Charles Leary was born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1949 and picked up the washboard in Key West in the early 1970s, customizing it with two tin cans, a wood block, and a hotel bell. That one-of-a-kind instrument now sits on exhibit at the New Orleans Jazz Museum. He spent 1975 to 1997 in Boulder, Colorado — including a stint as mayor of the tiny mining hamlet of Gold Hill — playing with the Ophelia Swing Band, the Prosperity Jazz Band, and Bleecker Street.
Chaz arrived in New Orleans in December 2000 and immediately formed the Washboard Chaz Blues Trio. Shortly after, he joined songwriter Alex McMurray and sousaphonist Matt Perrine to form the Tin Men, one of the city’s most distinctive bands. He has since played with the cream of New Orleans musicians, including the New Orleans NightCrawlers, the Iguanas, Tuba Fats, the Jazz Vipers, the Palmetto Bug Stompers, and Washboard Rodeo.
His talents have appeared on more than 100 recordings, including John Hammond’s Grammy-nominated Long as I Have You. He is a featured artist with Playing for Change — recorded outside the Spotted Cat, where he performs regularly — appeared in all four seasons of HBO’s Treme and in Werner Herzog’s Bad Lieutenant, and co-founded the 9th Ward’s Chaz Fest, which ran for eleven years as the bohemian alternative to Jazz Fest.
