Zydeco Master Chavis Imports Louisiana-Style Mardi Gras

Santa Monica is a long way from Lake Charles, La., but Saturday the distance didn’t seem so great as Lake Charles’ favorite son, Boozoo Chavis, gave a two-step-happy crowd at the Ash Grove a taste of a rural-style Mardi Gras zydeco dance.

His 65-minute late show was pretty much what you’d run across on any given Saturday night in Acadiana. The upside of that was a thoroughly traditional helping of this alternately exuberant and bluesy music; the downside, his business-as-usual presentation was low on spark.

It’s understandable that Chavis, at 66, now leaves the cartwheels to such fuzzy-chinned hotshots as Geno Delafose and Beau Jocque. As the elder statesman of zydeco, he’s the only living zydeco singer, songwriter and accordionist whose importance rivals that of zydeco’s undisputed king, Clifton Chenier.

Just as Chenier eased up as a showman in the years before his death in 1987, Chavis is a less kinetic performer now than he was even a few years ago.

But his productivity as a songwriter and his skill as a singer are undiminished. Among several songs from his new “Hey Do Right!” album were the quintessentially bouncy “You’re Gonna Look Like a Monkey” and his castigation of cocky young Turks of zydeco, “Message From the Master.”

The master indeed showed he still has a lesson or two for the youngsters in the way he kept the basic blues form of zydeco songs interesting with unexpected rhythmic twists.

* Boozoo Chavis & the Magic Sounds play Tuesday at Billboard Live, 9039 Sunset Blvd., West Hollywood. 8 p.m. $12.50. (310) 274-5800.