# Ranky Tanky’s soulful blend comes alive: Video

- Link: https://jazzblues.eu/2019/11/06/ranky-tankys-soulful-blend-comes-alive-video/
- Published: 2019-11-06T22:19:21+01:00
- Author: https://JazzBlues.EU

**The appeal of any art form is to take one to another place, perhaps a place never
seen or heard before.**

For Ranky Tanky, that transporting power comes from a mixture of ingredients: the
Gullah culture of the Carolinas, griot stories, poems and children’s rhymes. Those
elements further combine with an incendiary blend of gospel, folk and jazz that 
gives the group both youth and depth.

Loosely defined, Ranky Tanky means “get funky.” The five members of the band — drummer
Quentin Baxter, guitarist and vocalist Clay Ross, trumpeter and vocalist Charlton
Singleton, bassist Kevin Hamilton and vocalist Quiana Parler — brought the fire 
from their latest recording, Good Time, to Morning Jazz, with a preview of what’s
in store at the Blue Note in New York tonight and Wednesday.

**Quentin E. Baxter – drums**
 **Kevin Hamilton – bass** **Quiana Parler – vocalist****
Clay Ross – guitar/vocals** **Charlton Singleton – trumpet/vocals**

“Ranky Tanky, from Charleston, S.C., sings old Gullah songs — some of them sly moral
lessons — in arrangements that connect their beat to a New Orleans lilt.” – New 
York Times

“The biggest surprise of [GlobalFEST], Ranky Tanky proved that exotic music can 
be both unfamiliar enough to be surprising, and yet familiar enough to provoke swinging
hips and nodding heads. When it works, it’s the best of both worlds.” – Paste Magazine

“This group isn’t bound to any one particular musical genre, and it is grounded 
instead by an enigmatic, unshakeable and unspoiled tradition that’s long been hidden
in plain sight.”

![Quiana Parler performing with Ranky Tanky on Morning Jazz.](https://i0.wp.com/
www.wbgo.org/sites/wbgo/files/styles/medium/public/201911/004_wbgo_ranky_tank_vocalist.
jpg?w=640&ssl=1)

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