Jazz

The Brooklyn Folk Festival: April 18th-20th, 2014…

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The Brooklyn Folk Festival, a co-production of Down Home Radio and the Jalopy Theatre, is almost here!  It’s gonna be an incredible event! – with 30 bands, film screenings, workshops, jam sessions and contests!  Coming up April 18th – 20th, 2014 at the Bell House, a great venue here in Brooklyn.

The Brooklyn Folk Festival is now going into its 6th successful year.  This year’s festival will focus on Old Time String Band music from the United States and will feature a number of traditional groups and musicians coming to the city from various parts of the South, representing their local traditions, as well as a number of great groups from right here in New York.  We will also have Indonesian Gamelan gong music, Andean music from regions of the old Inca empire, Balkan music, jug bands, blues, jazz, songwriters and more… a huge wealth of talent!

The festival will feature Frank Fairfield and Jerron “Blindboy” Paxton, Dom Flemons and Hubby Jenkins of the Carolina Chocolate Drops, R. Crumb with the East River Stringband, as well as 25 other bands and performers.  The Brooklyn Folk Festival is modeled on the early days of the Newport and University of Chicago folk festivals and seeks to present an authentic folk festival experience, with a diversity of traditional music, as well as contemporary songwriters, plus workshops, jam sessions, film screenings and the famous Banjo Toss contest!  There will also be a very nice tribute to Pete Seeger with group singing and a family friendly square dance.

Its gonna be fun!  Get your tickets right away!.. visit the festival website at: www.BrooklynFolkFest.com for the compete schedule and ticket information.

– Eli

Interview with Jake from The Cangelosi Cards

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The Cangelosi Cards

On today’s show I speak with the bandleader, guitarist and banjoist from The Cangelosi Cards, Jake Sanders.  Here’s what I said about the Cards several years, ago and I stand by this statement now:

“The Cangelosi Cards are one of the best bands I’ve seen anywhere. They have a great live show, perfect for dancing! I envy any one who has not yet seen them because you now have the chance to see them for the first time! They keep it strictly real, playing traditional Old Time style jazz, but continue to see at as a living tradition- and as such bring in influences from ‘outside’ the cannon, such as country, blues, and early popular music. Tamar is an amazing singer and the level of musicianship is brilliant, bring your dancing shoes.”

Jake catches us up on what The Cards have been up to, including tours of Europe and Asia, a studio album and a brand new EP.  Definitely worth picking up their records, great stuff!  Check them out at www.losmusicosviajeros.net .
The Cangelosi Cards
[Giant polaroid of The Cards taken by Aperture Magazine!]

The Cards Visit Shanghai

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The Cangelosi Cards, one of Down Home Radio’s favorite bands, have just completed a three month stint playing nightly at a club over in Shanghai, China.  The Cards are a brilliant old-time jazz, blues, country band local to Brooklyn who have been touring the U.S. for several years and are now starting in on the rest of the world!  Filmmaker and “Down Home TV” producer Chris Low happened to be over in Shanghai on another project and was able to catch up with The Cards to film this segment:

An extended interview with The Cangelosi Cards


And don’t forget to check out the Down Home Radio advert in the Old Time Herald Magazine – www.oldtimeherald.org – lots of great articles, reviews and more!

Interview with Jake of The Cangelosi Cards

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The Cangelosi Cards by e_v_e.

On today’s show I speak with Jake Sanders, guitarist and band leader of The Cangelosi Cards.  The Cards are an awesome New York based old-time jazz, swing, New Orleans music, blues, country band (that’s a mouthful, but they really range widely in their repertoire!).  The Cards play all kinds of different gigs and have become very popular on the national swing dance scene.  I became a big fan the first time I saw them, more than 2 years ago now and am very pleased to have Jake on the program.

The band has built up their following the old fashioned way, word of mouth and face to face.  Jake started out as a street musician and built up the band, which is now achieving considerable success, from there. He talks about the beginnings of the band, their evolution and all the gigs and tours they’ve done lately.  Jake also discusses some of his own background as a guitarist and plays some records from a number of musical styles that have been influential to him, and I play some recordings that I made of the band live at Banjo Jim’s in Manhattan.  The Cangelosi Cards frequently play my Down Home Live show at Banjo Jim’s, which happens the 2nd Saturday of every month, and they play at Banjo Jim’s regularly, every Monday night.  Check ’em out!

In the show I apologize for not having more recent live recordings of them. But I got one!  So I just posted it.  Check out this awesome live set by the Cards at my Banjo Jim’s show in Jan of 2009.

Cangelosi Cards gig listing

Interview with Lech of the California Honeydrops

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On today’s show I speak with Lech Wierzynski of the California Honeydrops.  This band of expert musicians has created a sound drawing from virtually all areas of African-American music – early folk and New Orleans music, blues, gospel, R & B and soul, creating an excellent and unique style.  They are writing some great new songs using conventional instruments such as guitar, piano, trumpet and snare, but also incorporate folk instruments such as the tub bass and washboard into their sound.

On the show we plays some songs from their new CD, “Soul Tub,” plus Lech speaks about their influences and gives us a brief but very well informed sample of African-American music history – a bunch of seminal recordings which I had not heard before.  Great stuff!

The band is:

Lech Wierzynski : Guitar Vocals Trumpet…. Nansamba Ssensalo: Washboard, Drums, Vocals, Fiddle, Jug, Tub Bass…. Chris Burns: Piano…. Ben Malament: Tub Bass, Drums, vocals

California Honeydrops Myspace page

Tracks played on today’s episode: