Louie Michot’s Lost Bayou Ramblers and Michot’s Melody Makers have never shied away from pulling in guests from outside their South Louisiana Cajun orbit. A shortlist would include Violent Femmes’ Gordon Gano, Dr. John, actor Scarlett Johansson, The Pogues’ Spider Stacey, and former members of the Carolina Chocolate Drops.

Leyla McCalla is certainly no stranger to Michot’s aggregations, having played on the title track of Lost Bayou Ramblers’ 2017 Grammy Award-winning album Kalenda. Michot returned the favor by appearing on McCalla’s Capitalist Blues in 2019. Starting with Michot’s residency at The Stone in New York City in 2016, he and McCalla have also performed together at various times.

In front of a toasty fire on a March evening, McCalla and Michot’s Melody Makers gathered for a short but meaningful five-song set on the banks of a pond, hence the tiny island joke, at Michot’s St. Landry Parish abode.

In essence, it’s a Francophone cultural exchange between Michot’s Melody Makers Cajun-Creole wheelhouse and McCalla’s Haitian Kreyol world. Michot kicks off with fiddle-driven tunes: “Two-Step de Ste. Marie,” from Les Frères Michot (his father and uncles’ band), and Leo Soileau and Moise Robin’s 1929 classic “Blues de neg francais.” McCalla and Michot trade vocals on a touching rendition of Canray Fontenot’s signature tune, “Les Plats Sont Tous Mis Sur La Table.”

McCalla shares a Haitian folk song, “Latibonit,” where her hard-driven bow rivets across her cello strings. As she sings about this picturesque valley in Haiti, chirping frogs and insects sounding like squeaky pulley wheels accompany the group. Michot and McCalla laugh about it afterwards, with Michot complimenting his unexpected creature audience by remarking, “They’re on it.”

McCalla’s cello playing provides a rich, thick bottom-end that’s otherwise uncharacteristically quasi-orchestral in Cajun music. Michot’s Melody Makers’ Mark Bingham adds a trippy underlayer by playing his guitar using foot pedals through a tiny amp to shadow the melody lines.

The last track is joyfully spacey, a driving rendition of the Creole fiddle standard “Bluerunner” that artfully segues into Michot’s original “La Lune est Croche.” In the process, Michot unleashes his angst for his best vocal performance of the set.

The performance was filmed by Conner Reever and Samuel Aguirre-Kelly for Fast Friends Productions as part of Ned Sublette and Ariana Hall’s NOLA Reconnect. The video will be released on December 10 as part of Tiny Island’s 12” 45 rpm vinyl release.