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Harlem's Summer Festivals Give Outdoor Music an Uptown Beat

Posted June 15, 2019

 HARLEM’S SUMMER FESTIVALS GIVE OUTDOOR MUSIC AN UPTOWN BEAT

 Harlem One Stop, originator of Harlem Renaissance 100,

celebrates the neighborhood’s summer sounds, spirit, and culture

 

“For lovers of jazz, R&B, and roots music, each open-air concert in Harlem

is a musical homecoming,” says founder Yuien Chin

HARLEM, NEW YORK (June 11, 2019) — Harlem One Stop, a leading uptown destination marketing organization and tour operator and originator of the Harlem Renaissance 100 celebration, today invited New Yorkers and visitors to celebrate Harlem during its summer festival season. The centennial, co-presented with Harlem Cultural Collaborative Partners, launched in late 2018 and runs through 2020.

With its grand architecture, abundant green spaces, and sprawling plazas, Harlem is the perfect setting for urban outdoor entertainment. And each summer, those plazas and local park amphitheaters turn the neighborhood into a musical celebration of itself. With a nonstop calendar of free concerts, festivals, and events, Harlem is a music lovers’ best insider tip for free summertime entertainment.

“These free concerts give people a chance not only to hear great music, but to celebrate these sounds in their home town,” says Yuien Chin, founder of Harlem One Stop. “Harlem has been not only a world stage, but also a world-class incubator, of modern music. Its stages have presented the greatest artists in jazz, R&B, blues, and roots music for more than a century. And throughout that century, Harlem has been the inspiration for musical sounds and styles that have traveled the globe. For fans, a day or evening spent at an open-air concert in Harlem is a musical homecoming.”

One of the highlights of the 2019 summer concert program is the Charlie Parker Jazz Festival. Jazzmobile and the National Jazz Museum in Harlem—both Cultural Collaborative Partners of Harlem Renaissance 100—present the festival’s Harlem 100 concert at Marcus Garvey Park on August 23. Featured performers include:

·        Winard Harper and Jeli Posse,

·        Mwenso and the Shakes, which is led by Sierra Leone native Mwenso and is celebrated for its multicultural take on jazz,

·        Brianna Thomas, an acclaimed vocalist who keeps alive the tradition of 1930s-style swing,

·        Vuyo Sotashe, the South African-born vocalist who is becoming a fixture on the New York jazz circuit, and

·        Fred Wesley, the iconic trombonist who has performed with acts as varied at the Count Basie Orchestra, James Brown, and Parliament-Funkadelic.

The following day, August 24, Marcus Garvey Park again gives Harlem a jolt of jazz with a concert featuring Ravi Coltrane, Dee Dee Bridgewater, and Quiana Lynell in a program that also includes Reclamation, composed as a tribute to Charlie Parker.

The calendar of Harlem’s free concerts and summer festivals includes:

The Friday Freshen Up Musical Hour offer live music from 7:00–8:00 p.m. at the West Harlem Piers (125^th and Marginal Streets on the Hudson River). These free concerts are presented on the last Friday of each month from May through August. Performers this year include iamchelseaiam (R&B) on May 31, Phantom Vanity (a hybrid of funk, folk, and soul) on June 28, Inti and the Moon (Andean-Latin fusion) on July 26, and vocalist Chrissie Límos on August 30. 

Harlem Week, now in its 45^th year, is one of the largest cultural celebrations in the U.S. and has grown to a month-long celebration, this year from July 28 to August 24. More than two million people are expected to participate this year in more than 100 music, dance, food, and sports events as well as conferences and seminars.

Summer Stage in Harlem, the after-work concert series on the plaza of the Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. State Office Building, from 5:00–8:00 p.m. on Thursdays in July and August.

Jazzmobile returns for the 55th consecutive year, presenting Harlem's and New York City's longest running jazz festival, “Summerfest.” This free open-air concert series will be found throughout Harlem, including Marcus Garvey Park, Grant's Tomb, the Denny Farrell Riverbank State Park, and other neighborhoods. Jazzmobile's summer schedule will be announced this month.

The West Harlem Arts & Jazz Fest is a series of street events that will take place on June 23, June 29, and July 28 in West Harlem.

And one of Chin’s favorite free concerts isn’t a summertime festival, but rather a year-long, decade-long Sunday afternoon tradition loved by those in the know in Harlem: the weekly parlor concert presented by jazz pianist Marjorie Eliot in her home.

For a full list of events and the most up-to-date information, visit http://harlemrenaissance.org/.

Born in the aftermath of World War I, the Harlem Renaissance evolved along with the Great Migration of African Americans from the rural south to urban centers. These new communities came to life with the pulse of a jazz, blues, and R&B soundtrack that reinvented popular culture in the U.S. and beyond. And as those rhythms made us hear the world in a new way, the emergence of African American writers transformed the vocabulary of American literature.

“For artists, writers, photographers, and musicians, Harlem was the center of the creative universe,” Chin says. “The luminaries of that era made this neighborhood the place where tradition and trends met, where new sounds were created, where the expression of the extraordinary flourished. During its Renaissance, Harlem embraced its unique role in nurturing talent and breaking artistic boundaries, and the neighborhood continues to treasure that legacy. When you explore our streets and listen to the sounds of our summer, you gain a deeper appreciation of music that you can love anywhere, but can understand best right here in Harlem.”

 

Harlem One Stop, a Harlem institution in its own right, is known for its guided walks through West, Central, and East Harlem as well as specialty tours with themes such as Gospel, jazz, and the Harlem Renaissance. Its programs offer visitors and New Yorkers alike an insider’s perspective on Harlem’s culture, heritage, architecture, and history and an inspiring introduction to Manhattan’s uptown neighborhoods.

 

The Harlem Cultural Collaborative Partners include, to date, the Apollo Theater, Cathedral of St. John the Divine, City College Center for the Arts, Columbia University Gov. & Community Affairs, Columbia University Wallach Art Gallery, Councilmember Mark Levine’s Office, Echoes of Our Ancestors, Harlem One Stop, Harlem Opera Theater, Harlem Pride, Harlem Shakespeare Festival, Harlem Stage, Hostelling International, Jazzmobile, Manhattan Borough President’s Office, Morris-Jumel Mansion, New York Historical Society, Romare Bearden Foundation, Studio Museum of Harlem, Dance Theatre of Harlem, Dyckman Farmhouse, Harlem Chamber Players, Harlem Needle Arts, Harlem School of the Arts, i, Too Arts Collective/Langston Hughes House, National Jazz Museum in Harlem, New York African Chorus Ensemble, NYC Parks & Recreation, Summerstage, Revolution Books, Sugar Hill Children’s Museum for the Arts & Storytelling, Taste Harlem Tours, The BeBop Channel, Three on 3 Presents, and Wallach Arts Center/Columbia University.

 

The Harlem Renaissance Centennial Community Celebration is made possible with funding from The West Harlem Development Corporation, Harlem Community Development Corporation, City Council, and the Office of the Manhattan Borough President.

 

For more information, please contact: Yuien Chin yuien@harlemonestop.org

 

Follow Harlem One Stop on social media:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/harlemonestopnyc/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/HarlemOneStop

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/harlemonestop/

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