Celebrate Brooklyn Picks

With less than two weeks before the start of Celebrate Brooklyn, New York City's summer performance festival, here are a handful of shows we plan on catching. For the complete schedule, visit here

MACEO PARKER
Thursday, June 15
8pm

MACEO PARKER's gritty sax lines have graced some of the best party music in history in his collaborations with James Brown, Parliament-Funkadelic, Bootsy Collins, and Prince. Parker, one of the original architects of funk, kicks off a whole summer of the finest free shows in town.

TV ON THE RADIO / MATT POND PA / VOXTROT
Friday, June 30
6:30pm

Brooklyn's TV ON THE RADIO leads a triple bill that will get you in touch with your inner indie rock aficionado. With the dashing Philly-to-Brooklyn transplants MATT POND PA and, here all the way from Austin to rock your pants off, VOXTROT.


YO LA TENGO: THE SOUNDS OF SCIENCE / SAMARA LUBELSKI
Thursday, July 13
7:30pm

Adventures in sight and sound: the great experimental alt rock trio returns to Celebrate Brooklyn to perform its live score to a collection of the surreally beautiful short documentaries of underwater life by the revolutionary French filmmaker Jean Painlevé. The dreamy, atmospheric compositions of multi-instrumentalist SAMARA LUBELSKI set the mood.

DRACULA with PHILIP GLASS & KRONOS QUARTET / SLAVIC SOUL PARTY
Thursday, July 27
7:30pm

World-renowned composer PHILIP GLASS' collaboration with the genre defying KRONOS QUARTET on an original score to the 1931 camp-horror classic DRACULA resulted in one of the great film soundtracks of all time. SLAVIC SOUL PARTY's toothsome combo of Gypsy brass, Balkan anthems, and hip-grinding funk will make you want to bite someone on the neck.

LEELA JAMES / BFE SOUND SYSTEM
Friday, July 28
7:30pm

R&B's new queen LEELA JAMES, a direct descendant of Tina Turner, Mavis Staples, and Aretha, "has funk, soul, and a whole lotta church in those mighty pipes…(her) husky vocals ring out like a thunderous prayer for love finally answered." (VIBE) First, witness the triumphant reunion of BFE SOUND SYSTEM, aka the BROOKLYN FUNK ESSENTIALS, the borough's legendary funk/hip-hop/acid jazz collective.

LOS AMIGOS INVISIBLES / BELANOVA / LOS TRES
Friday, August 4
7pm

LOS AMIGOS INVISIBLES, Venezuela's greatest party band, rubs its disco-funk up against the freaky electro grooves of Mexico's BELANOVA and the Chilean folk rock of the hilarious LOS TRES in the hottest Latin throw down of the summer. Olé! Presented in collaboration with the LAMC/Latin Alternative Music Conference.