1. JC Sanford
Date: Monday, July 30, 2012
Time: 9pm-11:30pm
Venue: Tea Lounge (837 Union St., bet. 6th & 7th Aves., Park Slope, Brooklyn)
Ticket: $5
Genre: Jazz
Trombonist/composer/conductor JC Sanford is a musician of rare breadth, deeply rooted in the traditions of Jazz and Classical music, yet constantly pushing at their boundaries. His collaboration with fellow composer David Schumacher and their jazz orchestra Sound Assembly yielded the CD Edge of the Mind, which received many accolades including CD Baby’s Top 10 Jazz Records of 2009. JC also conducts the twice-Grammy-nominated John Hollenbeck Large Ensemble, the Alan Ferber Nonet with Strings, and the Alice Coltrane Orchestra featuring Ravi Coltrane and Jack DeJohnette. His large ensemble compositions push the limits of what is “expected” in a specific musical setting without totally abandoning the tradition of the genre, sounding adventurouswhile remaining “accessible.” This iteration of his ever-evolving ensemble features his unique blend of modern jazz and chamber music, employing several colors rarely seen in the traditional “big band” instrumentation including orchestral strings, vibraphone, F horn, double-reeds, and accordion.
2. VOXIFY: THE FAY VICTOR ENSEMBLE
Date: Tuesday, July 31, 2012
Time: 10pm
Venue: Cornelia Street Cafe (29 Cornelia Street, New York, NY)
Ticket: $10
Genre: Jazz
The Fay Victor Ensemble (FVE) is a seven-year-old voice-guitar-bass-drum unit (now sans drums) performing original material that provides structure for free improvisational flight and lyrical excursions. The compositions combine elements of jazz, rock, contemporary music and the blues with free improvisation. Starting out with the song as the focal point for improvisations moving now toward suite-like shapes where blurred lines distinguish song forms, free improvisation and musical genres – where melodies pop up and go away again, maybe to return. Maybe not. The FVE has released two critically acclaimed albums: Cartwheels through the Cosmos (ArtistShare 2007) and The FreeSong Suite (Greene Avenue Music 2009). Currently the group is developing and honing new material for their third recording. This material will be featured at Cornelia Street Cafe.
Fay Victor, voice, compositions; Anders Nilsson, electric guitar, effects; Ken Filiano, double bass, effects
3. UkanDanz/Oumar Konate/Yemen Blues
Date: Wednesday, August 1, 2012
Time: 7pm to 10pm
Venue:Damrosch Park Bandshell’s Lincoln Center (W. 62nd Street, b/w Amsterdam & Columbus Aves, NY)
Ticket: free
Genre: nu Ethopian Jazz/Desert Blues/arabic music
Ckling and swaying with the vibrant spirit of Addis Ababa—and French rock, jazz and noise—“Ethiopian Crunch” quintet UkanDanz features the swelling vocals of Asnake Guebreyes atop explosive, throbbing Ethiogrooves.
A rising young star from Gao, Mali, Oumar Konate is blazing the new wave of Malian music onto the contemporary world stage in his North American debut as a bandleader. Joined by guitarist Dramane Toure, bassist Mohamed Ag Mohamed, and percussionist Mahalmadane Abbanassane (his bandmates in Khaira Arby’s band) Oumar sings about love, family, and social responsibility, punctuated by his searing electric guitar solos and infectious energy. Trained at the reknowned National Institute in Bamako, Oumar leads the new generation of Malian musicians blending tradition with the internet’s global musical perspective.
(Note: Khaira Arby, previously scheduled, will be unable to appear. She regrets having to make this decision, but circumstances beyond her control due to the ongoing revolution and occupation of Timbuktu force her to cancel her current touring commitments to remain in Mali assisting her family and fellow citizens in the ongoing refugee relief effort.)
A high-energy multinational hybrid of North African grooves, Middle Eastern modes, and American funk fleshed out with oud, gimbri, strings, and percussion, Yemen Blues is led by the charismatic Israeli-Yemenite singer Ravid Kahalani and go-to jazz bassist-arranger Omer Avital.
Read more in DooBeeDoo here
4. OLIVER MTUKUDZI & THE BLACK SPIRITS
Date: Wednesday, August 1, 2012
Time: 9pm
Venue: S.O.B.’s (204 Varick St., New York, NY 10014)
Ticket: $25
Genre: Tuku Music from Zimbabwe
Oliver Mtukudzi & The Black Spirits are coming out to SOB’S in Manhattan for not only one show, but two! On August 1st The ‘Tuku Music’ innovator will hit the stage for a total of two fantastic performances showcasing his talents in the distinctive musical style representing many of The Black Spirits’ cultural traditions. Mtukudzi began performing in 1977 when he joined the Wagon Wheels, a band that also featured Thomas Mapfumo. Their single, “Dzandimomotera”, went gold and Tuku’s first album followed, which was also a major success. Mtukudzi is also a contributor to Mahube, Southern Africa’s “supergroup”. With his husky voice, he has become the most recognized voice to emerge from Zimbabwe and onto the international scene and he has earned a devoted following across Africa and beyond. A member of Zimbabwe’s KoreKore tribe, Nzou Samanyanga as his totem, he sings in the nation’s dominant Shona language along with Ndebele and English. He also incorporates elements of different musical traditions, giving his music a distinctive style, known to fans as “Tuku Music”. Mtukudzi has had a number of tours around the world. He has been on several tours in the UK, US and Canada to perform for large audiences
5. Bill Frisell Explores the Music of John Lennon
Date: Thursday, August 2, 2012
Time: 10:30pm
Venue: Le Poisson Rouge (158 Bleecker Street, New York, NY 10012, ph: 212- 505-3474 )
Ticket: $45 (Special offer: two pairs of give away tickets. Please mail the names to sohrab.saadat@gmail.com by Thursday 12 noon)
Genre: Jazz/Blues
Over the years, Bill Frisell has contributed to the work of such collaborators as Paul Motian, John Zorn, Elvis Costello, Ginger Baker, The Los Angeles Philharmonic, Suzanne Vega, Loudon Wainwright III, Van Dyke Parks, Vic Chesnutt, Rickie, Lee Jones, Ron Sexsmith, Vinicius Cantuaria, Marc Johnson (in “Bass Desires”), Ronald Shannon Jackson and Melvin Gibbs (in “Power Tools”), Marianne Faithful, John Scofield, Jan Garbarek, Lyle Mays, Vernon Reid, Julius Hemphill, Paul Bley, Wayne Horvitz, Hal Willner, Robin Holcomb, Rinde Eckert, The Frankfurt Ballet, film director Gus Van Sant, David Sanborn, David Sylvian, Petra Haden and numerous others, including Bono, Brian Eno, Jon Hassell and Daniel Lanois on the soundtrack for Wim Wenders’ film Million Dollar Hotel.
This work has established Frisell as one of the most sought-after guitar voices in contemporary music. The breadth of such performing and recording situations is a testament not only to his singular guitar conception, but his musical versatility as well. This, however, is old news by now. In recent years, it is Frisell’s role as composer and band leader which has garnered him increasing notoriety.
The line up: Bill Frisell, Greg Leisz, Tony Scherr, Jenny Scheinman, & Kenny Wollesen
6. Brandt Brauer Frick Ensemble (U.S. debut) & “Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring” arranged and performed by The Bad Plus (New York premiere)
Date: Thursday, August 2, 2012
Time: 7:30 PM – 10pm
Venue: Damrosch Park Bandshell’s Lincoln Center (W. 62nd Street, b/w Amsterdam & Columbus Aves, NY)
Ticket: free
Genre: nu jazz/minimal/electronics/modern music
Strings, horns, and piano go techno with the help of a Moog synthesizer in the alchemic reactions of Germany’s electro-orchestra, the Brandt Brauer Frick Ensemble, in their first U.S. show.
Known for radically playful, if unlikely, jazz covers of everyone from Blondie to Milton Babbitt, The Bad Plus takes on its most ambitious project to date: a stripped-down and sonically luminous multimedia reinterpretation of Igor Stravinsky’s groundbreaking modernist hit, The Rite of Spring.
7. WILD FLAG/MISSION OF BURMA/Ted Leo
Date: Friday, August 3, 2012
Time: 7pm
Venue: Prospect Park Bandshell (9th St. and Prospect Park West entrance)
Ticket: free, but $3 donation
Genre: indie rock
WILD FLAG has risen from the ashes of a number of storied bands: it’s fronted by Carrie Brownstein of Sleater-Kinney (and recently of Portlandia fame) and Mary Timony of Helium, and includes Sleater-Kinney’s Janet Weiss and The Minders’ Rebecca Cole. The band’s eponymous debut album from last year is “a glorious reminder of rock at its most exuberant,” (Chicago Tribune) and it has been tearing up the festival circuit, and every stage it takes to really, with performances that have critics waxing nostalgic about the days when rock still rocked.
Meanwhile the resurgence of “post-punk legends” (Pitchfork) MISSION OF BURMA continues. With the release of its new record Unsound this July, a much-anticipated next in line to 2004’sOnOffOn, 2006’s The Obliterati, and 2009’s propulsive The Sound the Speed the Light, the band has effectively doubled the early ’80s recorded output that made it a talisman for the louder faction of the last three decades of alternative and then indie music. They’ll descend on the Bandshell with a hurricane of snarling guitars and raw power not seen in Prospect Park since Sonic Youth in 2010.
To start the night off on the right rock ‘n roll foot, everyone’s favorite East Coast rocker, TED LEO, will be performing a solo set.
8. Sidi Touré
Date: Friday, August 3, 2012
Time: 9:30pm
Venue: Joe’s Pub (425 Lafayette Street, New York, NY 10003, 212-967-7555)
Tickets: $18
Genre: desert blues/Mali music
Sidi Touré made his first guitar as a child, constructing it from his wooden writing slate in the ancient town of Gao, Mali. He was born here in 1959, but to be born a Touré, a noble family who trace their lineage directly from the Askia kings, carries a significance and onus of a past that reaches directly into the present. Like another Malian noble turned singer, Salif Keita, Sidi Touré faced a conflict between the inexorable pull of music and the expectations of family and society. Touré’s family have been sung about, and sung to, by traditional griots for centuries, but until a small boy challenged the rules, the Touré’s did not sing!
Sidi has created a sound which both captures and challenges his roots. While the music and rhythms remain authentically Songhai, moving from the translucent swaying Takamba to the trance inducing Holley , his lyrics revleal an observant and critical mind. His songs draw attention to issues not usually addressed by singers from such ancient traditions. Sidi’s music is modern, bending tradition not unlike Tinariwen (they share common rhythms like Takamba: the songhai and the tamasheq are neighbors) and his guitar playing and scales cross into western folk and blues not unlike Ali Farke Touré (who is also songhai). Sidi is a captivating performer whose skills and songs shine in any context.
9. Kimmo Pohjonen & Helsinki Nelson: Accordion Wrestling (U.S. premiere)
Date: Friday & Saturday, August 3 & 4, 2012
Time: 6:30 PM to 10:00 PM
Venue:Damrosch Park Bandshell’s Lincoln Center (W. 62nd Street, b/w Amsterdam & Columbus Aves, NY)
Ticket: free
Genre: modern accordion music
SurroundSound grunts and groans punctuate accordionist Kimmo Pohjonen’s dance-theater work in which music, sport, and dance blend into a unique multimedia “squeeze play.” Reviving the dormant Finnish tradition of accordion-accompanied wrestling matches, Pohjonen performs while grapplers struggle on a custom-made mat embedded with microphones. His work, with choreography by Ari Numminen, comments on Cold War and gender politics while lending a modern artistic twist to a classic Olympic competition.
10. Amadou & Mariam / Theophilus London / Just a Band
Date: Sunday, August 4, 2012
Time: 3pm
Venue: Central Park/Mainstage (NY)
Ticket: free, but $3 donation
Genre: Malian pop and African electronic music
The world of Amadou & Mariam is a musical sphere that stretches from the dusty streets of Mali to playing at Coachella and Lollapalooza. Their unique mix of unforgettable pop melodies and contagious rhythms, driven by Amadou’s bluesy electric guitar and the compelling interplay of their two voices may have its roots deeply planted in Africa, yet this music effortlessly transcends classification. As popular across Africa as it is in Europe and America, critically acclaimed albums such as Dimanche à Bamako, Welcome to Mali and their newest, Folila, have taken Amadou & Mariam on an epic journey that has made the couple one of the best-selling acts to come out of Africa. Their friend Theophilus London, who appears on Folila (along with Santigold, TV on the Radio and others), joins them on the bill.
Urban electro pop phenomenon Theophilus London released his debut LP Timez Are Weird These Days in 2011, following a series of wildly popular independent mixtapes and the Lovers Holiday EP. Timez Are Weird These Days explores the dreamlike headspace of a globetrotting young artist blurring the lines between 80’s rap, new wave beats, freestyle noise and the snarling guitars of psychobilly surf rock. London’s sound moves effortlessly through a range of emotions, from party starting dance floor defiance to moments of quiet intimacy and introspection.
Just a Band is a trio from Nairobi, Kenya consisting of “Blinky Bill” Sellanga, Dan Muli and Jim Chuchu, who came together as a creative force at Kenyatta University. Describing themselves as a “super-nerdy African electronic music/art collective,” in true DIY style, they not only write, record and engineer their albums, but also create their videos, packaging and promo items. Their 2009 video for the single “Ha-He” off the album of the same name was credited as the first viral sensation to emanate from Kenya. A mix of house, neo-soul with a touch of punk throws the group into a class all its own.
