Kurt Elling on the microphone and drummer Marcus Finnie take turns while Charlie Hunter (seated) and Kenyatta Beasley enjoy the show
Photo by Bob Krasner
After three days of jazz events across the city, the Charlie Parker Jazz Festival brought its show home on Sunday to Tompkins Square Park, across from the legendary Bird’s Avenue B residence.
On a perfect day, around 4,000 music fans filled the park to enjoy solid, stirring (and free) music from up-and-coming artists to true legends.
WBGO, the long-time jazz station in Newark (and one of the sponsors), provided its DJ Brian Delp as host. Delp made a point of observing a moment of silence for the recently deceased master jazz guitarist Russell Malone, to whom he dedicated the entire festival.
Alexis Lombre opened the show with her great vocal and keyboard ability. Ekep Nkwelle upped the ante with a voice that, backed by some excellent players, sent shivers down your spine and left no doubt that the 25-year-old has a great career ahead of her.
Erika Elliott, artistic director of the City Parks Foundation, noted, “The Charlie Parker Jazz Festival is one of my absolute favorite events because it brings together the best elder statesmen and masters. And the next generation of artists and audiences are just as multigenerational as what you see on stage!”
Louis Hayes, the 87-year-old drummer who has played with the likes of John Coltrane, Kenny Burrell, McCoy Tyner, Hank Mobley, Cecil Taylor, Joe Henderson, Freddie Hubbard, Horace Silver and Cannonball Adderley (and that’s just a partial list), presented a solid set of instrumentals that felt like something you would hear in a classic nightclub.
When Superblue took the stage, the crowd was ready for anything and got a little bit of everything.
Led by singer Kurt Elling (who can sing pretty much anything) and guitarist Charlie Hunter (who also played bass lines), the group mixed straight-ahead jazz with funk, hipster chatter, vocalese, a drum/voice battle, some bebop, and a lot of soul. They mixed it all together so it became more than the sum of its parts.
For 25-year-old music fan Green, whom we found dancing near the stage, the Superblue set was the highlight of the day.
“It was just so beautiful to feel that open energy,” she told us when it was all over. “I feel like there’s pain in New York sometimes, but it was great to see the joy.”
