City Park’s Summer Stage 2018 including The Charlie Parker Jazz Festival

Music, SummerStage

 

 

Anat Cohen at Marcus Garvey Park 8-25-17, Charlie Parker Jazz Festival

City Park’s Summer Stage 2018 is the City’s largest free outdoor performing arts festival, bringing more than 100 performances to 18 neighborhood parks across all five boroughs from May to October. All free and open to the public.  Here’s what’s on tap in August including the film, Milford Graves Full Mantis at The Maysles Cinema as part of The Charlie Parker Jazz Festival.

Charlie Parker Jazz Festival ~ Tompkins Square Park

East River Park

August 9th at 7:00pm  ~  Wild Style 35th Anniversary Reunion. In addition, there will be a 6:00pm workshop and Hip-Hop Dance with Fabel

August 10th at 8:00pm  ~  Peridance Contemporary Dance Company, and a 7:00pm workshop, Revelations Dance

August 11th at 5:00pm  ~  Porches and Sunflower Bean/Crumb

August 12th at 5:00pm  ~  Jerry Rivera/Nuyorican Poets Cafe, a 4:00pm workshop, Dance

Tompkins Square Park

August 26th at 3:00pm  ~  Charlie Parker Jazz Festival: Gary Bartz Quartet/The Bad Plus

Charlie Parker Jazz Festival in Marcus Garvey Park, 2017

Marcus Garvey Park

August 15th at 7:00pm  ~  Alice Smith/AKALA, a 6:00pm workshop, Voices of a People’s History

August 16th at 8:00pm  ~  Jeremy McQueen’s Black Iris Project, a 7:00pm workshop, Revelations Dance

August 18th at 5:00pm  ~  Pape Didouf & La Generation Consciente, a 4:00pm workshop, African Drums and Puppetmobile

August 19th at 5:00pm  ~  Rapsody

August 24th at 7:00pm  ~  Charlie Parker Jazz Festival: Charles Tolliver’s 50 Year Anniversary of ‘Paper Man’ featuring Gary Bartz, Jack DeJohnette

August 25th at 3:00pm  ~  Charlie Parker Jazz Festival: Monty Alexander – Harlem Kingston Express/Catherine Russell

Charlie Parker Jazz Festival, 2013 at Marcus Garvey Park in Harlem

The Charlie Parker Jazz Festival and the Maysles Documentary Center Present: Milford Graves Full Mantis on Wednesday, August 22nd at 7:30pm

Jake Meginsky, 2018, 91 min
Milford Graves Full Mantis is the first ever feature-length portrait of renowned percussionist Milford Graves, exploring his kaleidoscopic creativity and relentless curiosity. Graves has performed internationally since 1964, both as a soloist and in ensembles with such legends as Albert Ayler, Giuseppi Logan and Sonny Sharrock. He is a founding pioneer of avant-garde jazz, and remains one of the most influential living figures in the evolution of the form.The film draws the viewer in through the artist’s lush garden and ornate home, into the martial arts dojo in his backyard and the laboratory in his basement – all of this just blocks from where he grew up in the housing projects of South Jamaica, Queens. Graves tells stories of discovery, struggle and survival.
He ruminates on the essence of ‘swing,’ activates electronic stethoscopes in his basement lab to process the sound of his heart, and travels to Japan where he performs at a school for children with autism, igniting the student body into an ecstatic display of spontaneous collective energy. Oscillating from present to past and weaving intimate glimpses of the artist’s complex cosmology with blistering performances from around the globe, Milford Graves Full Mantis is cinema full of fluidity, polyrhythm and intensity, embodying the essence of Graves’ music itself.
This film is followed by a Q&A with Milford Graves and director Jake Meginsky, and is a Free Program ~ Reserve Here.

The Cityparks Puppetmobile will be making its rounds at Summerstage in Manhattan on July 15th at Rumsey Playfield, August 12th at Corlears Hook Park, and on August 18th in Marcus Garvey Park. Check Summerstage online for complete schedule.