LIVE: Big Sam’s Funky Nation @ Red Square, 9/5/13

Video and photographs by Timothy Reidy

If you were up at the Freihofer’s Saratoga Jazz Festival at SPAC back in June, then you already know that New Orleans’ Big Sam’s Funky Nation pump out a mighty blend of jazz, funk and hip-hop that has everyone within earshot shakin’ their booty.

And when you squeeze the powerhouse combo into an intimate setting like Red Square in Albany, you just know that they’re gonna raise the roof, especially if Local 518 funkateers the Chronicles are signed on to open the evening’s festivities. But when bandleader-trombonist-vocalist Big Sam Williams slid onstage to wail with the Chronicles, well, let’s just say that the funk bomb was detonated early, and the party was in full force before the Funky Nation even took the stage.