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Central Park Summerstage

Most shows are FREE

at Rumsey Playfield in Central Park
Enter at 69th St. & 5th Ave. or 72nd St. and Central Park West
summerstage.org

Of all the free concert series that take over NYC each summer (and there are quite a few now), Central Park SummerStage is still the most recognizable to fans and the most prestigious for artists. Though SummerStage has recently been hampered by poor management and overcrowded shows, it remains the premier festival for summertime music in the city. A word of warning: show up early to the free shows, especially the more hyped ones, and be prepared to stand in a ridiculously long line... or else bring your Whisper 2000 and listen to the concert from a hill in the park.

Now in its 22nd year, SummerStage has provided a venue for over 800 artists--and this year's lineup is exceptionally strong. Nearly all the shows are free of charge, except for a few benefit concerts to raise funds. This year's benefit shows include Joss Stone and Common on Friday, June 8th; The Levon Helm Band on Thursday, June 28th; Bob Weir & Ratdog on July 9th; The Decemberists and Grizzly Bear on July 16th; The Black Crowes on August 9th; and Rufus Wainwright on August 19th.

Among the free concerts this year are some big names, with a lot of the early buzz being about an iconic New York post-punk band from the late '70s, Television (on June 16th, free, with Apples in Stereo), who have played together sporadically in the recent past--but according to guitarist Richard Lloyd, this will be his last show with the band. Also appearing, on July 20th, will be alt-country chanteuse Neko Case, whose powerhouse vocals fuel not only her own excellent recordings, but add punch to the power-pop supergroup The New Pornographers (who play a free show July 4th as part of the River to River Festival).

The artists chosen to represent SummerStage represent a broad range of genres and cultures, with some hot international artists such as (among many others) reggae star Tiken Jah Fakoly (Ivory Coast) and acoustic rockers Rodrigo y Gabriela (born in Mexico, now based in Dublin), Canada Day--which features Sloan and Apostle of Hustle, and Femi Kuti (Nigeria)--son of the great Afrobeat pioneer Fela Kuti.

2007 Central Park SummerStage Schedule:

- BENEFIT CONCERT -
Friday, June 8th - 6:30 pm
Joss Stone / Common with special guest Ryan Shaw

$37.50 advance/ $40 day of show
Purchase via Ticketmaster.com or by phone: 212-307-7171
OR at the Mercury Lounge Box Office
217 E. Houston Street (between Ludlow & Essex)
212-260-4700

Joss Stone

When Joss Stone first emerged in 2003, her story had an irresistible hook: this blues shouting singer who sounded like a soul veteran was, in fact, a young white British girl just 16 years old. Now that the novelty of her youth and skin-color has worn off, audiences can get to the truth of the matter, which is that Stone is an accomplished artist with an intuitive grasp of classic R&B. As she showed in a scorching performance of “Piece Of My Heart” with Melissa Etheridge at the 2005 Grammy Awards, Stone knows how to bring the house down. Her barefoot, hippy-chick aesthetic belies a voice as powerful as Tina Turner’s in her prime. Stone’s latest CD, Introducing Joss Stone, is actually her third album, and its mix of warm grooves and soulful harmonies most truly reflects what she’s about.

Appearing on Stone’s album—and sharing the show with her at SummerStage— is Brooklyn-based rapper Common. You may recognize him from those Gap ads a few months back, but the Chicago native has been at the center of the alternative urban music scene since the early ‘90s. His 2000 album Like Water For Chocolate was a breakthrough fusion of hip-hop and neo-soul, and his 2005 set Be (produced by superstar Kanye West) earned him four Grammy nominations. Common’s new album Finding Forever will be released this year.

Georgia native Ryan Shaw is determined to revive the song craft of the Golden Age of R&B. The 26-year-old vocalist grew up singing gospel music in the Pentecostal church, and didn’t really hear secular pop songs until his late teens. Struck by how little of this music used the sophisticated arrangements and intricate melodies he was used to, Shaw started to craft his own sound inspired by the pop music of the ‘50s and ‘60s. His debut, This Is Ryan Shaw, shows how well he succeeded: the album is all pared-down soul—warm, organic covers of artists like Jackie Wilson and Bobby Womack, as well as funky originals like “Nothing” and “We Got Love.”

- - -

OPENING NIGHT
Friday, June 15 - 7:00 pm
Cassandra Wilson
Olu Dara

Supported in part by Museum for African Art

Cassadra Wilson

The 2007 SummerStage season will open with the return of one of our favorite performers, vocalist Cassandra Wilson. While she’s widely acknowledged as one of America’s best jazz singers, Wilson’s artistic vision defies categorization, incorporating as it does deep blues, folk, soul, rock and world music. Her 2006 album Thunderbird is her most rhythmically adventurous, replete with drum loops and sampling. As always, Wilson ’s choice of material reflects her wide-ranging tastes, and on Thunderbird she mixes stirring originals with mesmerizing covers of songs by everyone from Jakob Dylan to Blind Lemon Jefferson.

A fixture of NYC’s jazz scene for over thirty years, Olu Dara has worked with David Murray, Henry Threadgill, James “Blood” Ulmer, hip-hop superstar Nas (who happens to be his son) and Cassandra Wilson. His trumpet playing earned him comparisons to Roy Eldridge, but when he released his solo debut, In The World: From Natchez to New York, in 1998, he had metamorphosized into a country blues guitarist and singer. His success at moving so effortlessly between different worlds of music is just one indication of Olu Dara’s creative prowess.

- - -

Saturday, June 16 - 3:00 pm
Television
Apples in Stereo
Dragons of Zynth

Apple in Stereo

Television

One of the most important bands to emerge from the mid-‘70s New York punk scene, Television was founded on the double-guitar attack of leader Tom Verlaine and Richard Lloyd. But where most guitarists of the time specialized in extended jam snooze-fests, Verlaine and Lloyd pioneered an angular, yet tuneful, style largely stripped of blues references and heavily indebted to the garage rock of the ‘60s. Television was the first band to play regularly at CBGBs, and its success encouraged the club to book other unknown acts like Patti Smith, The Ramones, Blondie and Talking Heads.

Fake newsman Stephen Colbert’s favorite band The Apples in Stereo are back after a hiatus of nearly five years with all creative guns blazing. Led by songwriter Rob Schneider (co-founder of the Elephant 6 collective that included ‘90s low-fi stars Neutral Milk Hotel), The Apples specialize in a sunny power pop that owes as much to Sonic Youth as it does The Beach Boys. Their new album, New Magnetic Wonder, is their most intricate and ambitious yet.

One of the city’s most groundbreaking new bands, Dragons Of Zynth combine punk, dub, funk, soul and heavy metal in a way so fresh it’s been given its own name: Afrotek. Critics have described the group’s live shows as “insane” and “bonkers,” though the band itself prefers to call them “audio-physio-psychic” experiences. Said performances have attracted a number of well-placed fans, including fellow sonic explorers TV On The Radio, who helped produce the Dragons’ debut album Coronation Thieves.

- - -

Sunday, June 17 - 3:00 pm
Tiken Jah Fakoly
Idan Raichel Project
DJ Kadafi

Tiken Jah Fakoly

Reggae singer Tiken Jah Fakoly has become the musical conscience of his native Cote d’Ivoire by merging the spiritual optimism of Bob Marley with the political activism of Fela Kuti. Like Fela, his outspokenness has got him in trouble with his country’s authorities: at one point he had to flee to Mali in order to stay alive. But he’s stayed true to his classic reggae roots, and continues to strike a chord with down-trodden Ivorians, as well as pretty much anyone who happens to hear him.

Idan Raichel is an Israeli keyboardist and composer whose love of Gypsy music and tango was profoundly impacted by his exposure to Israel ’s Ethiopian population. With The Idan Raichel Project, he not only merges the Ethiopian and European music traditions, he brings in influences from all over the Mediterranean and North Africa . Featuring Ethiopian, Yemenite Jew and Arab musicians, the group is an established success in Israel . The Idan Raichel Project’s albums only started seeing American release last year, but have already made a big impression on the world music circuit.

African-born, New York City-based DJ Kadafi spins the most engaging and challenging sounds from West Africa . The house DJ at the Bronx ’s Zoodoo Nightclub, he was named the best Africa DJ in NYC by Delaroca productions. His first album is scheduled for release this summer.

- - -

Dave Attel

Friday, June 22 - 7:30 pm
Comedy Central Park

Courtesy of presenting partner Comedy Central

Comedian Dave Attell (Comedy Central’s Insomniac) hosts a free night of comedy featuring the best young talent from the city and beyond, including John Mulaney, Joe DeRosa, Amy Shumer and Kurt Metzger.

- - -

Sunday, June 24 3:00 pm
"CANADA DAY!"
Sloan
Apostle of Hustle
Duhks

Supported by the Canadian Consulate General

Sloan

Headlining our annual celebration of Canadian music is Halifax , Nova Scotia ’s own Sloan. Four guys obsessed with the Beatles and ‘70s glam rock, Sloan hit big in their native Canada during the early ‘90s with concise and melodic power pop. But it wasn’t until 1996’s One Chord To Another that they “broke” in America . Last year’s critically-acclaimed Never Hear The End Of It plays like the second side of The Beatles’ Abbey Road : 30 songs—some less than a minute long—that blend into each other to form a kind of epic rock ‘n roll suite.

Canada Day wouldn’t be Canada Day without at least one connection to Broken Social Scene, the Toronto-based indie-rock collective. This year, the connection comes from Apostle Of Hustle. Inspired by a two-month-long trip to Cuba, BSS lead guitarist Andrew Whiteman founded Apostle as a means of exploring his new found love for Spanish music, particularly the Cuban guitar, or tres. The band’s sophomore album, National Anthem Of Nowhere, marries electric guitar experimentation to flamenco strumming and Afro-Cuban beats. In March of this year, Spin magazine said that “Whiteman recombines mambo, Americana , and mesmerizing BSS-style rock with infectiously rambling results.”

Though they ended up losing to The Dixie Chicks, The Duhks’ recent Grammy® nomination for “Best Country Performance By A Duo Or Group With Vocal” was a sweet victory for the five-piece from Winnipeg. Neo-folkies with a decidedly contemporary bent, the young members of The Duhks combine gospel, folk, samba, Celtic, zydeco and country string band sounds into a kind of joyful Western hemispheric bop.

- - -

-BENEFIT CONCERT -
Thursday, June 28 - 6:30 pm

The Levon Helm Band

The Levon Helm Band
Tickets: $60
Purchase via Ticketmaster.com or by phone: 212-307-7171
OR at the Mercury Lounge Box Office
217 E. Houston Street (between Ludlow & Essex)
212-260-4700

Levon Helm brought a funky, down-home rhythmic sense and a beautifully textured singing voice to his work with The Band, imbuing the group’s sound with a true Southern sensibility. After the Band’s demise, Levon continued to make great music, emerging in recent years with his Midnight Jam series: small intimate hootenannies at his storied Woodstock home and studio. Though throat cancer silenced his voice for a while, he’s back to full strength again, singing and playing classic Americana with his all star band.

- - -

Saturday, June 30 - 3:00 pm
Ozomatli
Babylon Circus
DJ Joro Boro

Ozomatli

Hailing from the City of Angels, Ozomatli have spent the last 12 years developing a unique rock/salsa/hip-hop/ska/dancehall/jazz fusion style—a sound which achieves near perfection on the group’s latest, Don’t Mess With The Devil. Mixing political messages with rhythmic adventures, the band have added a radio-friendly sheen to the mix. Reviewing the album, the Village Voice noted that “You could always dance to Ozo's beats, but this time they supply more hip-churning swing than alt-rock stomp. How many contemporary combos could shift so effortlessly from the laconic ‘Stoned Soul Picnic’ tempo of ‘After Party’ to the mariachi- and cumbia-inflected rhythms of ‘La Gallina’?” Ozomatli concerts are legendary for their energy and showmanship, especially the show closing breakdown where the band members venture into the crowd while playing an irresistible samba beat on hand drums and percussion.

Both a rollicking, chaotic clown troupe and whip-smart, musically-explosive big band, Babylon Circus combine the absurd and the compelling in a show that has to be seen to be believed. Formed in France in the mid-‘90s, the 10-piece group mixes Gallic chanson narratives, Jamaican reggae/ski/dub grooves and English punk rawness with political satire and classic big top stunts.

When Communism collapsed in the early ‘90s, Eastern Europe plunged into a crisis of identity, as a bright tidal wave of Western pop culture overwhelmed the grey, Soviet-sanctioned status quo. One happy product of this creative chaos is the work of DJ Joro Boro. The Bulgarian native moved to America in the late ‘90s and eventually wound up at the Bulgarian Bar in New York . There, he added Arabic, Gypsy and Indian tunes into the usual Balkan and Russian mix, and oversaw the birth of a scene that, on any given night, might see young European jet-setters dancing next to hip-hoppers dancing next to drag queens and people in traditional Bulgarian dress.

- - -

Sunday, July 1 - 3:00 pm
Rodrigo y Gabriela
Vietnam
JDH and Dave P

Rodrigo y Gabriela

Not since the White Stripes has a two member band created as much rock and roll noise as Rodrigo y Gabriela. What’s more, this Mexican-born, Dublin-based duo doesn’t even need electricity: they create an enormous amount of energy with just two acoustic guitars. Virtuosos Rodrigo Sanchez and Gabriela Quintero have created a sound that’s almost impossible to describe. While they use the super fast strumming, finger picking and rapid rhythmic tapping of flamenco, their biggest influence is the classic thrash metal of bands like Metallica--on their second album they not only reinterpret that band’s “Oracle,” they completely reinvent the king of all hard rock songs, Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway To Heaven.” The Boston Globe praised the duos "idiosyncratic dueling-guitar style that brims with rock 'n' roll energy," while Billboard called Rodrigo y Gabriela “one of the best guitar albums in ages; one of the best discs this year."

Don’t expect anything remotely Vietnamese from Brooklyn band VietNam. The quartet—whose long hair, beards and ‘70s sunglasses evoke Duane Allman sooner than Ho Chi Mihn—play a hazy, yet tough guitar rock equally influenced by Bob Dylan and Sonic Youth. Their eponymous debut is regarded by many as a shaggy masterpiece.

DJs JDH and Dave P are famed on the New York dance scene for their regular “FIXED” party, at which they somehow fuse everyone from AC/DC to Technotronic into a seamless club mix. FIXED has also featured a who’s-who of underground bands before they got famous, including Soulwax, Peaches, LCD Soundsytem, Hot Chip, Art Brut, The Rapture, Simian Mobile Disco, Scratch Massive and others.

- - -

Friday, July 6 - 8:00 pm
DANCE
Ronald K. Brown/Evidence
Full Circle Soul Productions

Full Circle Soul Dance Productions

Dancer Ronald K. Brown founded Evidence in 1985 to explore the intersection of ballet, modern and African dance. Considered one of the most important choreographers of his generation, his work incorporates the full spectrum of the African-American experience, from the brutal history of slavery to the creative brilliance of jazz and hip-hop. The Washington Post has noted “Brown's choreography has zoomed to the forefront of modern dance by virtue of its exquisitely sculpted movement, and a compelling sense that the dancing springs from a deep well of spiritual urgency.” Brown and dancers will be presenting several works from the Evidence repertoire, including High Life, an evocation of the journey from slavery to freedom.

Reflecting the extensive reach of hip-hop culture, Full Circle Soul Productions has been spreading the art of break-dancing, rap and street-culture since 1996. Founded by artistic directors Gabriel "Kwikstep" Dionisio and Anita " Rokafella" Garcia, FCP hosts workshops for young dancers, singers and artists, and brings their work to such unexpected environments as the Library of Congress. In a review of one Full Circle Performance last year, the New York Times said: “There were hints of the basketball courts and the African dance that influenced hip-hop dance, but the spectacular concluding spins on all parts of the body recalled nothing so much as fast, ornamented ballet fouettés.”

Read on for more show listings at the Central Park Summer Stage.

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