Category Archives: Concert And Event Reviews

The Residents will never die, they are what they were!!!!!

Date: March 31, 2011
Venue: Highline Ballroom (NY)

Concert review by Jim Hoey

The Residents still baffle and riddle their audience with questions of identity: Who are these freaks? Where did they come from? How do they turn out such twisted songs? What their fans DO know for sure is that they’ve been around almost as long as the Rolling Stones or Black Sabbath, have put out over 60 albums, and they came out of some swamp or dark lair of Louisiana, before heading to San Fran in the late 60’s. The rest is just hearsay. Although they did release Meet The Residents in 1972, (a parody of Meet the Beatles more in line with Zappa or Captain Beefheart), since that time they have been popping up in different incarnations, with consistently demanding and challenging punk, gothic, and noise releases over the past 3 decades.

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Salieu Suso: a serious practitioner of an art that dates back to the earliest days of the Malian empire.

Concert review by Augusta Palmer

Every Friday night between 8 and 11 in Clinton Hill, Brooklyn, you can be part of a musical tradition that’s almost 1000 years old. That’s the time that Sulieu Suso plays kora every week at Le Grand Dakar, Chef Pierre Thiam’s elegant restaurant.

A native of Senegambia, Mr. Suso has been playing the kora, an instrument made from a hollow gourd fitted with a rosewood neck and with 21 strings, since he began studying with his father at age 8. Sulieu Suso is a descendent of JaliMady Walyn Suso, who is often credited with inventing the instrument, and he’s a serious practitioner of an art that dates back to the earliest days of the Malian empire.

There are few instruments that instill a sense of uplift and peace like the kora, and Mr. Suso plays it masterfully. I’d heard him play twice recently with Randy Weston, and was delighted to hear that he has a regular weekly solo gig just a few blocks from my house.

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Tirtha – a phenomenal trio featuring three powerhouse musicians performing NU INDIAN JAZZ!

Date: Saturday, April 2, 2011
Venue: Asia Society

Reviewed by William Harvey

On April 2nd, 2011, Tirtha performed at the Asia Society in Manhattan to promote the release of their new self titled album, Tirtha. The trio consists of Indian musicians including American born pianist- composer Vijay Iyer, guitarist-composer Prasanna from South India, and classically trained tabla player Nitin Mitta, also Indian born. The performance, which was to precede an intense two-week tour of Europe, was enthusiastically received by a full house of concertgoers.

 

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YEMEN BLUES (Israel) creating “moments of soul” @ Le Poisson Rouge (NY)

 Date:  March 9, 2011
Venue: Le Poisson Rouge (NY)

Photo by Zohar Ron

Text by Jim Hoey, videos and interview by Sohrab Saadat Ladjevardi

In New York city, musicians come from all over the world to hook up and put a band together in the hopes of touring the world and living that dream. The players in YEMEN BLUES are in the middle of that process, not yet “on top of the world”, but rising up and starting to play venues and cities farther and farther away from New York.

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Tully Scope Festival presenting Tyondai Braxton’s “Selection from Central Market (2008)”

Date: March 7, 2011
Venue: Lincoln Center/Alice Tully Hall

Concert review by Jim Hoey

I clearly remember the day in Williamsburg when I first saw Tyondai Braxton making sounds, sitting surrounded by a circle of pedal effects in the middle of a street festival, sun beaming down, the East River a block or so away, one of a few performers set to play. He just sat blaring into a microphone, tweaking his electronics.

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