Chantz R. Powell was born in New Orleans and began playing trumpet at age seven, inspired at age six after his mother, Glinda "Gee-Gee" Powell, took him to see Spike Lee's film Mo' Better Blues. A singer, trumpeter, dancer, composer, and actor, Powell blends influences from several generations of American musicians into a style critics have compared to Sammy Davis Jr. meeting Usher, or Miles Davis, Louis Armstrong, and James Brown rolled into one performer. He also studied Business Economics at UCLA and was a member of the Colburn Children's Choir of Los Angeles as a child.
At age 16, Powell signed a contract with Decca/Universal Records, recording his debut album Stories of Me at Conway Studio with an 18-piece jazz orchestra under the musical direction of Jerry Hey. As an international recording artist, Powell has toured extensively throughout Europe, Asia, and Scandinavia, headlining major venues including the Royal Albert Hall in London, the Manchester, Belfast, and Sheffield Arenas, Holland's North Sea Jazz Festival, the World Beat Festival in Tunisia, and Ronnie Scott's and the Quai du Blues in Paris. He has also appeared as a special guest with the Duke Ellington Jazz Orchestra at Birdland in New York, the Dizzy Gillespie Jazz Orchestra at the Bahai Center in Los Angeles, and the Irvine Pacific Symphony Orchestra, and served as a headliner for Oprah Winfrey's "Cruise of a Life Time" on the NCL Gem Cruise Ship.
From 2017 to 2019, Powell toured with Playing For Change across Colorado, Brazil, Bahrain, and Australia, and was a special guest at Playing for Change's International New Orleans Jazz Festival appearance. In November 2022, he headlined with Thee Juno Project at the World Famous Fillmore in New Orleans. Today, Powell performs regularly with his band, Sir Chantz Powell & The Sound of Funk (S.O.F.), a fixture at Satchmo SummerFest and French Quarter Festival, bringing his singular blend of old-school showmanship and New Orleans funk to festival stages across his hometown.
