Album category, for ‘Live at the 2022 New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival’. The name “Ranky Tanky” comes from a Gullah expression roughly translated as ‘get funky.’ The overall goal of the group was/is to create a contemporary interpretation of the Gullah musical vocabulary to share with the world, while remaining true to the pared-down, working-class attitude of the songs.
I had the chance to catch up with Drummer/Producer for Ranky Tanky, Mr. Quentin Baxter ahead of folks in Madison preparing to celebrate Juneteenth and the final day of the 2023 Madison Jazz Festival. On June 18th in Shannon Hall at The Wisconsin Union Theater, we will be treated with jazz-influenced arrangements of traditional Gullah music performed by two-time Grammy-winning Ranky Tanky and featured singer from Oscar-winning film “20 Feet from Stardom”, Ms. Lisa Fischer. Ms. Fischer is known for her remarkable vocal range and vocabulary, singing soul, jazz, rock, gospel, pop, folk and classical with equal facility and authority. Quintin and I get into some of the ins and out of the amazing uniqueness of this upcoming event with Ms. Fischer in Madison. We dive into the creation and ideas behind their latest and first ever live album, (the recent Grammy winning album) which was captured during their debut at the iconic New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival last year. The bottom line seemed to really be that live is really what they do, and the album proves it, but so will this set in Madison. Quentin and I both guarantee that many, if not all the ‘feels’ can and will be felt when live music from Ranky Tanky is involved, and if you don’t bring the right shoes, just kick off the ones you have and let it all out. Before letting him go, I did pick his brain about what perhaps medley of Ranky Tanky songs he’d put into a setlist for the listeners and what he may round that set out with. It is always interesting to hear what people are thinking about when it comes to building a playlist. So, let’s prepare to ‘get funky”.
The lineup for the event at the Madison Jazz Fest:
Lisa Fischer, Guest Vocalist
Quentin Baxter, Drums and Percussion
Kevin Hamilton, Bass
Quiana Parler, Vocalist
Clay Ross, Guitar and Vocals
Charlton Singleton, Trumpet and Vocals
