The Charlie Parker Jazz Festival will be in Tompkins Square Park this Sunday, Aug. 27.
Here's what to expect 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.
And because someone will ask: The city will be bringing in porta potties for the expected crowds, as they've done in the past (and because the field house is closed for renovations).
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.
last year the sound left something to be desired. hopefully they sound check this year and listen from the grass- couldn't hear it last year.
ReplyDelete"Parker, who died in 1955 at age 34"
ReplyDelete"The coroner who performed his autopsy mistakenly estimated Parker's 34-year-old body to be between 50 and 60 years of age."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlie_Parker
What a joyous event it is each year and it a great line up!
ReplyDeleteWhen I first moved to NYC in August of 1999, I walked from 110 Street to Tompkins Square Park because I was so happy to be there. The Charlie Parker jazz fest was in full swing and it was a beautiful day!
ReplyDeletei love it!
ReplyDeleteI went the first couple of years, but stopped after it got so crowded you had to stand outside the park; is it still like that?
ReplyDeleteHopefully this basketball event will be over or shut down by the time the jazz starts. I really hope it's not a competing volume thing. I think the jazz fest takes precedent. Somehow I doubt the basketball event got a permit for that PA system.
ReplyDelete