NY Philharmonic – Van Cortlandt Park – June 21, 2016
The orchestra, under the baton of Alan Gilbert, does the summer tour of free outdoor concerts in the boroughs; I try to get the the Bronx version as often as possible, but this was the first time sketching. McGill was featured in the Mozart clarinet concerto.
Anthony McGill
NYP Violin
Frank Huang
BombaYo – Van Cortlandt Park – June 21, 2016
BombaYo is an expression of Afro-Puerto Rican culture led by “Dr. Drum”, distinct from the more typical salsa style. Dancing was featured, much more difficult for me to capture, but I gave it a try with Cuchie Ortiz. The group was originally scheduled to open for the NY Phil last summer but got rained out, so they rescheduled this year, to my benefit. BombaYo not only performs, but runs outreach, school workshops, etc. One more case of keeping alive a fading culture, a “learn your roots” opportunity for urban kids who might not otherwise be aware.
Cuchie Ortiz
Dr. Drum
Nelon Seda
Jorge Vazquez
Sun Ra Arkestra – Greenpoint Terminal – May 8, 2016
How’s this for a birthday present? From my son to my wife, down to Brooklyn, which is like a foreign country when this chauffeur is driving. The converted old terminal market, no seats, pretty darn loud. I was happy to be in time for the piano tuner. How someone playing the piano during the actual concert could actually hear it amongst the cacophony, well… SRA was part of a triple-bill; we (the fogeys) stayed for only about 20 minutes of Pharaoh Sanders, and missed headliner Kamali Washington.
Marshall Allen
Mike Watson
Tyler Mitchell
Tara Middleton
SRA Piano
SRA Sax 1
SRA Sax 2
Angela DeRosa, Piano Tuner
In the interval between sketch creation and this posting, Charles Davis, sax player in the band, has passed from us. I’m unable to tell if any of the unidentified sketches might be of him; if so, I am glad to have captured Charles one last time. The man played around, and I have previously seen him in two other excellent combos, of Jimmy Heath and Barry Harris. A positively identified sketch is also included here in memoriam.
Charles Davis
Fatoumata Diawara – Schomburg Center – May 4, 2016
Diawara is from Mali, migrated to France, originally to follow an actress career path. Along the way, she got encouraged and mentored by fellow Malian Oumou Sangaré to express her native culture with music. Halfway through the performance, the traditional headdress came off, facilitating wild gyrating animation. Sangaré made a brief appearance as well.
Fatoumata Diawara
John Lee
Tosin Aribisala
John Bashengezi
Will Calhoun
Martha Redbone – Rubenstein Atrium – April 28, 2016
The context for this event is the presentation of a work (“Bone Hill”) in development, to eventually become a full scale theatrical production; so it was bascially a “reading” through, fortunately including the live band. The book is based on Redbone’s personal historical geneaology and geography. Can’t say she ain’t into roots, no way!
Martha Redbone
Jason Walker & Jonathan David
Soni Moreno
Charlie Burnham
Alan Burroughs
Leviticus Gory – Busking NYC – April 11, 2016
There are certain days when I need to take a day off to deal with official business in New York City. That put me on track to come across Gory, groovin’ on the upper west side sidewalk.
Leviticus Gory
Manhattan String Quartet – Pleasantville Presbyterian Church – April 3, 2016
A little bit of Beethoven, a little bit of Bartok, and I’ll be able to handle a little bit of Schubert. One more sponsoring organization (Pleasantville Chamber Music Society), gratifying, and a new (to me) venue. That’s all that I need. Though, I’m not quite used to being one of the youngest people in the room!
Curtis Macomber and Calvin Wiersma
Christopher Finckel and John Dexter
The Red Hots – Mahopac Library – March 13, 2016
I have a distant connection to the Red Hots – elder Russ Preston and I both played at the Hudson Valley Folk Guild coffehouse (the no-longer-existent Patterson Branch), we exchanged cassettes, I even had one of his songs in my performance rotation (“Grandpa’s Shoes”). This group mines Americana in a pop retro way: there were some originals (none from the casette), and some of the covers were (again) part of my old repertoire. Family ties is part of the background.
Russ Preston
Hector Jiminez and Jay Margolin
Petra Herceq and Cynthia Preston
Sarah Elizabeth Charles – Harlem Stage Gatehouse – February 24, 2016
Charles participated in a more widespread Carnegie Hall/Weill “West Side Story”-themed series of presentations throughout the city. This particular concert was the result of “The Somewhere Project”. Not only did Charles and the band play originals, they also presented some works by high school students, accompanying some of the vocalizing songwriters. And who are the youngsters that need a “Somewhere”? Immigrant kids, one particularly touching student song brought me to tears and roused the crowd, imagine that mother beaming with pride!
Sarah Elizabeth Charles
Burniss Earl Travis II
Jesse Elder
Tori Blackman
Azalea and Ladder in Blizzard
