City Parks Foundation and Santa Monica Pier present the SummerStage & Santa Monica Pier Twilight Concert Series Summer Preview Showcase, a special event taking place at the Highline Ballroom on Thursday, January 5, 2017. The showcase will feature Canadian instrumental group BADBADNOTGOOD, Cuban jazz composer and singer Daymé Arocena, and American soul and R&B singer Lady Wray for a night of performances that will offer audiences a preview of the upcoming 32nd season of SummerStage.
The showcase is one in a series of SummerStage Summer Concert Preview events presented monthly in advance of the 2017 season of SummerStage. These showcases -- at venues around the city -- feature artists that SummerStage hopes to book for the upcoming season as well as artists that have performed at the festival in past years. ...
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City Parks Foundation and Santa Monica Pier present the SummerStage & Santa Monica Pier Twilight Concert Series Summer Preview Showcase, a special event taking place at the Highline Ballroom on Thursday, January 5, 2017. The showcase will feature Canadian instrumental group BADBADNOTGOOD, Cuban jazz composer and singer Daymé Arocena, and American soul and R&B singer Lady Wray for a night of performances that will offer audiences a preview of the upcoming 32nd season of SummerStage.
The showcase is one in a series of SummerStage Summer Concert Preview events presented monthly in advance of the 2017 season of SummerStage. These showcases -- at venues around the city -- feature artists that SummerStage hopes to book for the upcoming season as well as artists that have performed at the festival in past years.
BADBADNOTGOOD is a formally trained quartet of young musicians made up of Matthew Tavares on keys, Chester Hansen on bass, Alex Sowinski on drums, and Leland Whitty, who joined in 2016, on saxophone. Since their debut, the group has challenged the rule book on improvised instrumental music and taken a fresh look at the jazz tradition by setting their sights on the future. The band released their first EP BBNG in June 2011 to wide praise. The marriage of jazz virtuosity and hip hop source material offered a new take on the traditional "standard" applied to the hip hop songbook; writing inspired arrangements for golden era classics instead of one-dimensional covers. The band hit a landmark when introducing original material into their compositions with BBNG2 in 2012. New songs like "Rotten Decay," "Vices" or "UWM" carried on the proud heritage of musical juxtaposition by bringing together jazz, hip hop, punk, and dance music into vigorous balance. Since then, they've won praise from around the globe and collaborated with Bootsy Collins, RZA, Frank Ocean, Earl Sweatshirt, MF Doom, and Danny Brown among many. Their live performances have brought fans across the musical spectrum together, taking the band around the world from Coachella to Glastonbury. Their most recent studio album, IV, was released in 2016.
At only twenty-four years old, Havana born jazz songstress Daymé Arocena has already been hailed as one of the “most inviting ambassadors” of Cuba’s contemporary music, and “the world’s next jazz phenomenon.” A trained composer, arranger, choir director, and band leader, Arocena has been performing semi-professionally since she was eight years old. In 2015, her talent was recognized by the Havana Cultura Mix project which saw legendary DJ Gilles Peterson mentoring selected producers from around the world to record in Cuba with local musicians. Featuring Santerian chant, rhythmic complexity, fluid jazz styling and a nuanced Afro-Cuban soulfulness, Arocena’s first EP, The Havana Cultura Sessions, came out of this project, and enchanted a packed audience at the London album launch. Her debut solo album Nueva Era was selected by NPR as one of the 50 Best Albums of 2015. Her third album, One Takes (2016) featured Horace Silver’s powerful “Gods of Yoruba” among a collection of masterfully reimagined rare covers that further bridge her musical worlds. With this release, Arocena’s impact upon the unfolding history of Cuban music is unmistakably underway.
Nicole Wray, now known by her stage name Lady Wray, entered the music scene in 1997 as a featured artist on Missy Elliott’s debut album, Supa Dupa Fly. Shortly thereafter, she was signed to Elliott’s label, The Goldmind, and released her own debut album, Make It Hot, in 1998. The album’s eponymous first single hit number five on the Billboard Hot 100 and was certified gold. Since then, Wray has worked as a vocalist with a number of artists across musical genres, including rappers Kid Cudi and Cam’ron and rock group The Black Keys. In 2013 she teamed up with R&B soul-singer Terri Walker to form the retro-soul duo Lady. In 2016 she released her second studio album, Queen Alone, as a solo artist under the moniker Lady Wray.
**Note: Artists’ participation in the SummerStage Festival subject to change**
Ticket and Show Information
Doors open at 6:00 PM / Concert begins at 7:00 PM
Tickets are required. Tickets are $29.50 General Admission, $59 VIP Reserved Seating.
Tickets available for purchase via TicketWeb. For more event and ticket information, please visit Highline Ballroom’s website.
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