1. Afro Roots feat. Jomion & The Uklos
Date: Tuesday, August 18, 2015
Time: 7:30pm
Venue: 647 Columbus Ave near W 92nd st (Goddard Riverside)
Ticket: $10
Genre: Voodoo Jazz from Benin
At the crossroads of Benin’s traditional vodun rhythms, Caribbean styles and jazz, Jomion & The Uklos make festive, colorful music. These three blood-brothers from the coastal West African city of Cotonou amaze audiences at home and abroad with their furious rhythms and mystical harmonies. They joyfully flirt with reggae, salsa and jazz, while drawing on their vast knowledge of traditional vodun (voodoo) music and culture to create vibrant, relaxed dance music. Their voices blend in melodious harmony, delivering messages of hope, faith and traditional wisdom. Their music is simultaneously complex, profound and simple. Their songs connect to the depths of human experience, while lightening the heart with joy.
2. ROCKER STALKER PRESENTS 8/19 at MERCURY LOUNGE: Zr. King, Hooka Hey, & Ellis Ashbrook
Date: Wednesday, August 19, 2015
Time: 9pm
Venue: Mercury Lounge (217 E Houston St, New York, New York 10002)
Ticket: $10
Genre: indie rock
3 killer rock bands on August 19 at Mercury Lounge presented by Rocker Stalker!
Line up:
Ellis Ashbrook
Hooka Hey (Austin TX) ” a layered, dangerous ride hinting at Eastern mysticism and crazy, seductive Creole voodoo” Culture Collide
Zr. King
2. Tal National w. Janka Nabay & The Bubu Gang, Assane Mbaye (a.k.a. DJ Dakar)
Date: Wednesday, August 19, 2015
Time: 8pm
Venue: Le Poisson Rouge (158 Bleecker Street, New York, NY 10012, Phone: 212- 505-3474)
Ticket: $18
Genre:
Tal National are from Niamey, the capital city of Niger. Their music is joyously hypnotic, a highly unique contribution to West African guitar music. With its lightening fast rhythms and rotating cast of vocalists can be heard the history of Niger as a cultural crossroads along ancient trade routes. Collected within the former French colony can be found Songhai, Fulani, Hausa, and Tuareg populations, all of whom are represented in Tal National’s members. In the music we hear the rolling 12/8 rhythms in the Hausa’s Fuji percussion, the pensive aridity of the Tuareg’s assouf or “blues,” and the exquisite “griot guitar” of Mali’s Songhai, all delivered with
virtuoso precision and unrelenting energy.
Tal National official site
Tal National on Facebook
Janka Nabay & The Bubu Gang
Sierra Leonean singer Janka Nabay exclaims: “All I am about is making history,” a modest goal for someone who revived a fading musical treasure, made it big back home, escaped war and chaos, and still managed to write and play songs while working at American fast-food fryers. Now, at last, Nabay hits his stride with Brooklyn indie experimenters-turned-acolytes The Bubu Gang (with members of Skeletons, Chairlift, Starring, Saadi, and Highlife) on his first album-length release in the West, En Yay Sah (“I’m Scared” Luaka Bop; CD/LP/digital release: August 7, 2012).
Nabay’s “bubu” music may sound utterly hip and futuristic to American ears, but its history spans centuries. The original “bubu” is cloaked in mythology: according to Nabay, a young “bubu boy” took it from witches 500 years ago and brought it to the public at large, sacrificing his own life in the process. When Islam reached Sierra Leone, bubu became a part of indigenous processionals during Ramadan; this is the music Nabay learned and perfected as a child. As Janka says: “Bubu is an old, old music, but people don’t know about it. You can add new things into the beat if you know it really well, and make your own sound out of it.” (read full bio here)
Janka Nabay official site
Janka Nabay on Facebook
Janka Nabay on Twitter
Assane Mbaye (a.k.a. DJ Dakar)
DJ Dakar is from the Pikine neighborhood of Dakar, Senegal, and now lives in Harlem, New York City. He got his start in the music business as an audio technician for radio and television in Dakar. He also DJ’d Dakar’s late-night, hip-hop radio show “Hotmix” on WALF-FM.
Now in New York, DJ Dakar’s music is distinguished by his mixing of the latest hits in dance, hip-hop, Sengalese mbalax, reggae, Ivorian couper decaler, Congolese soukous, salsa, reggaeton and more.
DJ Dakar is available for dance parties, weddings, house parties and other special events. His background as an audio technician means that he knows how to make sure the music sounds great in every corner of any event space.
DJ Dakar on Soundcloud
DJ Dakar on Instagram
DJ Dakar on Facebook
3. Brooklyn Raga Massive Presents Tali Rubinstein & Friends
Date: Wednesday, August 19, 2015
Time: 9pm
Venue: Art Cafe (884-886 Pacific Street, Brooklyn, NY 11238)
Tickets: $10
Genre: Indian violin jazz
Tali & Friends, led by Tali Rubinstein, is a unique pairing of both western and eastern instruments: recorder with indian bansuri flute, guitar with oud, and bass with tabla. In true BRM fashion, this event promises a musical delight that tastefully blends an array of musical traditions from around the world.
Tali Rubinstein – recorder
Jay Gandhi – bansuri
Khen Price – guitar
Kane Mathis – oud
Jamahl Smith – bass
Ehren Hanson – tabla
Tali Rubinstein is a unique recorder player, composer, and vocalist, pioneering her own style of contemporary recorder playing and composing, derived from classical baroque, jazz, funk, and traditional Israeli music. Using extensive techniques and incorporating diverse musical languages into her music, Tali challenges this 17th century instrument to fit in a modern setting, creating a new sound blend of ancient and current.
4. UGLYBRAINE
Date: Thursday, August 20, 2015
Time: 9pm
Venue: The Emerson (561 Myrtle Ave, Brooklyn, New York 11205)
Tickets: $10
Genre: hip hop/soul/jazz
Doron Lev (SoSaLa) raised in Miami, FL on sunshine and good times, this Brooklyn-based musician does two things well: drumming and getting live on the mic. Not to mention, he does them both at the same time. Catch this artist live to get the full effect. With NYC jazz elites filling in seats for this band on any given night, you never know who you might see. Studio-pristine lyrics over deft beats. Uglybraine is the next step in rap evolution. Check him out at: www.uglybraine.com
8. LOS VAN VAN
Date: Friday, August 21, 2015
Time: 8pm
Venue: B.B.KING (237 West 42 St., New York, NY 10036)
Ticket: $50
Genre: Cuban dance music/contemporary Afro-Caribbean music
Searock Music LLC proudly announces the U.S. 2015 tour of Formell y Los Van Van, Cuba’s legendary, Grammy-winning dance orchestra.
Heralded as Cuba’s greatest dance orchestra and known throughout the world for their iconic live performances, Los Van Van return to North America, reuniting with Leo Tizol, the producer and creative force behind their 1996 debut tour of the U.S.
Founded in 1969 by Juan Formell, Los Van Van continue to dominate as one of the world’s foremost interpreters of contemporary Afro-Caribbean music. Fans can expect to hear the group’s greatest hits along with work from their more current CD releases.
Continuing the legacy of the late Juan Formell, his son Samuel, the band’s artistic director, has left no doubt that the group will follow the footsteps of his father.
The tour of Los Van Van will present compositions from their latest production entitled La Fantasia (“The Fantasy”), a collection of danceable tracks incorporating innovative, contemporary arrangements of Juan Formell’s hits from past – See more at: http://www.bbkingblues.com/bio.php?id=5231#sthash.6audLE4K.dpuf
9. 75 Dollar Bill w. Eleventh Dream Day & Antietam
Date: Friday, August 21, 2015
Time: 6:30pm
Venue: Mercury Lounge (217 E Houston St, New York, New York 10002)
Ticket: $10
Genre: Mauritanian guitar to raw minimalism and blown-out urban blues/indie rock
75 Dollar Bill formed in New York City in 2012; the singular music of this instrumental duo draws various sources from around the world and across disciplines, everything from Mauritanian guitar to raw minimalism and blown-out urban blues, yet sounds unlike anything we’ve heard before. Wooden Bag, their debut vinyl release (after various cassette and digital EPs), came out in January 2015 on Other Music Recording Co.
Che Chen has recorded and toured playing violin, guitars and other instruments, with a diverse set of artists including True Primes, Jozef van Wissem, Maher Shalal Hash Baz, Che-Shizu and Robbie Lee. His guitar work explores a variety of influences, including Mauritanian guitar, Indian music, North Mississippi guitar boogie, Sun Ra, Led Zeppelin, the Velvets, Henry Flynt, and DNA.
Rick Brown has been playing drums and percussion on the downtown New York scene since the early ‘80s, and has recorded and toured with numerous bands, including V-Effect, Run On, Timber, Fish & Roses, and Chris Stamey, and has collaborated live or in the studio with Tortoise, Matmos, Yo La Tengo, Charles Hayward, Fred Frith, Malcolm Mooney, Elliott Sharp, Jean Smith, Mark Cunningham and many others.
In The New York Times, Ben Ratliff wrote of the duo’s live show: “Che Chen’s guitar: a cut-rate Japanese model sketching looped figures inside old Arabic modes, pushing jagged sound through a small amplifier. But as Mr. Chen stood playing hypnotic guitar repetitions, moving with the stresses of the riffs, the drummer Rick Brown sat on a square wooden box, open in the back, and attacked it from above. Sometimes he used his heel to bounce on a kick-drum pedal, pointing backward toward the box; mostly he was striking the sides of the box with his hands and a homemade mallet, hard, finding different pitches in different places. He cued transitions in the music, building odd or compound rhythms, turning them around and blurring distinctions between downbeats and upbeats. On the surface, the rhythms were only secondary to the guitar lines; deeper down, they were enfolded. One couldn’t do without the other.”
10. BRM at Pioneer Works: The Chamber Jazz Folk Raga
Date: Friday, August 21, 2015
Time: 7-10pm
Venue: Pioneer Works (159 Pioneer Street (between Imlay & Conover streets)
Red Hook, Brooklyn, New York 11231)
Ticket: $10
Genre: Chamber Jazz Folk Raga
Pioneer Works and Brooklyn Raga Massive Present: The Chamber Jazz Folk Raga
7PM – Neel Murgai Ensemble
Neel Murgai – sitar, Arun Ramamurthy – violin, Trina Basu – violin, Marika Hughes – cello, Sameer Gupta – tabla
8PM – Karavika
Trina Basu – violin, Amali Premawardhana – cello, Perry Wortman – bass, Rajna Swaminathan – mrudangam
9PM – Arun Ramamurthy Trio
Arun Ramamurthy – violin, Perry Wortman – bass, Sameer Gupta – drums
11. Honeybird & Mthakathi w. Special Yiddish Premiere By Sara Erenthal
Date: Friday, August 21, 2015
Time: 10pm
Venue: Music Inn (169 West 4th Street, NY)
Ticket: $10
Genre: Mbira music from South Africa with the charango from South America/Yiddish music
Line up:
– Monique H. Mizrahi a/k/a Honeybird – Charango, Bass, Vocals
–Ivy Wong (in town from Switzerland!) – Upright Bass, Hulusi, Vocals;
– Mthakathi Ema – Mbira, Hosho, a padouk body and 21 steel tines
-Emiliano “Nano” Valerio – pandiero & cajon
The wholesome sound of the Mbira from South Africa with the charango from South America; singing in French, English, Portuguese, Zulu …
**AND**
Very special guest visual and performance artist Sara Erenthal world premiere of our song “Tzizamen Gekimen” in YIDDISH! It’s a coming of age bisexual love story.
12. Sweetcane
Date: Friday, August 21, 2015
Time: 10pm-12pm
Venue: Silvana (300 W 116th Street, between Manhattan Ave & 8th Ave, New York, NY 10026)
Ticket: $10
Genre: reggae/afro beat
Sweetcane is hosting a “COME AND “SIT IN” music event. So bring your instrument with you and sit in.
Sweetcane delivers REGGAE & AFROBEAT rhythms in innovative MODERN BLENDS. Masterfully crafted songs come charged in a highly dynamic performance, from REGGAE SOUL BALLADS to UPTEMPO AFROBEAT JAMS with melodies that keep you humming days after!
Fronted by lead guitar playing singer-songwriter MARKO PANKOVICH, Sweetcane features NYC premier afro jazz drummer HARVEY WIRHT (from Angelique Kidjo, Hassan Hakmoun etc…) & deep Reggae bass from Rochester’s rootsy jam band scene, the incomparable ANCELMO JAMES (quickly quietly & SoSaLa), with ADO COKER‘s sultry female presence doubling on vintage keyboards and melodica while singing harmonies – quite a feat!
13. The Elio Villafranca Quartet
Date: Saturday, August 22, 2015
Time: 7:30pm and 9:30pm
Venue: Ginny’s Supper Club (310 Lenox Ave, New York, 212-421-3821)
Ticket: $20
Genre: Latin jazz
The Elio Villafranca Quartet will be premiering new music and performing parts of his Cinque Suite, recently premiered at Jazz At Lincoln Center.
Eric Alexander – sax
Victor Lewis – drums
Gregg August – bass
Elio Villafranca – piano
Born in the Pinar del Río province of Western Cuba, pianist and composer Elio Villafranca was classically trained in percussion and composition at the Instituto Superior de Arte in Havana, Cuba. Since his arrival in the U.S. in late 1995, he has been involved in jazz and Latin jazz scenes on both the East and West Coasts. Based in New York City, he is resident professor at Temple University in Philadelphia, PA.
Born in the Pinar del Río province of Western Cuba, pianist and composer Elio Villafranca was classically trained in percussion and composition at the Instituto Superior de Arte in Havana, Cuba. Since his arrival in the U.S. in late 1995, he has been involved in jazz and Latin jazz scenes on both the East and West Coasts. Based in New York City, he is resident professor at Temple University in Philadelphia, PA.
14. Sanjoy Banerjee Workshop
Date: Saturday, August 22, 2015
Time: 10:30am – 12:30pm
Venue: Chhandayan (4 West 43 Street, Suite 614, New York, NY 10036)
Ticket: $t.b.a.. Space is limited, reserve early. Send email to reserve: learnfromsanjoy@gmail.com.
Genre: workshop of Hindustani Raga Music
After a successful concert at The Rubin Museum we are proud to announce that Pt. Sanjoy Banerjee will be conducting a workshop on Hindustani Raga Music for music learners and listeners – a unique opportunity to learn the intricacies of Hindustani Raga Music.
The workshop will:
– Identify the format, process and rationale behind Raga Development.
– Focus on each component constituting a Raga:
Aalap – Vilambit Vistar – Drut Bandish – Sargam – Taan – Rhythm Improvisation.
This workshop will be conducted mainly through demonstration and discussions explaining the logical techniques involved in a presentation and help you understand the beauty of this great art form and good music.
Pt. Sanjoy Banerjee with his vast experience came of age musically at the prestigious ITC Sangeet Research Academy in the Guru Shishya Parampara ( the only institution in India to do this) under the able guidance of Late Sangeet Bidushi Malbika Kanan and Late Pt. A Kanan as a scholar. There he had the opportunities to be with great musical stalwarts like Late Ustad Nissar Hussain Khan, Late Pt. Nibruttibua Sarnaik, Late Padmabhushan Gangubai Hangal and Late Bharatratna Pt. Bhimsen Joshi and many others who helped him to become a well educated musician, as well as a well known performer. Sanjoyji is presently on the faculty of CHHANDAYAN Center of India Music and will be teaching classes -individual & group- from September to November 2015.
15. ab uno pluribus – August 2015 Session
Date: Saturday, August 22, 2015
Time: 7:30pm – 10:30pm
Venue: The Three Jewels NYC (61 4th Ave, 3rd Fl (Btw 9th & 10th), New York, New York 10003)
Ticket: $10
Genre: multi media
The August session of this monthly audio-visual event will present electro-acoustic live music by LINDSAY TUTTLE [guitar], DAMIEN OLSEN [keyboard/synth & sampler], NURBSTREAM [synths] and live visuals by DAMIEN OLSEN. Curated by WvS. Read more here: https://www.facebook.com/events/509853282503855/
16. 75 Dollar Bill w. Sue Garner/Kaplan & Hubley DJs
Date: Sunday, August 23 through Saturday, August 29, 2015
Time: 6pm
Venue: TROOST (1011 Manhattan Ave, Brooklyn, New York 11222)
Ticket: t.b.a.
Genre: psychedelic/low-fi indie music/experimental
Brooklyn-based guitar and percussion duo 75 Dollar Bill will play every evening at Greenpoint’s Troost Café beginning Sunday, Aug. 23, 2015. The duo, comprised of Che Chen and Rick Brown, will play a set each evening, sharing the bills with a variety of soloists and groups: Sue Garner, Das Audit, Low-Ways, Chris Nelson, Zimbabwean mbira master Chartwell Dutiro and NYC Haitian Vodou drummers Makandal.
Formed in late 2012, 75 Dollar Bill has caught the attention of music fans and fellow musicians in NYC through regular engagements in both established venues and unusual settings in Brooklyn and Manhattan. The duo has shared stages with well-known popular and experimental musicians including Omar Souleyman, David Grubbs, Thalia Zedek, Steve Gunn and Mecca Normal.
Che Chen plays 12-string and modified 6-string guitars and Rick Brown plays home-made and salvaged percussion and crude horns.
6:30: 75 Dollar Bill (Che Chen and Rick Brown ) in Troost’s sweet backyard space (weather permitting) – the first evening of a week-long run. (more: https://www.facebook.com/
8:00: Sue Garner (Run On, The Shams) plus James and Doug. Multiple low-end 6-string instruments + singing http://
After the “live” music: 7″ vinyl records spun at 45 rpm by Georgia Hubley and Ira Kaplan – of the Condo Fucks
17. Go: Organic Orchestra
Date: Sunday, August 23, 2015
Time: 7:30pm
Venue: Brooklyn Conservatory of Music (58 Seventh Ave, Brooklyn, NY 11217)
Ticket: $15
Genre: jazz/world/improv
Go: Organic Orchestra, the dream project of composer and percussionist Adam Rudolph, marks the release of their long-awaited debut studio recording, Sonic Mandala on Meta Records, with a blow out celebration concert. A 33-player orchestra that covers an astounding number of instruments, everything from the Malian hunter’s harp and bamboo trumpets to the Fender Rhodes and the Japanese noh-kan flute, Go: Organic Orchestra emphasizes the healing power of improvised music with an emphasis on percussion traditions from across the globe. A testament of a long-standing musical association among like-minded musicians who are multigenerational and international, this performance of Sonic Mandala encompasses the Orchestra’s deep engagement with world traditions and their deeper devotion to a community through shared creative expression.
“There’s something about playing into the center of the expressive quality of the music, something really intuitive that the musicians bring to it, as they focus on it. It’s about being in tune, being completely in the present.” –Adam Rudolph
metarecords.com/adam.html
facebook.com/pages/Go-Organic-
