Thursday July 29, 2010 12:00 PM

MetroTech Center
Jay St & Myrtle Ave
Brooklyn, NY

The son and torchbearer of West African musical icon Ali Farka Touré, Malian guitarist and singer Vieux Farka Touré has more than filled his father’s shoes, concocting his own hybrid style that radiates with “joyful audacity” (The New York Times). With an exuberant guitar sound perched perfectly between the blistering, desert-bred twang of the West African kora and the electric distortion of Chicago blues, Touré’s music is a study in seamless musical crossbreeding, born of both urban grit and blue Sahara skies.

FREE!

Thursday, July 29, 2010 7:00 PM

SummerStage
Springfield Park
Queens, NY

Multi-platinum R&B musician Jon B came to fame in 1995 with his debut release Bonafide. The album highlighted his dulcet tenor, earning him both critical and commercial success including a Grammy-nomination for the song “Someone to Love” featuring Babyface. With numerous hits such as “Pretty Girl,” “They Don’t Know” and “Are You Still Down,” Jon B became a fixture on the R&B scene. After marriage and a newborn baby, the soulful crooner returned with his fifth studio album, Helpless Romantic.

FREE!

Thursday, July 29, 2010 7:30 PM

Lincoln Center Out of Doors
Damrosch Park Bandshell

Featuring: Emeline Michel, Beethova Obas, BélO, Zili Misik, and Peniel Guerrier in collaboration with the Mikerline Dance Company

The music of Haiti has served multiple life-affirming tasks for its people: revelry, resilience, and resistance. Emeline Michel, known on the island as the First Lady of Haitian Song, gathers several star performers for a celebration that’s as much about artistic solidarity as it is about spiritual healing. In the hands of troubadours BélO and Beethova Obas, heated rhythms become smoothly mellifluous, while the all-woman troupe Zili Misik forges a Creolized connection between Haiti’s ancestral mizik rasin and other New World styles like jazz, reggae, Afro-Cuban son, and samba. Peniel Guerrier and the Mikerline Dance Company serve as ambassadors of Haitian culture through masterful traditional dance.

FREE!

Thursday July 22, 2010 12:30 PM

River to River Festival
World Financial Center Plaza
200 Vesey Street New York, NY 10281

From the folk-rock of his youth, through the reggae of his college days, to time spent in Africa, Chris Velan has created a unique collection of songs that inspire repeat listening. Not often will you find an artist that juxtaposes the horror of sectarian strife with the hopeful musings of errant love. Also July 30 at One New York Plaza. Presented by Arts World Financial Center.

FREE!

Thursday July 29, 2010 7:00PM

SummerStage
Jackie Robinson Park
Bradhurst & Edgecombe Avenues, West 145 to West 155 Street
New York, NY

The Summer Recital Series closes on July 29 in Jackie Robinson Park, Manhattan, with an evening of favorite arias and duets performed by soprano Monica Yunus, tenor Matthew Plenk, and bass-baritone Donovan Singletary, accompanied by pianist Jonathan Kelly.

Monica Yunus made her Met debut in 2003 as Barbarina in Le Nozze di Figaro and has since performed in six operas at the Met, most recently as Papagena in Julie Taymor’s celebrated production of Die Zauberflöte. Yunus’s other recent engagements include performances as Adina in L’Elisir d’Amore at Opera East Texas and, last September, as Oscar in Un Ballo in Maschera at Washington National Opera.

Matthew Plenk, currently in his third year in the Met’s Lindemann Young Artist Development Program, made his Met debut in 2008 as the sailor’s voice in Tristan und Isolde, conducted by James Levine, and has since performed the role of the Song Seller in Il Tabarro. Most recently at the Met, Plenk performed the role of Marcellus in Hamlet, seen around the world live in HD. Next season at the Met, he takes on the role of Arturo in Lucia di Lammermoor and makes his debut at the Atlanta Opera as Ferrando in Così fan tutte.

Donovan Singletary, winner of the 2006 National Council Auditions and member of the Lindemann Young Artist Development Program, made his Met debut in 2008 as a Nazarene in Salome. That same season, Singletary made his Carnegie Hall debut in Mark Hayes’s Te Deum. The American bass-baritone returned to the Met in 2009 as Pinellino in Gianni Schicchi. Singletary is the first prize winner in the 2009 Giulio Gari International Vocal Competition, the Mount Dora Festival Competition, and the Heinz Rehfuss Singing Actors’ Competition.

Jonathan Kelly has served as an official accompanist for the San Francisco Opera Center, Lyric Opera Center for American Artists, and Chicago Opera Theatre. Kelly has performed with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra at Kirk in the Hills, the National Chorale at Avery Fisher Hall, and for the Marilyn Horne Foundation at Zankel Hall.

FREE!

Thursday, July 29, 2010 7:30 PM

Seaside Concert Series
Asser Levy Park, Brooklyn

After 35 years as “The World Greatest Bar Band,” George Thorogood & The Destroyers are still bad to the bone.

Formed in Delaware in the early 1970s, the band’s raucous, slide guitar-stoked, blues-rock takes on tunes by Chuck Berry, Elmore James, John Lee Hooker, Bo Diddley and others helped them audiences across the country with their raucous take on classic urban rock and blues.

Their first hit was “Move It On Over,” an amped-up cover of a Hank Williams tune, and they broke big with the immortal rocker “Bad to the Bone,” the title track from their

gold-certified 1982 album. That song has been a perennial favorite, featured in everything from James Cameron’s Terminator to a Wrangler’s commercial starring Bret Favre.

Their 2004 gold-certified compilation, “Greatest Hits: 30 Years of Rock,” was Billboard’s Blues Album of the Year two years running. Just last year, the band released “The Dirty Dozen,” which paired six new studio recordings with six classic fan favorites and drew raves from fans and critics alike. The Destroyers were the first, and perhaps the only, band to perform in 50 states in 50 days.

Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes have flourished for more than 30 years, with 30 albums, EPs and a box set; thousands of live performances around the globe; a legion of dedicated and enthusiastic fans; dozens of classic songs; and a record – Hearts of Stone – that Rolling Stone called one of the “top 100 albums of the 70’s and 80’s.”

Born and raised on the Jersey Shore, Southside started out singing and playing at the now legendary Upstage Club, often joined by pals Bruce Springsteen, “Miami Steve” Van Zandt, and Garry Tallent. Southside and his band, eventually called the Asbury Jukes, grew their reputation as a dynamic live act.

Southside Johnny

In 1975, they released the critically acclaimed I Don’t Want To Go Home, and a legend began. Over three decades of recording and touring followed. Since 1999, Johnny and the Jukes have released Messin’ With The Blues, Going To Jukesville, Into The Harbour and a live album. A new live record and a studio record are in the works.

FREE!

Wednesday July 28 12:30 PM

River to River Festival
Zuccoti Park, New York, NY

Hailing from Cleveland Ohio, this veteran guitarist has been playing blues and jazz professionally around the world since the age of 17. After spending six years on tour, he relocated to NYC in 2004 and has worked with many popular local acts, including fronting his own band, Jason Green and the Labor of Love. Presented by Arts Brookfield Properties.

FREE!

Wednesday July 28, 2010 7:00 PM

SummerStage
Queensbridge Park
Queens, NY

Olu Dara, veteran avant-garde player combines jazz, simple blues and Caribbean dance rhythms with his unique cornet and trumpet playing to depict stories about life’s simple joys.

Olu Dara Jones is an avant-garde jazz artist known for his eclectic mix of blues, reggae, Caribbean rhythms and funk that connects the dots between his small Mississippi rural hometown and modern urban life. His fusion of free-form jazz with deep blues creates a sound Rolling Stone has describes as a “kind of unpretentious cross-cultural hybrid that feels like real life… music powered by beating hearts and energized by radical collisions.” Dara’s vignette, “Jungle,” from his album In the World From Natchez to New York features his son, rapper Nas, and is a prime example of his ability to link African music with other genres, including hip-hop narratives.

FREE!