Tropicales EPK & Info
Past Performances
Exit Zero Jazz Festival. Cape May NJ. 2024.
Harker Concert Series. San Jose CA. 2024.
Specs Adler Museum Cafe. San Francisco CA. 2024.
Casa Marina Resort. Key West FL. 2024.
HiTide Summer Holiday. Asbury Park NJ. 2024.
Asbury Hotel. Asbury Park NJ. 2024.
Wonder Bar. Asbury Park NJ. 2024.
Bar Lunatico. Brooklyn NY. 2024.
Sunken Harbor Club - Gage & Tollner. Brooklyn NY. 2024.
Woodbridge Wednesdays. NJ. 2024.
Cafe 9. New Haven CT. 2024.
David Isenberg House Concert. Cape Cod MA. 2024.
Tipitinas. New Orleans LA. 2024.
Jazz and Heritage Foundation. New Orleans. LA. 2023.
Jazz Foundation of America. New Orleans LA. 2023.
French Quarter Festival. New Orleans LA. 2022, 2023, 2024.
New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival. New Orleans LA. 2022.
Redwood Coast Music Festival. Eureka CA. 2021, 2022, 2023.
Regular performances at:
Bacchanal. New Orleans LA.
Spotted Cat Music Club. New Orleans LA
DBA. New Orleans LA.
BIO
Charlie Halloran’s Tropicales bring a 1950's Caribbean hotel party to life with torrid horns, tropical rhythms and infectious grooves. With a nod to New Orleans’ history as the northernmost port of the Caribbean, the Tropicales perform music from Trinidad and Venezuela, Martinique and Guadeloupe, and other destinations along the archipelago. Scorching tropicalia, and classic New Orleans jams. Biguines and boleros, calypsos and cumbias. Songs that get stuck in your head. Guaranteed to melt the ice in your drink.
The Tropicales released Jump Up in August of 2024 through NuTone Recordings featuring guest vocalists Cyrille Aimee, Quiana Lynell, and Drew Gonsalves on material ranging from classic New Orleans R&B, to traditional calypsos, cumbias, biguines, and boleros. The 2024 Jump Up tour includes dates in Key West, New York City, New Haven, Cape Cod, Asbury Park, the Exit Zero Jazz Festival and of course New Orleans.
Their album Shake The Rum was released to vinyl in 2022 on Hi-Tide Recordings to rave reviews, alongside performances at Jazz Fest, French Quarter Fest, Hi-Tide Summer Holiday in Asbury Park, and a run of shows in New York City.
Halloran also released the Alcoa Sessions in late 2021, imagining the music on board the Alcoa Steamship cruises running from New Orleans through the Caribbean from 1949-1959. Mixing traditional New Orleans Jazz, 1950s R&B, and music from Trinidad, Venezuela and Martinique. The Alcoa Sessions has been nominated for Traditional Jazz Album of the Year by OffBeat Magazine.
The group released a Christmas album in December of 2019 that was released on vinyl on NuTone Recordings in 2023, plus an album recorded straight to 78 RPM acetate disc in 2017. Their next album Jump Up is slated for a vinyl release in April 2024 from the NuTone label.
The Tropicales have been filling clubs in New Orleans since 2018, so grab a daiquiri, turn up your soundsystem, hit the dance floor, and join this subtropical party in sunny New Orleans.
JazzLives
Charlie has immersed himself in that wonderful Venn diagram where New Orleans jazz meets the music of the Caribbean, as astute listeners could hear above. This brings listeners to places they’ve never been but where the music is — although the songs are new — deeply heartfelt and satisfying.
Caribbean Beat
A broad dance music repertoire from Trinidad, Guadeloupe, New Orleans, and Venezuela provides the listener an appreciation of what the Caribbean aesthetic sounded and appeared prefer to overseas tourism execs. Calypso, beguine, and joropo are performed energetically and properly. The songs of Trinidadians Lionel Belasco and Pat Castagne are given new life as the concept of cruising “all the way down to the Spanish important” turns into not a lot a bygone dream, however a method of restoring majesty to native music.
OffBeat
Though using the word “rip” to describe a trombone solo—rooted in the early part of the 20th century—might easily be considered anachronistic, Halloran does indeed rip on every song.
This fine album is well worth seeking out. Also, look for Charlie Halloran and the Tropicales on a stage around town. They are even more fun live.
OffBeat
Joining Polcer on the front line are the trombonist-who’s-everywhere, Charlie Halloran; the divinely inspired reedman James Evans; and the always dependable and witty clary/saxophonist Tom Fischer. The back line is equally compelling with the take-no-prisoners attack of stride-master David Boeddinghaus, guitar-chomping John Rodli and bass-slapping hellion Twerk Thomson. These guys pull off the tricky feat of driving the music home without speeding up; to my ears they actually improve on the original versions of some of these tunes, by slowing down, for instance, “Jamaica Shout,” and beefing up the Latin rhythm on “Rhumba Negro.” It’s like a drummer-less version of the Eddie Condon bands, but with more New Orleans flavor. A-plus.
RiverFront Times
A trombone player chameleonic enough to play with a host of pop, indie and R&B heavyweights — he has sat in with both Calexico and the legendary Allen Toussaint at past Jazz Fests — and tutored enough in the city's jazz history to be a first-call session player with some of the city's longest-running brass bands.