1. GATO LOCO

Date: Monday, April 4, 2011
Time: 9:30pm
Venue: Barbes (376 9th Street, Brooklyn, NY)
Ticket: $10
Genre:  Cuban Son dance music

GATO LOCO  play arrangements of early Cuban son dance hits from the 1920s-1940s. The quartet plays the great compositions of Ignacio Pinero, Arsenio Rodriguez, Chano Pozo, Quarteto Habanero, Casino De La Playa, Maria Teresa Vera, as well as traditional folk songs, all filtered through subsonic instruments played as delicately as possible. tuba, bari sax, baritone acoustic guitar, and acoustic bass guarantees that you feel the music, rather than hear it. With Stefan Zeniuk (Bari Sax), Ari Folman-Cohen (bass), Joe Exley (tuba), Clifton Hyde (baritone guitar) and Greg Stare (congas).

2. THE FELLOWSHIP BAND

Date: Tuesday through Sunday, April 4 til April 10, 2011
Time: 9pm & 11pm
Venue: The Village Vanguard (178 7th Avenue South, NY)
Ticket: $25
Genre: folk Jazz

The line up is: Brian Blade-d, Melvin Butler-tsax, Myron Walden-asax, Jon Cowherd-p, Jeff Parker-gtr, and Chris Thomas-b.

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Brian Blade and the Fellowship Band play “King’s Highway” from Groundswell on Vimeo.

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3. Amkoullel

Date: Thursday, April 7, 2011
Time: 8pm – 10pm
Venue: The Shrine (2271 Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Blvd, NY)
Ticket: donation
Genre: Mali Hip Hop/Malian rap

AMKOULLEL – The Fula Child ‘the Malian Hip Hop prodigy honouring the African youth’  for the 1st time in the US!

Invited by various universities and students organisations committed to education and social change through Hip Hop, AMKOULLEL will be doing workshops, panels and performances with his multi-instrumentalist musician playing Ngoni and Talking Drums. He will also play in various NY and LA clubs… the buzz is growing fast!! 

Amkoullel is recognised as the most talented and socially committed Malian rapper, harmoniously combining traditional and contemporary global cultures to promote social responsibility. With his unique charisma and style, he touches all audiences and is boosting the image of Africa through education and culture. Amkoullel is a cultural entrepreneur, a successful TV presenter, a producer and actor as well. In 2009, Amkoullel was honoured at the Mali Hip-Hop Awards three times. In 2010 he released his 4 album Ne Ka Mali!! with 4 amazing videos. 2011 started with the Festival in the Desert and will definitely be the year of Amkoullel’s international launch.

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4. Erik Friedlander

Date: Thursday, April 7, 2011
Time: 8pm
Venue:  Barbes (376 9th Street, Brooklyn, NY)
Ticket: $10
Genre: contemporary cello music

Cellist Erik Friedlander is a composer and an improviser, a classical musician and a jazzbo. As a longtime virtuosic veteran of NYC’s downtown scene, he’s not only backed John Zorn, Laurie Anderson, and Courtney Love, but has also recorded recorded 8 CDs as a leader. His compositional choices and dynamic improvising style have staked out new ground for his instrument. Whether its solo playing or performing with one of his bands, Friedlander blends his vision of what the cello can be pushed to do, while maintaining a firm grasp on traditions, both improvising and classical.

5. Unsound Festival New York presents Alan Howarth ,  Harald Grosskopf and  Emeralds

Date: Friday, April 8, 2011
Time: 7pm
Venue:  Le Poisson Rouge  (158 Bleecker Street, New York, NY 10012, ph: 212- 505-3474)
Ticket: $15
Genre: electronics/noise/experimental

On Friday April 8th, two very different live collaborations will take place, alongside the highly anticipated return of Emeralds to New York City. After several prolific years of CDR, cassette, and limited vinyl releases, Emeralds’ 2010 album Does It Look Like I’m Here? broke the Cleveland trio’s experimental brand of kosmische through to new audiences, garnering Best New Music from Pitchfork and extensive tour dates with Caribou. The Unsound performance will mark Emeralds first in NYC in several years.

Harald Grosskopf, the percussionist behind Ash Ra Tempel, Klaus Schulze, and Cosmic Jokers, will make his NYC – and US – debut performing the landmark 1980 solo album Synthesist in its entirety. Recently reissued by RVNG, Synthesist is a melodically rich symbiosis of krautrock, kosmische, and prog rock that signaled sonic qualities embedded in electronic and techno music for years to follow. At Unsound, Harald collaborates on a live performance of Synthesist with many of the artists that contributed to the Re-Synthesist compilation, including A.R.P, Blondes, Laurel Halo, Pink Skull, James Ferraro, and more.

In addition to composing countless, prodigious electronic movie scores with John Carpenter, Alan Howarth has pioneered cinematic sound effects for decades. Alan also co-founded Pi Corp, a Cleveland based quartet that pushed some heavy Hawkwind vibes in their studio pursuits, recently compiled as Let Them Eat Pi (Alma Records). Alan opens the night performing pieces from his vast repertoire and then joins fellow Emeralds at the end for a special collaboration based around RA Music, a form of tuning designed to allow natural listener stimulation and unprecedented spiritual and mental awakening.

6. Casimir Liberski

Date: Friday, April 7, 2011
Time: 7pm – 9pm
Venue: The Shrine (2271 Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Blvd, NY)
Ticket: $10
Genre: Trip Hop?Jazz

Casimir Liberski (born 28 January 1988) is a Belgian jazz musician who plays piano and electric keyboard. Casimir has been active on the European Jazz scene since his early teens, touring much of France and his native Belgium with his trio while still finishing high school in Brussels. He also fostered a friendship early in his life with jazz great Ornette Coleman (the jazz saxophonist). In 2005, Casimir composed an original score to the movie Bunker Paradise, directed by his father, acclaimed Belgian film director Stefan Liberski. He received a Presidential Scholarship to Berklee College of Music in 2006, and currently resides in New York City, where he works as a free-lance pianist. He has performed and recorded with a long string of musicians, including Stanley Jordan, Denardo Coleman, Evan Marian, Charnett Moffett, Rodney Holmes, Tyshawn Sorey, and Nasheet Waits.

7. Ishtah

Date: Saturday, April 9, 2011
Time: 10pm
Venue: The Stone (is located at the corner of Avenue C and 2nd Street)
Ticket: $10
Genre: Near Eastern music and improve

Ishtah is: Eric Ederer (oud, cümbüş), Lillie Gordon (violin), Jim Grippo (qanun), Miles Jay (contrabass, buzuq) and Souhail Kaspar (egyptian tabla, riqq, tar). Ishtah, in Egyptian colloquial Arabic, refers to the luscious cream that rises to the top when milk is heated, as well as to anything considered dope, swank, bomb, cool, golden, or fly. Journeying from the West Coast, Ishtah invites you to partake in the crème de la crème of Near Eastern improvisation; a deviation from playing within traditions and into a delectable improvisational expression of the repertoire.

8. DJ Spooky presents: Contemporary Asian/American Music

Date: Saturday, April 9, 2011
Time: 7pm
Venue:  Le Poisson Rouge  (158 Bleecker Street, New York, NY 10012, ph: 212- 505-3474)
Ticket: $22
Genre: electronics/hip hop/contemporary

9. Salif Keita