The Mardi Gras Indian Orchestra will perform their annual Fat Tuesday performance with Haitian band RAM this year at Café Instanbul, February 21 at 5 p.m. The performance will feature classics from the Mardi Gras Indian canon as well as tunes from the Grateful Dead songbook.

RAM is a mizik rasin band from Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Led by the group’s namesake and founder Richard A. Morse and his wife, Lunise, the group has recently relocated to New Orleans. Mizik rasin means “roots music” in Haitian creole. RAM’s music is a hybrid of styles mixing traditional voudou lyrics and Haitian rhythmic instrumentation including rara horns and petro drums with funky rock-influenced sounds. They have been together since 1990 and have recorded six albums.

The Mardi Gras Indian Orchestra will include Big Chief of the Washitaw Nation, David Montana, Big Chief of the Northside Skull and Bone Gang, Bruce “Sunpie” Barnes, June Yamagishi on guitar, Billy Iuso on guitar, Reggie Scanlan (The Radiators) on guitar, Rurik Nunan (Dave Jordan, Tommy Malone) on violin, Rosie Rosato on percussion, Sage Rouge (Johnny Sketch and the Dirty Notes, Sage Against the Machine) on saxophone and Keiko Komaki (Brassaholics, Marc Stone) on keyboards.

Tickets are $25 at the door.