Maple Blues Award winner David Vest and his band celebrate the heart of Mardi Gras -- and the music that has kept that heart beating, even when war and pandemics have driven Carnival underground. Along with Tom Bowler (guitar), Damian Graham (drums), and Ryan Tandy (bass) will invite listeners to imagine the healing we will all feel when the pandemic is over and the first notes of Carnival can freely flood the streets again.

Carnival is what New Orleans musicians and longtime residents of the communities they spring from call Mardi Gras.In essence, Mardi Gras became Carnival when it became truly open for everyone to participate.

Mardi Gras goes back centuries and has worn many masks, from the mask of Bacchanalian revelry, the mask of voodoo and Neo-hoodoo, to the mask of white privilege, under which music of the New Orleans tradition was rebranded as "Dixieland" and played by white men wearing straw hats and striped jackets. And there have been times, like ours, when Mardi Gras had to go underground and leave the streets emptied of all but phantoms. There was no public Mardi Gras during the Civil War, during the flu pandemic of 1918-19, or during WWII.

You can donate directly to the musicians and this venue at ArtsOnView.ca/Donate