Date: April 18, 2013
Venue: The Tea Lounge (NY)
Review by Dawoud Kringle
My friend Veronique Lerebours (HarmoNYom), after attending one of my performances, advised me to check out the Brooklyn Raga Massive, which is held every Thursday night at the Tea Lounge in Brooklyn. She assured me I would like it. I had not heard of it before; and I knew this was something I needed to see. So; on a spring night I ventured to the Park Slope neighborhood in Brooklyn.
Date: April, 6, 2013
Venue:the Rubin Museum of Art (NY)
Review by Dawoud Kringle, photos and video by Veronique Lerebours
HarmoNYom, and the Rubin Museum of Art presented a weekend long Pt. Ravi Shankar tribute series as part of the MUSIC ROOM FESTIVAL. On Saturday, April 6, I attended a performance of mandolin virtuoso Snehasish Mozumder, with Aditya Kalyanpur on tabla.
Date: April 6, 2013
Venue: The Roulette (NY)
Review, photos and videos by Dawoud Kringle
On a night promising to be the last of the cold weather, Roulette played host to a great master of music, and of life; Yusef Lateef. The very idea tends to inspire awe; a quarter of a century of making some of the most beautiful and sublime music the ear can hear.
Yusef Lateef’s biography and resume read like a Renaissance man’s Renaissance man. Born in Chattanooga TN, he later moved to Detroit where he grew up with musicians like Milt Jackson, Paul Chambers, Elvin Jones, and Kenny Burrell. At the age of 18, he began touring with a number of swing bands led by Hartley Toots, Hot Lips Page, Roy Eldridge, Herbie Fields and Lucky Millender. In 1949, he toured with Dizzy Gillespie’s orchestra. It was around this time he converted to Islam. Over the years he’d also worked with Cannonball Adderly, Donald Byrd, Art Farmer, Curtis Fuller, Grant Green, and others. His association with John Coltrane made deep impressions on both men. He made his first recordings as a leader in 1957. Since then, he has recorded 54 recordings as a leader, toured the world, become a world class virtuoso on several instruments, composed many major works (including several symphonies), wrote several influential textbooks on music, authored two novels, two collections of short stories, and an autobiography. He is an emeritus Five Colleges professor at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst, MA, from which he was awarded a PhD in Education in 1975, and was named University of Massachusetts’ “Artist of the Year” in 2007. In 1985 he became a senior research Fellow at the Center for Nigerian Cultural Studies at Ahmadu Bello University in Zaria, Nigeria, where he did research into the Fulani flute. He has collaborated with other master musicians such as Barry Harris, Kenny Barron, Hugh Lawson, Albert Heath, Roy Brooks, Ernie Farrell, Cecil McBee, Bob Cunningham, Adam Rudolph, Charles Moore, Ralph Jones and Frederico Ramos.
Date: March 16, 2013
Venue: BAM Cafe (Brooklyn)
Review, video and photos by Dawoud Kringle
There was high energy in the packed venue. Tension rose as the musicians drifted toward the stage, making last minute preparations. Then, after the MC spoke to the crowd introducing Shelley Nicole’s blaKbüshe a blues pulse drew the audience into its hypnotic undertow. The band moved toward their places, and held up the rock solid pulse the bass drum invoked.
Then Shelley Nichole took the stage. When Shelley takes the stage, there is nothing subtle about it. You know you’re in the presence of a strong, larger-than-life personality. Her powerful voice and indomitable presence are impossible to ignore. Working the crowd like a Baptist preacher, she deftly combines the old time streetwise vibe of a blues singer with the flamboyance of the classic R&B soul funk singers such as LaBelle, Grace Jones, etc.
Date: February 22, 2013
Venue: Drom (NY)
Review by Matt Cole
On 22 February, Washington D.C.- based multinational band Elikeh played at DROM in Alphabet City. The show was a make-up for an earlier date cancelled due to Hurricane Sandy. As I had enjoyed their new CD, Between 2 Worlds, I was looking forward to hearing their live performance.
Massama Dogo (photo courtesy of Massama Dogo)
