Category Archives: Blues

Ethel Fair Launches Lincoln Center Out Of Doors

Posted on July 28, 2010 | 3 comments

Crews were making the final preparations to Damrosh Park on Tuesday night for Wednesday's premiere of the 2010 edition of Lincoln Center Out Of Doors. (Copyright 2010, Steven P. Marsh)

The fabulous Lincoln Center Out of Doors festival starts Wednesday night with a bit of Civil Rights Movement street theater at 6:30 at Barclays Capital Grove (the sponsored name for the plaza between Lincoln Center Theater and Avery Fisher Hall and moves into full-bore music mode at 7:30 in Damrosch Park with Ethel Fair: The Songwriters.

Ethel is Ralph Farris (viola), Mary Rowell (violin), Dorothy Lawson (cello) and Cornelius Dufallo (violin).

Ethel is a string quartet like no other string quartet you’ve seen or heard. These four skilled players, who are quite active together and separately on the international contemporary music scene, have been working in collaborative mode over the past several years. Their latest project, which has its world premiere at the Lincoln Center Out of Doors festival,  features the quartet yoked with songwriters who are quite well known on their own. Pop tunesmith Adam Schlesinger (a member of pop bands Fountains of Wayne and Ivy and composer of Broadway’s “Cry Baby”), assisted by Mike Viola (Candy Butchers), has created a work with Ethel. Other collaborators include folk-blues dynamo Dayna Kurtz, punk-New Wave pioneer Tom Verlaine (Television) and folky Argentine singer-songwriter Juana Molina.

Ethel always pushes boundaries with its work. This collaborative effort appears to reach for a broader, more mainstream appeal than some of the band’s more left-of-center efforts, such as its ongoing TruckStop project, which takes the band on the road to work with and celebrate indigenous cultures. But it’s certain to provide a richly entertaining evening.

No Snakes In This Grass is the title of the theater piece, written by James Magnuson and directed by Mical Whitaker, that kicks off the evening. It’s a comedy set in the Garden of Eden that deals issues of race and the Fall.

This is just the first night of a jam-packed schedule of fabulous free music and performance art that runs through Aug. 15. For the full Lincoln Center Out of Doors schedule, read the press release after the jump. Continue reading →

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Posted in Blues, Classical, Concerts, Contemporary, Contemporary Classical, Country, Dance, Folk, Free, History, Jazz, Music, News, Pop and Rock, Punk, Theater

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Femi Kuti kicks off the final week of Midsummer Night Swing at Lincoln Center Out of Doors

Posted on July 10, 2010 | Leave a comment

Femi Kuti

Will You Miss Me When I’m Gone? has been distracted this summer. There’s been a lot going on, musically speaking, around NYC and environs so far. As a result, we’ve neglected our friends at Midsummer Night Swing at Lincoln Center.

But on Monday night, the start of MNS’s final week  for 2010 — hard to believe — Femi Kuti & The Positive Force are taking over Damrosch Park. And we can’t fail you this time. Even if you think you can’t dance, you should be at this show. It’s hard not to at least feel like you can dance when Femi Kuti takes the stage. His version of Afrobeat — he’s one of Fela Anikulapo Kuti’s two musical sons, the other being Seun Kuti who inherited his father’s band Egypt 80 — has an insistent beat and a joyous feel that can get anyone to dance. (Fela Kuti, you may recall, is the subject of the fantastic Broadway musical, Fela!, directed by Bill T. Jones.)

The fun starts at 6:30 p.m. with a dance lesson with Sahr Ngaujah, star Fela!, and the music starts at 7. Tickets are $17 and available at Damrosch Park, at West 62nd Street and Amsterdam Avenue, or online. And there are more shows throughout the week: Catherine Russell and Cat & The Hounds Swing Band on Wednesday, Loser’s Lounge Ladies Night on Thursday, La Exelencia on Friday and, wrapping up this year’s dance season, a kids’ dance party at 3 p.m. Saturday followed by the Harlem Renaissance Orchestra on Saturday evening.

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Posted in Blues, Dance, Folk, Music, News, Pop and Rock, Theater, World Music

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The Bill Murray Experience: No, not that Bill Murray, but quite an experience!

Posted on June 26, 2010 | 1 comment
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The Bill Murray Experience at The Cupping Room Cafe on June 25. (Copyright 2010, Steven P. Marsh)

Will You Miss Me When I’m Gone? knew nothing about The Bill Murray Experience until a couple of days ago, when the old-timey New York City based band was featured in this New York Post video about Play Me, I’m Yours, the art project that has put 60 pianos — available for anyone to play — in public places around New York City.

But it was love at first sight — and sound! Singer Jessy Carolina has an amazingly bluesy voice and her bandmates — Horatio Baltz on lead guitar, Jay Sanford on upright bass and the irrepressible Blind Boy Paxton on banjo — provide the perfect setting for it. It’s a new generation tackling early American roots music, jazz and pop standards from the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It’s repertoire that has been a rich source over the years for artists like Leon Redbone, with tunes like “My Melancholy Baby” and “I Ain’t Got Nobody.”

How we’ve missed them is a mystery. They are fantastic, and proved it last night in performance before a small and not entirely attentive crowd at The Cupping Room Cafe at West Broadway and Broome streets in Manhattan’s Soho neighborhood.

Peter Stampfel, of Holy Modal Rounders fame, knows a thing or two about this kind of music. And he sums up the band’s primary appeal quite well — it’s Jessy’s emotive and engaging singing. “She doesn’t sing songs as much as she embodies them. Her singing and moves are both about as good as it gets,” Stampfel says.

But Jessy needs the rest of the band to pull it off. Her interplay with the players — especially the jovial, overall-wearing Paxton — is charming adds so much to the overall feel of the performance.

BME plays around NYC quite a bit, at places like the “secret” Shanghai Mermaid, 893 Bergen St., Brooklyn, where they play at 9 tonight, June 26 and at the Jalopy Theater, 315 Columbia St., Red Hook, Brooklyn, where they’re performing at 8 p.m. Monday, June 28.

Here’s a clip of the band that gives you great sense of its joyous, freewheeling style at a June 20 show at the Main Street Museum in White River Junction, Vt.

Of course any band that takes Bill Murray’s name in vain has to evoke Murray’s spot in Jim Jarmusch’s 2003 film Coffee and Cigarettes. Remember “Bill Groundhog Day, Ghostbustin’ ass Murray”? How could you forget? We’ll leave you with that:

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Posted in Blues, Folk, Jazz, Music, News, Pop and Rock, Theater

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Procol Harum thrills with its return to the U.S. after a seven-year absence

Posted on June 11, 2010 | 1 comment

Procol Harum, with Gary Brooker on voice and keyboards, Geoff Einhorn on guitar, Geoff Dunn on drums, Matt Pegg on bass and Josh Phillips on Hammond organ, at The Tarrytown Music Hall on June 10, 2010. (Photos copyright 2010, Steven P. Marsh)

A huge blast from the past shook The Tarrytown Music Hall to its foundations last night when Procol Harum took the stage of the 1885 show palace for 2 1/2 hours.

This is the band’s first visit to the United States since 2003, when it hit the road — making a stop in New York at the late, lamented Bottom Line club — in support of its last studio album, The Well’s On Fire.

The Tarrytown Music Hall.

For those who remember PH from its early days — the band became an international phenomenon with the 1967 hit “A Whiter Shade of Pale” — singer-pianist Gary Brooker is the only onstage member left from those days. But Brooker, who co-writes the band’s songs with lyricist Keith Reid, Procol’s nonperforming member, is the voice of the band. As long as he’s singing, there’s no doubt that it’s Procol Harum.

The crowd files in.

Brooker’s voice has gotten a bit gravelly and more nuanced over the years, but the 65-year-old showed last night that he’s still got his vocal chops. He and the rest of the quintet ripped through an energetic set, covering the whole range of the band’s 43-year history.

Brooker couldn’t help but point out that anyone in the audience who had money invested with Lehmann Brothers would see the prescience of one of the band’s newest songs, “Wall Street Blues,” from The Well’s On Fire, seemed

The band, and the audience, are a little less energetic than they once were. But the music stands the test of time. There was no dancing in the aisles and the crowd — comprising people of all ages, including a few pre-teens — was pretty respectful. But the performance brought fans to their feet numerous times throughout the evening and ended with a standing ovation when the band wrapped the set.

Procol Harum is on tour in the U.S. now, opening for Jethro Tull, a band whose heyday coincided with PH. To a die-hard Procol Harum fan, there’s something wrong with Tull as the headliner. But, luckily, Procol took time off from its opening duties to book some shows of its own while it’s touring with Tull. Procol’s playing tomorrow night, with Renaissance opening, at the Showroom at the Tropicana Casino & Resort in Atlantic City tomorrow (June 12, 2010) and next Wednesday (June 16, 2010) at Longwood Gardens in Kennett Square, Pa. (The Longwood show is sold out, but tickets are likely available from resellers.)

More photos after the jump.

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Posted in Blues, Music, Pop and Rock

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Pete Seeger, Tom Chapin perform at Nyack health-care reform rally

Posted on October 3, 2009 | Leave a comment
Pete Seeger

Pete Seeger

Legendary folk singer Pete Seeger and Piermont’s own Grammy Award-winning folksinger Tom Chapin will headline a Health Care for All Rally in Nyack’s Memorial Park tomorrow.

Tom_Chapin_CROPPED

Tom Chapin

Pete, 90, and Tom top a roster that also includes  New York City blues rocker Emory Joseph and The Roues Brothers from West Nyack.

The rally for universal health care was organized by Health Care for All Now and is co-sponsored by The Fellowship of Reconciliation, Rockland Progressive Dems, Spring Valley NAACP, Nyack NAACP, WESPAC Foundation, Organizing for America, and Rockland Women’s Political Caucus.

For further background, click here to read an article from  The Journal News about the rally.

Health Care For All Rally, Sunday, Oct. 4, 4:30-7:30 pm. Memorial Park, 53 Piermont Ave (at Depew Ave.) Nyack, NY. (845) 512-3261 http://healthcareforall.tripod.com.

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Satan and Adam bring it back home tomorrow night

Posted on August 14, 2009 | Leave a comment
Satan and Adam on the streets of Harlem.

Satan and Adam on the streets of Harlem.

The story of Satan and Adam is one rich in rebirth.

The duo, who got together in 1986 on the streets of Harlem share a gritty and spirited vision of the blues. They made their name busking on the streets, with Mister Satan on guitar and kickboard percussion and Adam Gussow on blues harmonica. But after many tours and three studio albums, they virtually disappeared. Adam, a native of Rockland County, N.Y.,  went on to teach, winding up in the English Department at the University of Mississippi and Mister Satan virtually disappeared. It turns out Mister Satan, whose real name is Sterling Magee from Mount Olive, Miss., had some personal problems that led to a nervous breakdown.

But the fate that brought them together in Harlem and then tore them cruelly apart has brought them back together. They’re wrapping up a short road trip tomorrow night (Saturday, Aug. 15) on Adam’s home turf — The Turning Point in Piermont.

Adam Gussow

Adam Gussow

This could well be our last chance to see the duo here in the Metro area, as the state-run home where Satan lives is tightening its rules. He is only allowed to leave for a few days at a time, making it all but impossible for them to arrange lengthy road trips.

Tonight’s show starts at 8 o’clock at The Turning Point, 468 Piermont Ave. Piermont, N.Y.  (845) 359-1089. Tickets are $20.

In anticipation of Satan and Adam’s gig at The Turning Point, Adam spoke to Will You Miss Me When I’m Gone? about the duo’s meeting, breakup and reunion. The full interview appears after the jump.

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