New York Gypsy Festival Arrives In The Big Apple 9/22, Runs Through 9/26

NY Gypsy Festival- 5 Years arrives with five shows from Sept 11th through 26th celebrating half a decade of daring programming.

1-) ZLATNE USTE BRASS BAND and LUMINESCENT ORCHESTRII
at Hungarian House on Friday, September 11

 

2-) THE SWAY MACHINERY featuring members of BALKAN BEAT BOX, YEAH YEAH YEAHS, ARCADE FIRE & ANTIBALAS and DJ PEPE
boarding The Clipper City Tallship
at South Street Seaport on Saturday, September 12

3-) LITTLE COW and HAZMAT MODINE
at City Winery on Friday, September 18

4-) BARBAROS ERKOSE with THE NY GYPSY ALL-STARS and special guests FRANK LONDON + ILHAN ER?AHIN
at Lafayette Grill on Friday, September 25

5-) RHYTHM OF RAJASTHAN
at Symphony Space on Saturday, September 26

 

Serdar Ilhan and Mehmet Dede, NY Gypsy Festival Producers state "The cultural inheritance of gypsy music is both vast and complex. When you speak about "gypsy music" you are drawing from a diaspora of countries and ethnicities where centuries-old history goes hand in hand with new innovations. The challenge for us, every year, is to keep up with the tradition's constant reinvention while not forgetting its roots: to give equal consideration to venerated legends and fiery upstarts, the urbane to the rustic, to Gypsy jazz and Gypsy punk alike.

 

In this, our fifth year programming the NY Gypsy Festival, we are extremely proud to say that we have achieved such balance. From the roots of the Romani people in India to the Hungarian pop charts; from an American indie rock super-group to an internationally acclaimed Turkish clarinet virtuoso; from refined and contemporary post-bop jazz to riotous everything-but-the-kitchen-sink celebrations; every show in the NY Gypsy Festival's 5th year anniversary is must-hear music. We offer you the culture of a people and hope that you welcome them, as we do, with open arms."

The NY Gypsy Festival celebrates its fifth annual performance schedule with one of the most outstanding and diverse lineups of its storied history. The Festival kicks off on September 11 with what promises to be a raucous non-stop dance party from two of the City's most impressive and exciting Roma-influenced ensembles: ZLATNE USTE BRASS BAND and LUMINESCENT ORCHESTRII. Next day, meet us at South Street Seaport on September 12 for a sailing cruise around Manhattan that offers a full-length performance from all-star visionaries THE SWAY MACHINERY, featuring members of Balkan Beat Box, The Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Arcade Fire and Antibalas and a global gypsy party with beats from DJ PEPE. Unconventional, international fusion is the order of the night on September 18, as New York's own HAZMAT MODINE share the stage with the white-hot Hungarian folk-punk- pop band LITTLE COW. On September 25, legendary Turkish clarinetist BARBAROS ERKOSE plays a rare stateside set with the NY GYPSY ALL STARS, with very special guest performers FRANK LONDON on trumpet and ILHAN ER?AHIN on saxophone. The Festival comes full circle with the final show on September 26, featuring the New York debut of RHYTHM OF RAJASTHAN, traditional folk music from India, the birthplace of the gypsies.

ARTISTS, LOCATION and SHOWTIMES:

Friday, September 11
ZLATNE USTE BRASS BAND (video) + LUMINESCENT ORCHESTRII (video)
Co-Presented with Balkan Cafe
at Hungarian House, located at 231 East 82 Street
Doors at 8:00pm, Show at 8:30pm
$15 adv (via BrownPaperTickets.com), $20 at door
The fifth anniversary of The New York Gypsy Festival kicks off with a double header from two bands that re-defined the local gypsy and brass music scene.

- Heavyweights ZLATNE USTE BRASS BAND have been around for over a decade and have played with Saban Bajramovic and many other legendary Roma musicians from Eastern Europe. The foremost presenters of traditional Balkan dance music in the United States, Zlatne Uste's repertoire spans the most important stops in the traditional music of the Balkans, encompassing Serbian, Macedonian, Bulgarian and Gypsy traditions.

- LUMINESCENT ORCHESTRII is Romanian gypsy melodies, punk frenzy, salty tangos, hard-rocking klezmer, haunting Balkan harmony, hip-hop beats and Appalachian fiddle, all eaten and spit out by two violins, resophonic guitar, bullhorn harmonica and bass.

 

Saturday, September 12
Gypsy Boat Party with THE SWAY MACHINERY (video) and DJ PEPE
aboard The Clipper City Tall Ship, boarding at Pier 17, South Street Seaport
Boarding at 9:00pm, Boat Leaves at 9:30pm, Docks at 12:30am
$35 (via BrownPaperTickets.com), Tickets are available at Pier 17 night of show
A New York Gypsy Festival first: a true gypsy boat party! All aboard for three hours of global gypsy beats from DJ PEPE, beginning at 9:00pm plus a live performance by

- THE SWAY MACHINERY is an all-star collective of innovative musicians led by guitarist JEREMIAH LOCKWOOD of BALKAN BEAT BOX. The Sway Machinery's line-up includes BRIAN CHASE of THE YEAH YEAH YEAHS on drums, touring member of THE ARCADE FIRE, COLIN STETSON on bass saxophone, and STUART BOGIE AND Jordan McLean of ANTIBALAS on tenor saxophone and trumpet respectively. For those who have seen The Sway Machinery in action, little explanation is needed. The band's combination of rhythmic power and potent folklore takes no prisoners. The Sway Machinery's sound stems from Lockwood's rich musical relationships with his grandfather Cantor Jacob Konigsberg, and with his mentor Carolina Slim, the renowned blues player who guided Lockwood's musical development. Konigsberg, one of the last great exponents of Cantorial singing, led Lockwood into an understanding and love of the soulful and ancient heritage of Synagogue music. Lockwood's deeply personal relationship to these two musical traditions helped him to forge a unique musical language of his own.

 

Friday, September 18
LITTLE COW (video) + HAZMAT MODINE (video)
at City Winery located at 155 Varick Street
Doors at 10:00pm, Show at 10:30pm
$15 adv (via CityWinery.com), $20 at door 

Hungary's "hottest export since goulash," LITTLE COW is a fine mix of joy and melancholy, humor and lyricism. It is gypsy-tinged ska/rock/funk/pop played by charismatic musicians performing real party music that keeps your feet moving and your mind working. The band in its current form first ganged up in 2005, a year of incredible success for their song Szájbergyerek (Cyberboy), which broke all Hungarian music industry sales records and reached #1 on their homeland charts. They are currently preparing for an autumn tour in Germany and Austria, following 2009 debut gigs in the UK and the US. Their songVirágok a Réten (featuring their gypsy friends Romano Drom) has been selected on the Top of the World album from Songlines Magazine UK and the Gypsy Grooves album from Putumayo World Records.

 HAZMAT MODINE draws from the rich soil of American music of the 20's and 30's through to the 50's and early 60's; blending elements of early Blues, Hokum Jugband, Swing, Klezmer, New Orleans R & B and Jamaican Rocksteady. The band is fronted by two harmonicas which use call and response, harmony, melody, and syncopated interweaving rhythms. The band includes tuba, guitar, and percussion, claviola and Hawaiian steel guitar. The band's sound reflects musical influences ranging from Avant-garde Jazz to Rockabilly and Western Swing to Middle-Eastern, African, and Hawaiian musical styles.

 

Friday, September 25
BARBAROS ERKOSE (video) with NY GYPSY ALL-STARS (video)
and special guests FRANK LONDON (video) + ILHAN ER?AHIN (video)
at Lafayette Grill, located at 54 Franklin Street
Doors at 8:00pm, Show at 9:00pm
$15 adv (via BrownPaperTickets.com), $20 at door

- Like many musicians, BARBAROS ERKOSE moved to Istanbul from the Balkans in the early ‘60's. On Istanbul radio, he played with many of the country's most famous artists and was the first to bring clarinet into the fasil ensemble solo programs. He also performed with his brothers in local first class nightclubs, leading to the beginning of his recording career, in which he made recordings with his brothers Ali and Selahattin as the famous Erköse Kardesler (The Brothers Erköse). While continuing to perform with the Istanbul TRT, Barbaros began to receive international recognition following a performance in France in 1984. Growing critical acclaim has set Barbaros on a solo career and to engage in creative fusion projects with musicians from other cultures. 

 Under the leadership of the young Macedonian / Turkish clarinet virtuoso Ismail Lumanovski, the NEW YORK GYPSY ALL STARS has amazed audiences in NYC and are ready to take the world music underground by storm. The band was born out of the annual NY Gypsy Festival, playing jazz-inflected Turkish, Balkan and Mediterranean Romani (Gypsy) songs to frenzied crowds. The All Stars showcases some of NY's finest musicians including Ismail Lumanovski from Macedonia on clarinet, Tamer Pinarbasi from Turkey on qanun, Panogiotis Andreu from Greece on bass, and Engin Gunaydin on drums. The band performed with such world music icons as Turkish clarinet master Husnu Senlendirici and Bulgarian virtuoso Ivo Papasov.

ILHAN ER?AHIN is a Turkish/Swedish saxophonist, producer and composer living in New York. He founded Lower East Side club Nublu in 2002 and runs Nublu Records, as well as performing with his bands Wax Poetic, I Led 3 Lives, Our Theory, Wonderland, Love Trio and the Nublu Orchestra.

Trumpeter/composer FRANK LONDON is a member of the Klezmatics, Hasidic New Wave and has performed with John Zorn, LL Cool J, Mel Torme, Lester Bowie's Brass Fantasy, LaMonte Young, They Might Be Giants, David Byrne, Jane Siberry, Ben Folds 5, Mark Ribot, Maurice El Medioni and Gal Costa. He is featured on over one hundred LPs.

 

Saturday, September 26
RHYTHM OF RAJASTHAN (video): Desert Caravan
Co-Presented with World Music Institute
at Symphony Space, located at 2537 Broadway at 95th Street
Doors at 7:30pm, Show at 8:00pm
$30 (via SymphonySpace.org)

From the windswept Great Thar Desert in Rajasthan ("the land of kings") in northwestern India comes RHYTHM OF RAJASTHAN with its mesmerizing music and dance. The musicians, from the Langa ("song giver") and Manghaniyar hereditary groups of itinerant entertainers, perform a program of vibrant and joyous folk music, encompassing driving percussion, ecstatic Sufi songs, and hypnotic sarangi (bowed lute) and algoza (double flute). They are joined by the famed Sua Devi, a dancer in the film Latcho Drom, who performs the sensuous Kalbeliya Sapera snake-charming dance and the spectacular Bhavai folk dance. Tonight marks the New York debut of this lineup.

 

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