Wednesday, April 26, 2023

Sign of Summertime: the Charlie Parker Jazz Festival set for Aug. 27 in Tompkins Square Park

The City Parks Foundation yesterday announced its SummerStage series lineup, which includes dozens of free and benefit concerts in neighborhood parks.

Of interest around here: the Charlie Parker Jazz Festival will be in Tompkins Square Park on Sunday, Aug. 27. 

Details on what to expect in Tompkins on that day... via the City Parks Foundation website... 
This bill of all-star musicians is led by alto saxophonist and bandleader Charles McPherson, who famously performed with Charles Mingus in the '60s and recorded ensemble renditions of Charlie Parker works for the soundtrack to the 1988 Parker biopic "Bird." He performs here with Terell Stafford, a veteran of his quintet and a gifted, versatile trumpet player with an adventurous expression of lyricism.

Vincent Herring's Septet, Something Else!, a new group that draws its name from Cannonball Adderley's 1958 classic Blue Note LP. The portfolio of music played by "Something Else" includes some of the most iconic toe-tapping Soul Jazz Songs ever created from the books of Freddie Hubbard, Bobby Timmons, Horace Silver, Bob James, Pee Wee Ellis, Quincy Jones and many more. 

Chelsea Baratz's HERA collective — named after the Olympian queen of the gods — is a unique group of groundbreaking female artists and bandleaders assembled to showcase original works. More than just an ensemble of talented players, each musician that performs with HERA has her own band, her own original music, and her own sound, like featured vocalist and Growing Up Jazz founder Andromeda Turre. 

Opener Michael Mayo, a student of jazz legends Wayne Shorter and Herbie Hancock, wields a commanding and otherworldly voice that’s taken him around the world and back again.
The festival started in Tompkins Square Park in 1993 ... taking place near or on Parker's birthday on Aug. 29. Additional dates were added in Harlem in 2000. 

Parker, who died in 1955 at age 34, lived at 151 Avenue B from 1950-1954. That residential building between Ninth Street and 10th Street is landmarked.   

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Can the sound actually work this year plz.
Thanks
-S

Eden Bee said...

Yay!

Anonymous said...

I don't think summerstage people read the comments here. Maybe try to complain to them directly: info@cityparksfoundation.org

Anonymous said...

Still hard to believe that the City tore down what appeared to be a perfectly good band shell in the Park.

Anonymous said...

Christo & Amelia have hatched all three of their eggs now. At feeding times the small gray turning white heads are visible bobbing in their Tompkins Park Nest. They have been eating a lot of squirrel since they hatched between April 20-23. Since they are using their older nest from a few years back, let’s hope they don’t ingest any more rats that have eaten rat poison. Unfortunately this is how all the young ones died at this same location a few years back.
June-July should be exciting as they fledge!

Anonymous said...

More about Tompkins Square Park Hawks
https://www.instagram.com/p/CrjtVnPvYNx/?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=