Celebrate Brooklyn Full Schedule

Here is the FULL Schedule of this year’s Celebrate Brooklyn concerts. All shows except for benefit shows are free with a $3 suggested contribution.

NORAH JONES

Wednesday, June 9, 8 pm

The pianist, singer and songwriter — and now, Brooklyn resident — performs her

first free outdoor show in the borough.

ALLEN TOUSSAINT/ DAVELL CRAWFORD

Saturday, June 12, 7:30 pm

An undisputed architect of New Orleans music and a national cultural

treasure.

EUGENE MIRMAN & PRETTY GOOD FRIENDS

Thursday, June 17, 7:30 pm

Brooklyn comic and impresario Eugene Mirman has been described by Esquire as

“equal parts Andy Kaufman and Andy Warhol.” Spin has said that “Mirman has a

skewed observational wit rather than a sweaty Friar’s Club shtick — and kills

with self-deprecating ease.” Here he hosts a scaled-up version of his

regular comedy spectacular, which has become something of a local

institution. John Hodgman, Michael Showalter and Hannibal Buress are

scheduled to appear, along with others TBA, plus music and other oddball

surprises.

JG THIRLWELL’S STEROID MAXIMUS / DR. LONNIE SMITH

Friday, June 18, 7:30 pm

The prolific Australian composer, producer, performer, visual artist and

longtime DUMBO resident JG Thirlwell is an elusive but profoundly

influential presence in New York City’s underground music world. Working

under many pseudonyms, including Foetus, Manorexia, Baby Zizanie, Clint

Ruin, and Wiseblood, his varied body of work — which stretches the gamut from

orchestrations, big band, cathartic noise-rock to abstract electronics and

sound sculpture, chamber music, serial music and imaginary soundtracks

(sometimes all in the same album) — is linked by a dramatic intensity and an

evocative, cinematic quality. He has collaborated with the likes of Nick

Cave, Lydia Lunch and Soft Cell, done remixes for NIN and Pantera, scored

Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim series The Venture Brothers, and been

commissioned by Kronos Quartet and Bang on a Can. Celebrate Brooklyn! is

proud to present the New York debut of Thirlwell’s rarely heard large

ensemble Steroid Maximus, a big band/exotica mini-orchestra. The evening

will begin with a set by Dr. Lonnie Smith, the turban-wearing Hammond B-3

wizard.

Celebrate Brooklyn! & CareFusion Jazz Festival Present

BITCHES BREW REVISTED, WITH GRAHAM HAYNES, JAMES BLOOD ULMER,

MARCO BENEVENTO, DJ LOGIC, LONNIE PLAXICO AND

CINDY BLACKMAN / MIKE STERN TRIO

Saturday, June 19, 7:30 pm

This concert brings together a dazzling, multi-generational array of artists

to explore the legacy of the Miles Davis landmark on the 40th anniversary of

its release. The night begins with a performance by the virtuosic Mike

Stern, one of the premier jazz-fusion guitarists of his generation and a

veteran of Davis’s band.

ORQUESTA BUENA VISTA SOCIAL CLUB FEATURING OMARA PORTUONDO / NELIDA TIRADO

Thursday, June 24, 7:30 pm

The great Omara Portuondo, the female voice of the original Buena Vista

Social Club, is a living legend of Cuban music. She now fronts the

extraordinary Orquesta Buena Vista Social Club, which on recent tours has

taken “the atmosphere up to a breathless level” (The Independent) in

performances that “left audiences awe-struck” (Financial Times). Opening

will be flamenco dancer Nelida Tirado, who moves, The New York Times says,

“as if her body were a medium for some unearthly force.”

KID KOALA: SHORT ATTENTION SPAN AUDIO THEATER VS. THE SLEW / HESS IS MORE

Friday, June 25, 7:30 pm

According to Time Out NY, the DJ, graphic novelist, musician and producer

Kid Koala “pairs his deck skills with a songwriter’s smarts and the timing

of a stand-up comedian.” At Celebrate Brooklyn!, he will offer a sampling of

his wide-ranging talents, including excerpts of his Short Attention Span

Audio Theatre, a vinyl vaudeville of all sorts of mischief featuring DJ

P-Love; as well as The Slew, in which six turntables worth of live sampled

guitar riffs meets the ex-Wolfmother rhythm section for a head-banging

finale. Led by deadpan Danish pop-provocateur Mikkel Hess, Hess is More

channels Jon Brion, Flight of the Conchords and Steve Martin with gleeful

abandon, switching instruments mid-song and looping riffs and beats to

create what they call freestyle disco jazz.

TEXAS TORNADOS / THE RED CLAY RAMBLERS

Saturday, June 26, 7:30 pm

In the midst of a bona fide revival, the Tex-Mex supergroup Texas Tornados

lives on with originals Augie Meyers and Flaco Jimenez as vital as ever and

the spirits of the late Freddy Fender and Doug Sahm presiding. On tour and

on their new album Esta Bueno!, which came out earlier this year, Shawn Sahm

steps to the front and “pulls off his dad’s old tricks with a few of his

own” (Austin Chronicle). They will be preceded on the bill by the timeless

North Carolina string band The Red Clay Ramblers, who, according to The New

York Times, play like “a fantasy roadhouse band from a vanished rural

America” in whose music “bluegrass, New Orleans, classical folk and gospel

sounds emerge in nutty profusion.”

ZOOM: ZVIDANCE / SON LUX WITH LOTTDANCE

Thursday, July 1, 8 pm

Integrating cell phones, projections and live music, ZOOM, the latest of

choreographer Zvi Gotheiner’s “heroically surging, exalting dances” (The New

York Times), shatters the wall between audience and performers, with photos

and text conversations from the crowd becoming an exhilarating, interactive

real-time video collage of images and unscripted dialogue to which the

dancers respond. The evening begins with a collaboration between the forward

thinking classical/electronic/hip-hop composer Son Lux — whom NPR’s “All

Things Considered” named Best New Artist in 2008 — and Lottdance, an evolving

group of cultural conspirators that draws together dancers, musicians and

visual artists to create multimedia events.

THE FAB 5 / UZALO

Friday, July 2, 7:30 pm

Four decades into their career, the Fab 5 have played countless live shows

and created a veritable library of live vintage party mix recordings. To be

sure, the group embodies the history of reggae and lives up to their billing

as “Jamaica’s #1 Showband.” The percussionist Junior “Gabu” Wedderburn,

master drummer of Broadway’s The Lion King and founder of the Jamaican roots

collective Ancient Vibrations, gets things started with his latest project,

Uzalo.

ITUTU: ARMITAGE GONE! DANCE FEATURING BURKINA ELECTRIC

Thursday, July 8, 8 pm

Former “punk ballerina” Karole Armitage, who has choreographed for everyone

from Baryshnikov to Michael Jackson, “is always pushing the limits of

possibility, spectacularly deconstructing the body with a diabolic flair”

(Le Nouvel Observateur, France). In ITUTU, her company shares the stage with

the West African band Burkina Electric to create a haunting amalgam of dance

and live music that combines ballet and African dance, electronica and

ancient rhythms — a uniquely modern synthesis of new and old, pop and

tradition.

Celebrate Brooklyn & LAMC present

OZOMATLI / FIDEL NADAL / TOY SELECTAH

Friday, July 9, 7 pm

The singular music of Ozomatli blends hip-hop, salsa, dancehall, cumbia,

samba, funk, merengue, comparsa, East LA R&B, New Orleans second line,

Jamaican raga and Indian raga, among other styles to be found in Los

Angeles’s cultural melting pot. This summer, they return to their favorite

NYC stomping ground. Also on the bill are Afro-Argentine reggae stalwart

Fidel Nadal, founding member and front man for of the fabled Rasta punk rock

band Todos Tus Muertos, and the Monterrey, Mexico-based DJ Toy Selectah, who

has produced or remixed Calle 13, Café Tacuba, Control Machete, Manu Chao,

Eminem, Plastilina Mosh and Cypress Hill.

OKAYAFRICA World Cup 2010 Finals party

WITH THE ROOTS, TALIB KWELI, SAHR NGAUJAH, BAJAH + THE DRY EYE CREW,

BLITZ THE AMBASSADOR AND MORE

Sunday, July 11, 4 pm

The Roots headline this World Cup party, which celebrates the first time in

its 80-year history the tournament will take place on African soil. With a

kick-off by Sahr Ngaujah, the star of Fela! on Broadway, the show features

performances by artists from all corners of the Diaspora, including host

Talib Kweli (Brooklyn), Bajah + The Dry Eye Crew (Sierra Leone), Blitz the

Ambassador (Ghana), and many others to be announced. Check

bricartsmedia.org/celebrate for updates.

Celebrate Brooklyn & Museum for African Art present

AFRICAN FESTIVAL WITH KONONO NO. 1, OMAR PENE & SUPER DIAMONO, CHIWONISO,

META & THE CORNERSTONES AND DJARARA

Saturday, July 17, 2 pm — 9 pm

Celebrate Brooklyn!’s annual celebration of African music, food and culture

will build to an ecstatic crescendo this year with the distortion-drenched

trance music of Congolese thumb-piano wizards Konono No. 1. Also featured

are Dakar’s Omar Pene & Super Diamono, seminal figures in the birth of the

modern Senegalese sound; the distinctive voice of Zimbabwean Afro-soul diva

Chiwoniso; the pan-African reggae of Meta & The Cornerstones; and the

festival horns and drums of Haiti’s Djarara.

CELEBRATE BROOKLYN & BROOKLYN PHILHARMONIC PRESENT

THE CHAPLIN MUTUALS: CARL DAVIS / THE TWO MAN GENTLEMEN BAND

Thursday, July 22, 7:30 pm

The Brooklyn-born, UK-based Carl Davis is a conductor for the London

Symphony Orchestra who has composed music for more than 100 television

programs and countless silent films. He returns to Celebrate Brooklyn! to

conduct the Brooklyn Philharmonic in live performances of his original

scores to three of Charlie Chaplin’s classics from the Mutual Film

Corporation: Easy Street, 1 AM, and Behind the Screen. Antic, The fun,

old-timey Two Man Gentlemen Band will kick off the concert.

BOMBA ESTÉREO / LA SECTA ALLSTAR / RITA INDIANA

Friday, July 23, 7 pm

Masterminded by bassist-producer Simón Mejía and fronted by the singer

Liliana Saumet, Bogotá’s Bomba Estéreo is at the forefront of the Latin

Alternative scene. The band merges traditional sounds from Colombia’s

Caribbean coast — like cumbia, bullerengue and champeta — with electronica,

reggae and hip-hop to conjure what Hispanic Magazine describes as “homegrown

folkloric music being etched upon the global DNA of urban beats.” La Secta

Allstar are considered the kings of Puerto Rican rock en español, and Rita

Indiana is a rapidly rising Dominican star.

FIELD OF DREAMS (UN MUNDO NUEVO):

ANDRES LEVIN & THE BRUCE HIGH QUALITY FOUNDATION

Saturday, July 24, 4 pm

The Grammy-winning producer Andres Levin and the Bruce High Quality

Foundation are devising a Bandshell-wide, all-day, DIY world’s fair. The

event will feature a broad range of musical and theatrical guests: Cucu

Diamantes, Luis Guzman, Pablo Picasso, M1 from Dead Prez, Los Hanky Panky

vs. Yerba Buena, Les Nubians, Raven O, Francis and the Lights, Forro in the

Dark, John Medeski and others TBA.

MI21: MOTHER INDIA 21st CENTURY REMIX, WITH DJ TIGERSTYLE / FALU

Thursday, July 29, 8 pm

MI21 is a dynamic audio/visual re-scoring and re-visualizing of the

profoundly influential Mother India (1957), the first Bollywood film to be

nominated for an Academy Award (Best Foreign Language Film) and a talismanic

piece of cinema history that came to symbolize the post-colonial Indian

psyche. MI21 re-imagines the three-hour epic into an impressionistic 60

minutes of arresting imagery with a live score by DJ Tigerstyle, who is

accompanied here by strings, keyboards, and percussion. The evening will

kick off with a performance by Falu, the “indie Hindi,” who trained under

the legendary vocalist Ustad Sultan Khan in Bombay and brazenly mashes up

rock, funk, Bollywood and purely Indian classical music.

THE SWELL SEASON / THE LOW ANTHEM

Friday, July 30, 7:30 pm

Glen Hansard, of the Irish band The Frames, and the classically trained

Czech pianist and singer Marketa Irglova, won an Oscar for “Falling Slowly,”

from the Once soundtrack, a film in which they also starred. As the Swell

Season, they have gone on to achieve further success. Rolling Stone has

called their newest music “hot Irish soulŠenergetic folk rock and

dream-pop-touched balladry.” The concert begins with the gospel-tinged

Americana of The Low Anthem, one of the most celebrated indie rock bands to

emerge over the last year.

SONIC YOUTH / GRASS WIDOW / TALK NORMAL

Saturday, July 31, 7 pm

Sonic Youth’s glorious noise will engulf the Prospect Park Bandshell in a

free show that promises to be one of this summer’s live music highlights.

The No Wave pioneers have contributed as much over the last three decades as

any band to the rise of alternative rock, and their sway over today’s indie

scene cannot be overestimated. They are joined on the bill by the

“bewitching tales and eerie, obsessive melodies” (SF Gate) of the Bay Area

trio Grass Widow and the propulsive riffs of Brooklyn’s own Talk Normal.

METRIC / JOAN AS POLICE WOMAN / HOLLY MIRANDA

Thursday, August 5, 7 pm

Uncut recently said that Metric’s mercurial front woman Emily Haines is

“still secretly one of the most articulate, compelling performers in modern

rock.” Indeed, the band’s intense, always-evolving fusion of psychedelia,

disco and electro-rock has made them one of the most exciting and enduring

outfits to emerge from the fertile Toronto music scene that grew up around

the collective Broken Social Scene (to which Haines and Metric co-founder

James Shaw belong). Representing Brooklyn on this triple bill are the

“sublime … absolutely devastating” (Q Magazine) soul-punk diva Joan as Police

Woman and Holly Miranda, who has been widely acclaimed as a rising star.

HOUSE OF USHER: MARCO BENEVENTO / WHITE MAGIC

Music & Movies

Friday, August 6, 7:30 pm

Cult B-movie auteur Roger Corman’s 1960 adaptation of Edgar Allen Poe’s

masterpiece of death, madness, and familial decrepitude stars a wild-eyed

Vincent Price. The film is a study in creeping, diabolical menace. To

celebrate its 50th anniversary, BRIC has commissioned organ virtuoso and

indie jazz crossover phenomenon Marco Benevento to write a new original

score, which he will perform live as the film plays on Celebrate Brooklyn!’s

50-foot screen. Brooklyn denizens White Magic will embrace the last bits of

sunlight before the darkness descends, providing gripping avant-folk and

witchy psychedelia.

DAPTONE REVUE: SHARON JONES & THE DAP-KINGS / BUDOS BAND / OTHERS TBA

Saturday, August 7, 7 pm

The Bushwick label Daptone Records, long committed to delivering the finest

soul, funk, gospel and afrobeat sounds to be found on analog tape, will

bring to the Bandshell their unstoppable materfamilias, Sharon Jones & The

Dap-Kings, on a bill of Daptone artists that will deliver an unforgettable

night of Brooklyn soul.

BRADY RYMER / ELIZABETH MITCHELL

Sunday, August 8, 4 pm

The 32nd Celebrate Brooklyn! season concludes with a day of family-friendly

American roots and folk music to honor the legacy of the progressive

children’s book author and illustrator Ezra Jack Keats. Brady Rymer’s

downhome, foot-stomping Little Band That Could “might just be the

best-sounding band in children’s music,” according to NPR’s “All Things

Considered. Elizabeth Mitchell’s renditions of Woody Guthrie classics and

other folk gems have made her the first modern children’s artist to be

signed to the venerable American Folkways label. She also gleefully covers

the likes of the Velvet Underground and Bob Marley.

BENEFIT CONCERTS

PASSION PIT

Tuesday, June 29

Sold Out

RUFUS WAINWRIGHT

Tuesday, July 20

Celebrate Brooklyn Benefit Concert

Tickets available via Ticketmaster

THE NATIONAL / BEACH HOUSE

Tuesday, July 27

Sold Out

THE DEAD WEATHER

(Alison Mosshart / Jack White / Dean Fertita / Jack Lawrence)

Tuesday, August 3

Celebrate Brooklyn Benefit Concert

Tickets: Ticketmaster

Mercury Lounge and Music Hall of Williamsburg box offices free of service

charges, cash only.

Mercury Lounge (Mon-Sat: noon-7 pm ); Music Hall of Williamsburg (Saturdays

only: 11 am-6 pm).