this week in music

HUDSON RIVER PARK BLUES BBQ

The Dirty Dozen Brass Band will headline the seventeenth annual Hudson River Park Blues BBQ on August 20

Hudson River Park, Clinton Cove
Pier 97 at West 55th St.
Saturday, August 20, free, 2:00 to 9:00
www.hudsonriverpark.org

The seventeenth annual Blues BBQ is moving to a new location this year, taking place August 20 at Pier 97 in Hudson River Park. The free afternoon will feature live performances by Gaye and the Wild Rutz (2:00), Cash Box Kings (3:15), the Bernard Allison Group (4:30), the Sugaray Rayford Band (6:00), and the one and only Dirty Dozen Brass Band (7:30). Food and drink will be available for purchase from such hot joints as Arrogant Swine, Fort Gansevoort Bar-B-Cue, Mighty Quinn’s Barbeque, and Dinosaur Bar-B-Que. The Blues BBQ is sponsored by the Hudson River Park Trust, which is dedicated to, among other things, “operate and maintain the park at a high level so that it remains a community asset and economic generator, and continues to serve the millions of New Yorkers and tourists who use it annually.”

LIC BLOCK PARTY

lic block party

SculptureCenter
Purves St. at Jackson & 43rd Aves.
Saturday, August 20, free, 12 noon – 5:00 pm
www.sculpture-center.org

SculptureCenter, one of the coolest places to see art in the five boroughs, is hosting the annual LIC Block Party on August 20 in Queens. The free afternoon, taking place inside and outside the gallery, will include live performances by Erin Markey, Daisy Press, OTIUM, Jessica Lang Dance, and Bianca Benson, DJ sets by Tygapaw, activity booths by Schuyler Tsuda, Jeannine Han & Eliza Fisher, Sam Stewart, Lauren Halsey, Jan Mun & Gil Lopez, Sydney Shen, Emma Banay & David Scanlon’s Quilt Music, Other Means, and Diamond Stingily, and an artists market with booths by American Chordata, Desert Island, Fastnet, Mixed Media, Packet Biweekly, the Perfect Nothing Catalog, Peradam, Sanguis Ornatus, and Workaday Handmade. There will also be food and drink available from such local restaurants as Bartleby & Sage, Doughnut Plant, Hibino LIC, Rockaway Brewing Co., and Stolle USA. Among the partners in the block party are the American Folk Art Museum, the Museum of the Moving Image, the Noguchi Museum, Sculpture Space NYC, and Socrates Sculpture Park.

TICKET ALERT — CHITA: NOWADAYS

The legendary Chita Rivera will make her Carnegie Hall headlining debut on November 8 with special guests (photo by Laura Marie Duncan)

Who: Chita Rivera, Alan Cumming, Andy Karl, more
What: “Chita: Nowadays”
Where: Carnegie Hall, Stern Auditorium / Perelman Stage, 881 Seventh Ave. at 57th St.
When: Monday, November 7, $40-$135, 8:00
Why: Tickets are on sale now to see Broadway legend Chita Rivera in her first-ever headlining show at Carnegie Hall. On November 7, Rivera, who has won two Tonys in addition to earning another eight nominations, will be joined by several leading men, including Tony winner Alan Cumming (Cabaret, Macbeth), two-time Tony nominee Andy Karl (Rocky, On the Twentieth Century), and others to be announced. The eighty-three-year-old Rivera will be celebrating a film, television, and stage career that began in the early 1950s and features such stage productions as West Side Story, Bye Bye Birdie, Sweet Charity, Chicago, and Kiss of the Spider Woman as well as the film versions of Sweet Charity and Chicago. “Chita: Nowadays” will consists of old favorites, new songs, and special collaborations, directed by Graciela Daniele, with musical director Michael Croiter leading a fifteen-piece band. “I’m absolutely thrilled to play one of the most prestigious venues in the world, Carnegie Hall,” actress-singer-dancer Rivera, who received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2009, said in a statement. “We’re going to have a ball!”

ERIC BURDON AND THE ANIMALS

Eric Burdon spills the hippie blues at City Winery (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

City Winery
155 Varick St. between Spring & Vandam Sts.
Monday, August 8, and Tuesday, August 9, $85-$125, 8:00
212-608-0555
www.citywinery.com
www.ericburdon.com

Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Eric Burdon let the hippie blues flow Monday night at City Winery, where he and the latest iteration of the Animals performed the first of two intimate shows to a delighted audience. Burdon, who recently turned seventy-five, might not have the same vocal range that he displayed back during the British Invasion, but he is still one of the best song interpreters of his generation. Over the course of his fifteen-song set, he told stories about Nina Simone, Lead Belly, Bo Diddley, and the Monterey Pop Festival while playing a show heavy with hits, several of which featured expanded arrangements. He and his crack band, consisting of guitarist Johnzo West, keyboardist Davey Allen, bassist Justin Andres, saxophonist Ruben Salinas, trombonist Evan Mackey, and drummer Dustin Koester, opened with a funky version of “Spill the Wine” — preferably not the Eric Burdon Cabernet Sauvignon that City Winery was selling for the occasion — followed by a string of classics, including “See See Rider,” “When I Was Young,” “Monterey,” and “Don’t Bring Me Down.” Burdon then paid tribute to Elias McDaniel, better known as Bo Diddley, with “Bo Diddley Special,” from his fine 2013 album, ’Til Your River Runs Dry. “I was given this gift without asking,” Burdon sings. As the evening went on, his gift was ever more in evidence, performing a stirring version of Lead Belly’s “In the Pines,” then picking up power as he brought the house down with “Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood,” “The House of the Rising Sun,” and a massive “We Gotta Get Out of This Place” that finally got the somewhat reserved, older crowd shaking and grooving, which reached its apex with the encores, a defiant “It’s My Life,” with Burdon declaring that “he ain’t no saint, no complaints,” then concluding with Sam & Dave’s “Hold on, I’m Comin’.” Watching Eric Burdon in 2016, more than fifty years after the Animals first invaded America and the pop charts, still fills you with rebellious spirit; when everyone in the audience screams out together, “It’s my life and I’ll do what I want / It’s my mind and I’ll think what I want,” you feel like anything is possible. And at least for one night, it was. (Alberta Cross leader Petter Ericson Stakee opened up with a solo set that never had a chance over the rudely chattering crowd.)

SUMMER STREETS 2016

Giant slide is a highlight of Summer Streets program on Saturday mornings in August (photo by twi-ny/ees)

Giant slide is a highlight of Summer Streets program on first three Saturday mornings in August (photo by twi-ny/ees)

Park Ave. & 72nd St. to Foley Square
Saturday, August 6, 13, 20, free, 7:00 am – 1:00 pm
www.nyc.gov

Now in its seventh year, Summer Streets takes place the next three Saturday mornings, as Park Ave. will be closed to vehicular traffic from 72nd St. to Foley Square and the Brooklyn Bridge from 7:00 am to 1:00 pm, encouraging people to walk, run, jog, blade, skate, slide, and bike down the famous thoroughfare, getting exercise and enjoying the great outdoors without car exhaust, speeding taxis, and slow-moving buses. There are five rest stops along the route (Uptown at 52nd St., Midtown at 25th, Astor Pl. at Lafayette St., SoHo at Spring & Lafayette, and Foley Square at Duane & Centre), where people can stop for some food and drink, live performances, fitness classes, site-specific art installations, dog walks, bicycle workshops, and other activities, all of which are free. Below are some of the highlights.

Foley Square Rest Stop
Beachside Slide (advance preregistration required,) Adaptive Obstacle Challenge, “On Display / CitiSummerStreets” living sculpture by Heidi Latsky, “M2B, Beijing-New York” mobile bike sculpture by Niko de la Fey, historical reenactors, Department of Design and Construction: The Art and Construction of NYC’s Water Supply, Bronx Museum of the Arts workshop (August 20)

SoHo Rest Stop
Fitness classes, free bike repair and rentals, parkour fitness demonstrations, Museum of Chinese in America “Dragon Boat Crown Making” (August 6 & 20), Storefront for Art and Architecture “Manhattanisms” (August 13)

Astor Place Rest Stop
“Make It Here” interactive programs (athletics, social media vending machines, fashion showcases, Paws and Play Dog Park, “Los Trompos (Spinning Tops)” by Hector Esrawe and Ignacio Cadena

Midtown Rest Stop
A Taste of Summer Sampling Zone, Kid Bike Park, pop-up yoga, hand-cycle demonstration, helmet fittings, free bike rentals and repair, “GrowNYC Zero Waste Programs,” live dance, theater, and musical performances

August 6
Connor Larkin, Kelly Wright, the Other Brothers, Moondrunk

August 13
JHEVERE, Phone Home, Music with a Message, Evolfo

August 20
Orin Kurtz, Backtrack Vocals, Darrah Carr Dance, Drew and Joanne

Uptown Rest Stop
DOT Safety Zone, Zipline, “Unlimited NYC” athletics, Hallmark “Sounds of Shore” installation, “Make It Here” interactive programs (live performances, food tastings, sharing love stories), bike art party, Municipal Art Society tours, tai chi, Museum of the City of New York’s “Pushing Buttons: NYC Activism”

August 6
American Folk Art Museum’s “Families & Folk Art,” Publicolor’s “Color and Creativity, Sirens of Gotham, Receta Secreta, the Afro-Latineers, Robert Anderson Band, Stiletta, Washington Square Winds, Society of Illustrators’ “Draw and Groove Party,” Materials for the Arts’ “Found Object Flowers”

August 13
Risa Puno’s interactive “Win or Lose” game, ArchForKids’ “The Big Build,” Design Trust for Public Space’s “Under the Elevated,” National Museum of the American Indian’s “Inspired by Native/Indigenous Design,” Taliah Lempert’s “Street Smart Bike Art,” BumbleBee Jamboree, DreamStreet Theatre Company, Niall O’Leary School of Irish Dance, City Stompers, dancing classrooms

August 20
National Museum of the American Indian’s “Inspired by Native/Indigenous Design,” Taliah Lempert’s “Street Smart Bike Art,” “Poets House Imagination Station,” Art Gowanus workshop, Groundswell’s “Visualize Your Artist Skills,” New York Violinist Susan Keser, Opera Collective, Art of Stepping, Exit 12 Dance Group

COUNTRY BRUNCHIN’: THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY

Clint Eastwood is the Good in classic Sergio Leone operatic oater

NITEHAWK BRUNCH SCREENINGS: THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY (Sergio Leone, 1966)
Nitehawk Cinema
136 Metropolitan Ave. between Berry St. & Wythe Ave.
August 6-7, 11:00 am
718-384-3980
www.nitehawkcinema.com

One of the all-time-great spaghetti Westerns, Sergio Leone’s dusty three-hour operatic oater stars Clint Eastwood as the Good (Blondie), Lee Van Cleef as the Bad (Angel Eyes), and Eli Wallach as the Ugly (Tuco Benedicto Pacifico Juan Maria Ramirez, whose list of criminal offenses is a riot), three unique individuals after $200,000 in Confederate gold buried in a cemetery in the middle of nowhere. Nearly twenty minutes of never-before-seen footage was added to the film several years ago, with Wallach and Eastwood overdubbing brand-new dialogue, so if you haven’t seen it in a while, it might just be time to catch it again. Ennio Morricone’s unforgettable score and Torino delli Colli’s gorgeous widescreen cinematography were also marvelously enhanced; their work in the scene when Tuco first comes upon the graveyard will make you dizzy with delight. And then comes one of the greatest finales in cinema history. The Good, the Bad and the Ugly is screening at Nitehawk Cinema on August 6 & 7 at eleven in the morning in the dual series “Nitehawk Brunch Screenings” and “Country Brunchin’” (will spaghetti be on the menu?) and will kick off with a set by Arthur Vint & Associates, led by Arizona-born, Brooklyn-based drummer Vint; the group’s debut album, Through the Badlands, came out in January, mixing jazz, rock, and Native American spiritual music. “Nitehawk Brunch Screenings” continues in August with such other films as Gillian Robespierre’s Obvious Child, Richard Donner’s The Goonies, and Susan Seidelman’s She-Devil, among others.

CaribBEING IN BROOKLYN

Brooklyn Museum’s First Saturday program includes screening of Todd Kessler’s new film, BAZODEE, followed by a Q&A

Brooklyn Museum
200 Eastern Parkway at Washington St.
Saturday, August 6, free, 5:00 – 11:00
212-864-5400
www.brooklynmuseum.org

The Brooklyn Museum is getting ready for Labor Day weekend’s West Indian American Day Carnival with an August First Saturday presentation filled with Caribbean energy and culture. The free events, some of which require advance tickets that night, will feature the live performance “Ganggang: Creative Misunderstanding Series” by disguise artist Alejandro Guzman, with Abigail Deville, Christopher Manzione, Clifford Owens, Elan Jurado, Geraldo Mercado, Jessica Gallucci, Marcus Willis, Sam Vernon, Tré Chandler, and William Villalongo; children’s storytelling with Linda Humes; a performance and reading by ethnomusicologist Danielle Brown from her memoir, East of Flatbush, North of Love: An Ethnography of Home; screenings of Bazodee (Todd Kessler, 2016), followed by a Q&A with actor and soca star Machel Montano, writer Claire Ince, and producers Susanne Bohnet and Ancil McKain, as well as the classic reggae flick Rockers (Theodoros Bafaloukos, 1978); Rusty Zimmerman discussing his “Free Portrait Project: Crown Heights”; a hands-on workshop in which participants can make their own Caribbean-inspired instruments; pop-up gallery talks in the excellent “Disguise: Masks and Global African Art” exhibition; a Backyard Bashment dancehall workshop and party with choreographer Blacka Di Danca, actor-comedian Majah Hype, and DJ MeLo-X; and the interactive mobile art center caribBEING House, featuring Ruddy Rove’s “Fine Art of Daggering” photos, a participatory wall map, and the opportunity to share your own Caribbean tale. In addition, you can check out such exhibitions as “Who Shot Sports: A Photographic History, 1843 to the Present,” “Tom Sachs: Boombox Retrospective, 1999–2016,” “Stephen Powers: Coney Island Is Still Dreamland (to a Seagull),” and “Agitprop!”