Brooklyn Rail Highly Selective Music Events

July / August 2016

By the Editors

• The Jazz Gallery: For your summer jazz pleasure, there is an amazing deal for some of the hottest and most cutting-edge music—$40 buys you a pass for all shows between July 5 and August 24. For less than the cost of cover and drink minimum at every other jazz club, you can hear Adam O’Farrill, Greg Ward, Gilad Hekselman, Eric Revis, David Virgules, Orrin Evans, and more. The jazz stay-cation of a lifetime.


• July 5 - 10: Tyshawn Sorey at The Stone. The first of a series of exciting summer residencies, Sorey will be celebrating his birthday all week. The newly minted professor has yet another completely surprising and deeply successful album of composed music out (The Inner Spectrum of Variables, Pi Recordings), and during the one-set/night run, he’ll be playing drums solo, accompanied by Amirtha Kidambi and Big Machine, and as a member of the large Banff/NYC Improvisers Orchestra.


• July 13 - August 24: Mostly Mozart Festival. At fifty years, and despite a previous reputation for serving up the blandest of classics, this festival is vibrant, full of surprises, and packed with talent. There are the usual Mozart masterpieces, like the “Jupiter,” “Prague,” and G-minor symphonies, the Requiem, and concertos. There are also performances from the International Contemporary Ensemble and the Mark Morris Dance Group, not to mention a concert by fabulous harpsichordist Mahan Esfahani. On August 18, there will be a truly rare and special event, the great Mozart opera conductor Rene Jacobs leading a period instrument performance of Idomeneo, arguably the Mozart’s greatest opera composition.



• July 15: Steve Dalachinsky and Matthew Shipp at the Stone. Mr. Outtakes himself, the Rail’s own Steve Dalachinsky joins Matthew Shipp during the pianist’s week-long residency at the Stone. In addition to his day job as a poet, a trade he plies with protestant rigor and discipline, Dalachinsky’s growing resume as a recording artist includes last years ec(H)osystem, with French band the Snobs, and 2014’s The Fallout of Dreams, with saxophonist Dave Liebman.


• July 21 & 22: The String Orchestra of Brooklyn presents The Rake’s Progress at Roulette. The Rake’s Progress is Stravinsky’s large-scale opera, which means it’s one of the greatest operas in the repertoire, one that takes apart the clichés of the tradition and puts them back together in amazing, and charming, ways. It’s also criminally underperformed, so don’t miss this chance to see this full performance, conducted by Tito Muñoz, and with Gilad Paz as Tom and Benjamin Bloomfield as Nick Shadow.


• July 22: boice-Terrel Allen live interview with Samora Pinderhughes at Rockwood Music Hall. Talk Music podcaster/writer boice-Terrel Allen is an engaging interviewer, bringing musicians and listeners together in conversation. Composer/pianist/vocalist Pinderhughes is in the process of creating a large-scale composition combining music, theater, and poetry. Together, the two talk multi-media jazz, and Pinderhughes will follow-up with an intimate set.


• July 23: Rite of Summer Festival on Governor’s Island. Rite of Summer presents contemporary classical music on Governor’s Island. July’s show features Pianist Peter Dugan and mezzo soprano Kara Sainz. The concerts are low-key events and take place in Nolan Park—two sets at 1pm and 3pm.


• July 26: Mary Lattimore and Jeff Zeigler’s Music Inspired by Philippe Garrell’s Le Révélateur at Nitehawk Cinema. Celebrating its release on LP, Lattimore and Zeigler will be performing their post-facto soundtrack to Philippe Garrell’s 1968 film Le Révélateur—there’s the avant-garde, and then there’s the soixante-huitard. The harpist and multi-instrumentalist duo’s score is rich with haunting, shimmering ambience.



• July 28: Marc Ribot’s Young Philadelphians at Bowery Ballroom. It’s a supergroup, sure: Ribot and Mary Halvorson on guitars, bassist Jamaladeen Tacuma and drummer G. Calvin Weston. On the page, those names together promise hellacious skronky funk. And that’s what they deliver on their new CD, Live in Tokyo, but with a twist: vintage disco from Silver Connection, Ohio Players, and, of course, Van McCoy. Get down!

  Marc Ribot & The Young Philadelphians "Do It Anyway You Wanna" from Transistor Inc on Vimeo.



• July 30: Daniel Menche, Container, Profligate, Eartheater, Greg Fox, Ben Vida, Horse Lords at Pioneer Works. ISSUE Project Room presents a marathon show at Pioneer Works in Red Hook—a gathering of “artists exploring parallel strategies in visceral experimentation across instrumental and electronic music,” which is to say, loud, but complex. Let the sun beat down upon your head and the noise hollow out your skull.



• August 2 - 7: Mary Halvorson at The Stone. Apologies if you think you’ve had your face melted in the past, I must correct you. You WILL have your face melted at this Stone residency, especially when Halvorson is in duet with guitarists Joe Morris, Nels Cline, Susan Alcorn, and Brandon Seabrook. Plus the excellent trio Thumbscrew and Halvorson’s own richly beautiful Octet.


• August 3: Boogarins at Monty Hall. WFMU’s music venue in Jersey City hosts the Brazilian psych-pop outfit. The band’s latest record, Manual, has the familiar reverb-drenched haze of much recent indie rock, but with enough melodic invention and rhythmic bounce to give it teeth.


• August 5: Rhyton at Trans-Pecos. Brooklyn trio Rhyton’s new record Redshift, a follow-up to 2014’s Kykeon, sees the band branching out. Still present are the broad range of instruments, both electric and traditional, and steady rhythmic trot, but songs like the title track add a ’70s country-rock tinge.

  Rhyton - Live at Union Pool from Thrill Jockey Records on Vimeo.



• August 6: Florida at Silent Barn. Long-time New York band Florida’s latest effort Star System Neon opens with the noisy joy of “Delirium Tremens,” which features wild sax and a guitar solo worthy of Robert Quine. This is Butthole Surfers-level insouciance with the musical chops to back it up. Gary War headlines the show, with Buck Gooter and DJ Raw Thrills rounding out the bill.



• August 7: Cian Nugent at Baby’s All Right. Cian Nugent’s latest record, Night Fiction, sees the Irish guitarist venturing away from the extended instrumentals of his previous two efforts. The result is a guitar-forward singer-songwriter record—think Clapton unplugged mixed with Fairport Convention and Phish. Whether solo or with a band, Nugent’s talent makes for a compelling live show.


• August 20: Omni at Shea Stadium. Omni is a new trio featuring ex-members of Deerhunter and Carnivores. Frankie Broyles, Philip Frobos, and Billy Mitchell play an angular brand of indie rock that calls to mind the late-oughts Calgary band Women—abstract as a Mondrian painting, asymmetrical as a mall punk’s haircut. An August 21 show at Mercury Lounge follows the Shea Stadium gig.



• August 26 - 28: Charlie Parker Jazz Festival. The grit and creative anarchy of New York City is in shorter and shorter supply these days, but you might experience a frisson of it at this annual, and free, festival. At Marcus Garvey and the now shiny Tompkins Square Park, catch the likes of Jason Lindner, Randy Weston African Rhythms Sextet, singer Allan Harris, Donny McCaslin (late of the late David Bowie’s Black Star), and the ass-kicking trio of Jack DeJohnette, Dave Holland, and Jason Moran. Now, no one should ever be a junkie musician, but at least Charlie Parker could afford to live and make music in New York when he was one.