Brooklyn Rail Highly Selective Music Events

July / August 2014

Staff Consensus Picks

• July 26: Mahmoud Ahmed, Pioneer Works. ISSUE Project Room kicks off their summer concert series with a bang by bringing Ethiopian legend Mahmoud Ahmed to Pioneer Works. Ahmed was a key figure in popularizing Ethiopian music in the West, and his hypnotic, dreamy arrangements can be found on several releases of the essential “Ethiopiques” series on Buda Musique.
• July 29 - August 3: Tyshawn Sorey Stone Residency. The drummer’s residency features, among many prominent others, an August 1 set from trio Fieldwork, featuring Sorey, pianist Vijay Iyer, and saxophonist Steve Lehman, subject of a June profile in the Rail.

George Grella

• July 7 - August 16: Lincoln Center Festival. This annual event is lighter on the music and heavier on the dance than usual, but what music! What dance! Houston Grand Opera is bringing Mieczyslaw Weinberg’s The Passenger to the Park Avenue Armory, Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker is dancing to modern music—her Steve Reich program “Fase” is a must-see—the Bolshoi Opera, Ballet and Orchestra are coming, plus Jean Genet’s The Maids.
• July 22: Lenny Pickett at Jazz Standard. You may know Lenny Pickett’s music, you may not think you know it but you probably do. Pickett has had two main careers: one as integral member and star soloist in Tower of Power, the greatest funk band in the world, and a a long-time member and now music director of the Saturday Night Live band, one of the most heard bands in the world. He’s also one of the greatest sax players there has ever been, and he has a new, muscular, and grooving record out, The Prescription. He’s also going to tear the rough off the joint.
• July 22: Arto Lindsday at Le Poisson Rouge. We’ve highlighted him before, but here’s another chance to hear one of the finest pop music makers of this generation.
• July 25 - August 23: Mostly Mozart. Decades ago, the name meant garden-party style classical music. Now it means Mark Morris’ magnum opus Acis and Galatea, International Contemporary Ensemble playing Sofia Guidaidulina and Anna Thorvaldsdottir, free events like two performances of John Luther Adams new, massive, outdoor piece Sila: The Breath of the World, and, of course, Mozart!
• August 23 - 24: Charlie Parker Jazz Festival. Mozart is great, but jazz is the theme music for New York City in summer. This festival is free and you’ll find it in Marcus Garvey Park and Tompkins Square Park.
• August 23: Liturgy/Wreck and Reference/White Suns & more ISSUE Project Room. On location at Pioneer Works in Red Hook, this is an all-day festival (doors open at 3:00 p.m.) featuring crushingly intense metal and noise bands. Headliner Liturgy has a new album due next year, catch some new material at this show. And fortify yourselves accordingly.

Marshall Yarbrough

• July 4: Colin L Orchestra at Shea Stadium. Spend Independence Day in a venue named for a now-demolished baseball stadium, drinking Budweiser and listening to the big-hearted bombast of a man whose last band was named USA Is a Monster.
• July 12: Tyvek at Secret Project Robot. Detroit’s Tyvek plays hardscrabble punk music. Part of Impose and Exploding in Sound’s summer outdoor festival, a one-day, ten dollar, 14+ band affair.
• July 13: Rite of Summer Festival at Governors Island. Take the ferry to the tranquil oasis in the middle of New York Harbor to see the ETHEL and Iktus Percussion ensembles perform an afternoon of world premieres, at 1pm and 3pm.
• July 14: King Buzzo at the Wick. King Buzzo Osborne of the Melvins plays a solo acoustic set; guitarist Mary Halvorson opens.
• August 2: Rite of Summer Festival at Governors Island. Another opportunity to take the ferry, August’s ROS concert will be a collaboration between Pam Goldberg, Esther Noh, Caitlin Sullivan, and Allison Charney.

Andrea Gordillo

• July 11: Ana Tijoux at Club Europa with Chicha Libre, Rebel Diaz, Concrete Elephant, and Maracuyeah. Headliner and Chilean political rapper Ana Tijoux is back with gusto after a short hiatus and continues to speak truth to power. Her new video:
  
  which she directed herself, speaks to Latin American and Palestinian solidarities as well as musical and festive commonalities and features another female emcee, Shadia Mansour. Tijoux will be performing with the psychedelic-surf-cumbia, Brooklyn based, Chicha Libre, and the hip-hop duo out of the Bronx, Rebel Diaz, and others.
• July 13: Clay Charles at the Wayland. Fiendish soul and R’n’B outfit featuring Orlando Napier will feature originals and classics.
• July 18: Raúl Garza, Andrés Márquez, Javier Escudero, and Scott Kapelman at Shapeshifter Lab. Raúl Garza is an expert in digital manipulation techniques for music and sound design and Andrés Márquez is a drummer from jazz and Cuban and Mexican indigenous roots. Together they are formerly known as the Xelha Collective. They will be performing four previously unreleased movements, accompanied by the virtuosic guitarist Javier Escudero and equal ba​ssist Scott Kapelman, who sometimes raps.
• July 19: Deltron 3030, Nomadic Massive at Prospect Park Bandshell. Deltron 3030 is a hodgepodge group featuring DJ and musician Kid Koala, producer Dan the Automator, and Del the Funky Homosapian, and an interesting hip-hop project in which this supergroup alludes to outer-space with lyrics and synths. The performance is sure to dazzle audiences with the addition of an orchestra. Nomadic Massive will open the night.
• July 18: Bebel Gilberto, Vinicius Cantuária, Netsayi at Prospect Park Bandshell. This is sure to be a rare showcase of bossa nova icons Bebel Gilberto and Vinicius Cantuária, which opens with contemporary African folk from singer Netsayi.
• July 30: SHE featuring Arooj Aftab, Lily Virginia, Janelle Kroll, Vandana Jain and SoDabu at the Highline Ballroom. Coming from distinct musical backgrounds, these artists share commonalities through intricate vocals and atmospheric instrumentation. Arooj Aftab brings Sufi musical traditions and Lily Virginia brings graceful Western folk-pop.

Chris Nelson

• July 17: Oneida at Glasslands. A mélange of heavy sounds and textured psychedelia promises to get Glasslands pulsing with frenetic energy. Oneida, one of Brooklyn’s best and most prolific outfits, stops by on their summer tour.
• July 18: OOIOO at Rough Trade. Will Boredoms ever play another show in NYC? Well, if not, the next best thing might be an appearance by Boredoms’s drummer Yoshimi P-We’s band OOIOO. Their polyrhythmic chaos and unpredictable melodies bring often float into something resembling space rock.
• July 20: Classic Album Sunday: Manuel Gottsching’s “E2-E4”at Baby’s All Right. It’s difficult to think of a better way to spend the end of a summer weekend than by absorbing the delicately layered majesty of Gottsching’s epic on a powerful soundsystem in the air conditioner.
• July 31, August 7, August 14, 6:00 a.m. - 9:00 a.m.: The Avant Ghetto on WFMU. East Village Radio refugee Jeff Conklin brings his unrivaled free-form radio show to WFMU for 3 fill in shows. Everything is in play as Conklin masterfully weaves loner folk jams with free jazz obscurities and everything in between. The perfect way to wake up on a Thursday morning with the best radio show around.
• August 11: RAJAS at La Mama. Bandleader and composer Rajna Swaminathan brings together an ensemble of contemporary musicians versed in the Indian classical tradition to bring new direction and experimentation to the deep-rooted vocabulary and styles of the traditional music of the South India.
• August 21: The Clean at Rough Trade. It’s hard to believe The Clean have been around for over three and a half decades. Often imitated—but never replicated—the Kiwi rockers have churned out so many memorable pop hooks you have to wonder, what exactly is in the water in Dunedin? An essential band by any standard, and a performance certainly not to miss.