Meschiya Lake’s powerful singing, millennial mindset, and infectious, danceable repertoire have made her a favorite of both old and young traditional jazz fans from Frenchmen Street to France.
Lake was born in Oregon and raised in Rapid City, South Dakota, where she won a singing contest when she was nine years old. The prize included $500 and a weekly club gig, and Lake was hooked. She spent her early 20s as a member of a touring renegade circus group – glass-eating was her specialty – and fell in love with the troupe’s nomadic lifestyle and camaraderie. However, when the troupe spent its off-season in New Orleans, Lake realized that she’d found her spiritual home, and she ‘ran away from the circus’ to establish herself as a professional musician in the Crescent City.
In 2007 she connected with the Loose Marbles, a traditional jazz band and dance group known for their exuberant French Quarter busking. They eventually wound their way to a performance residency in New York City’s Washington Square Park and into the hearts of enthusiastic swing dancers across the country. Throughout their sojurn, Lake added guitar and banjo to her skill set and developed a love for both the music she calls “vintage jazz” and its burgeoning dance community.
Lake soon broke out with her own band, The Little Big Horns, the name an ironic tip of the hat to her home state’s most famous landmark. Lake filled her setlists with songs by Bessie Smith and other idols, as well as with her own compositions, and quickly became a staple on the New Orleans club and festival scene, most notably at The Spotted Cat on Frenchmen Street.
In 2010 Lake and the Little Big Horns issued their debut album, “Lucky Devil,” to a host of accolades, and the band began touring across the country and to international trad jazz hotbeds like Europe and Japan. National Public Radio named “Lucky Devil” one of its Top Ten albums of the year, and Lake and the band began filling their trophy shelves with Best of the Beat and Big Easy awards. Lake and the Little Big Horns followed up with the acclaimed “Fooler’s Gold” and “Bad Kids Club” releases.
Lake can often be seen with the Little Big Horns and with venerable pianist Tom McDermott, with whom she performs regularly and cut a 2012 live album at Chickee Wah Wah. She recently formed her own trio and an all-star group she calls the New Movement Jazz Band. She has also sung with Tom Waits, the European group Erika Lewis (as Magnolia Beacon), the Berlin, Germany-based band, Dizzy Birds, and Alec Ounsworth of Clap Your Hands Say Yeah. She also was featured in the HBO series, “Treme,”
