Ilê Aiyê/Photo: Fafá Araujo

When the Wild Tchoupitoulas march down Rampart, playing drums and sporting costumes with two-foot-high Native American-themed headdresses made of yellow, green, pink and orange feathers, you know that Mardi Gras is here. Now Mardi Gras and Carnival, with their drums and feathers and sequined dancers, are coming to Chicago. Not in February, when you freeze in your costume and slide down icy streets, but in the picture-perfect weather of late September.

On September 22, the Old Town School of Folk Music will be hosting “Global Carnival” starting at 5pm at Chicago’s Millennium Park. On that day, the dancing and music of the Afro-Brazilian carnival block Ilê Aiyê, and Chicago’s Windy City Ramblers, Muntu Dance Theatre, Azania Drum, Team Jukeboxx Mas Band and the Epic Steel Orchestra will be joining the Tchoupitoulas and their standard bearer Flagboy Giz in a Carnival and Mardi Gras-inspired celebration of another event, the autumnal equinox.

The equinox is celebrated by native tribes as well as the Afro-Caribbean and later New Orleanian followers of many polytheistic religions, and there is no better historic and cultural representative of this combined cultural gumbo than the Wild Tchoupitoulas.

“The Wild Tchoupitoulas are a New Orleans crew that pays homage to the Native Americans who helped many slaves escape slavery by helping to hide them in the swamps,” says Tom Jackson, who hosts “Somebody Else’s Troubles, The New Orleans Music Hour” on WLUW radio. “They were formed by George ‘Big Chief Jolly’ Landry and are the second oldest Indian crew in the city behind the Wild Magnolias. Their trademark is ornate feathered costumes, which contain feathers and beads that often cost thousands of dollars and take years to make.”

Landry was the uncle to Art, Charles, Aaron and Cyril Neville, whose groups the Neville Brothers and The Meters helped to shape the funk, jazz and blues-inspired New Orleans sound. Following the traditional horns of brass bands like The Excelsior and Superior Brass Bands, this music represented the “second generation” of New Orleans music. The version coming to Chicago represents yet another evolution of the group. Led by Aaron Hartley, also known as Flagboy Giz, the new incarnation replaces the traditional horns with a more rhythm infused, stripped-down style. His songs, which include “We Outside” and “Gentrifire in the City,” also have a political bent.

Flagboy Giz

“Like many in the group now, Flagboy Giz grew up with hip-hop, and his music is done in more of a hip-hop style, but still has the drums and call and response pattern of the more traditional New Orleans music,” Jackson says.

Carnival, however, is celebrated throughout other parts of the world, and many are represented here. Formed in 1974, block Ilê Aiyê, which can be translated to “Black World,” is considered the first Brazilian Afro-Bloco. It was formed in protest of Salvador’s City Carnival, which at that time did not allow Black people to participate. The group’s mission was to introduce and keep alive the drums, dance, music and culture of African tribes. Muntu Dance Theatre is a Chicago-based group that also performs and celebrates African culture through performances and classes teaching traditional African dance, as well as mask-making and quilt weaving.

The flame-tossing dancers and women in sequined outfits are just a part of the flamboyant Carnivals of Trinidad and Tobago, The West Indies and other Caribbean countries. These will be represented by the Epic Steel Orchestra. Epic Steel began in 2010 playing the indigenous steel drums—their enchanting sounds combine elements of Soca, reggae, Latin beats, jazz, marches, classical and contemporary music.

And finally, for those who have the need to march in a more traditional second line led by men wearing dark suits and white captains’ hats, Chicago’s own Windy City Ramblers are the local standard bearers. With a bass drum and tuba providing a constant backbeat, their music erupts with saxophones, trumpets, trombones and cornets ragging, riffing, be-bopping and blowing in a joyous, raucous rhythm that will get you umbrella twirling and high stepping through Millennium Park and maybe even down Michigan Avenue.

Old Town School of Folk Music’s “Global Carnival” will take place at Jay Pritzker Pavilion at Millennium Park, 201 East Randolph, on September 22, 5pm. The event is free. More information here.