We were being driven to a birthday dinner at what was said to be "a very fashionable place" in Red Hook this evening when we stopped off for a little while in Coffey Park for the Youth Kick-Off Event of tomorrow's seventeenth annual Red Hook Fest, sponsored by Dance Theatre Etcetra. We're going out of town for a bat mitzvah tomorrow, but you can see an incredible number of performances at Louis J. Valentino Park (The Pier). Here's Dance Theatre Etcetra's mission statement:
Premised on the belief that the arts are an effective vehicle for social transformation, Dance Theatre Etcetera unites artists and community members as co-creators in dynamic cultural activities. Through site-specific performances, festivals, parades, and performing arts and media education programs, Dance Theatre Etcetera stimulates the social imagination through acts of informed expression.
We watched some performances featuring groups like RIOT ACT! Police-Teen Theater Project and the South Brooklyn Community High School TheatreWorks and were impressed. It's always fun to see cops behaving badly and having to apologize to teenagers. Some of the events called for audience participation. We saw some cute stuff, but we couldn't stay long because we were excited to go onto our birthday dinner at that "very fashionable place" we were promised. It turned out to be the cafeteria of a big furniture store. Well, it's always nice to have friends remember your birthday, even if they are as cheap as you are. And we did get to pick out our own present after the Swedish meatballs.
Tonight at Von King Park in Bed-Stuy, we attended what seemed more like a raucous, fun-filled old school house party than a show in the Summerstage concert series, presided over by the original human beat box, Doug E. Fresh with the able assistance of DJ Dee Wiz. Audience members were literally grooving in the aisles to the backdrop of what seemed like the soundtrack of our lives, or at least those of us - and we turn one year shy of sixty tomorrow - who can still remember what must be music ancient history to the young people in the audience. Doug E. Fresh introduced his young son soon after he first came out and he said this was going to be a "family show." Later his somewhat older sons came out and did their thing, but Doug also said he wanted the feel of a neighborhood party in Brooklyn, especially with Island People and those of us who are "Straight-Up Brooklyn." In this he and DJ Dee Wiz succeeded beyond anything we'd ever really seen at a SummerStage city park concert because the audience was an integral part of the show, every bit as much as the old-school hip-hop, pop and reggae standards from the 70s and 80s that we partied to. The audience was filled with people of all ages, including little kids bopping around. DJ Dee Wiz got the audience up and moving early. Some b-boys did their thing in front of the stage early. There's a good view of the amphitheater at Von King Park from the rafters. The Red Bull girls were out giving away cold caffeinated drinks as they did last night at Betsy Head Park. Egypt, who's back on WBLS 10-3 weekdays following Steve Harvey's show, introduced Doug E. Fresh. He had such an ease with his audience. There were a lot of "hands up" moments. "Feel free to enjoy yourself," he told the crowd as we listened to everything from "One Love" to "A B C" in addition to old-school hip-hop. He asked for those 25 and over, 35 and over, 45 and over. We fit into the "50 and better" category "who understand real old-school" and we were far from the only ones. "Brooklyn likes it loud," Doug E. Fresh said. It was a real party evening, and we're grateful for SummerStage for bring us Doug E. Fresh, who's not only a great entertainer
Everybody loves the sunshine, but tonight in Brownsville we appreciated it that much more at a brilliant concert by the legendary Roy Ayers at Betsy Head Park. It was a gorgeous evening and the trip from Williamsburg was quick via the L to Livonia Avenue and a short walk on the overpass over the the old LIRR Bay Ridge line tracks to the Junius Street el, where we got the 3 train to Saratoga Avenue, just by the park's southwest entrance. Betsy Head Park, or Memorial Playground, was first built in 1915 and named for the British lady who left the money for the park (she disinherited her daughter who married one of the servants). It was considered state of the art in recreational facilities in its day, with a swimming pool, wading pool, school vegetable garden, "rest pavilion," and other amenities, but since it was the only park in Brownsville for miles, it was overcrowded the day it opened. The swimming pool was made into a giant Olympic-sized one during the WPA era in the 1930s. Our great-grandparents the Cohens lived across the street on Livonia, and our Saretsky great-grandparents were two blocks away. We were born 59 years ago this week just four blocks south of here, at Beth-El Hospital, renamed Brookdale in 1963, two years after our youngest brother was born here. (Back then, they kept new mothers in the hospital for a week, so we and our other brother stayed with each of our grandmothers, who one afternoon walked us down Church Avenue so we could wave to our mom at an upper story window). Here's a pic we took exactly 40 years ago on the other side of the park at Blake Avenue, where in June 1970, Howard Samuels was campaigning in the Democratic primary for governor (he lost). Around that time and in the '80s, the park and pool were usually considered neutral turf for neighborhood gangs. The crowd was small when we got there around 6:45 p.m. but it quickly got bigger and bigger. Roy Ayers and DJ Jon Quick appeared courtesy of the wonderful City Parks Foundation, whose neighborhood SummerStage concerts began last night in Red Hook Park with Jay Electronica. Tonight Roy Ayers and his band filled Betsy Head Park with the most incredible sounds. About a year and a half ago, Entertainment Weekly wrote of him,
Roy Ayers could very well be the best jazz/R&B artist you don’t know. In his 40-plus years as a vibraphonist, he has produced a string of soul and funk classics, like “We Live In Brooklyn Baby” and “Everybody Loves the Sunshine,” that has arguably made him the second-most sampled musician in hip-hop, after James Brown. You may have heard snippets of his music in songs by 50 Cent protégé Tony Yayo (“Fake Love”) or A Tribe Called Quest (“Bonita Applebum”). But while the exposure of his extensive catalogue is enough to boost any man’s ego, the 68-year-old Ayers remains humble and busy.
Just last year, Ayers and Kanye West were enlisted to produce “In the Mood,” a modish jazz cut off Brooklyn MC Talib Kweli’s seminal CD Eardrum, and Ayers continues to tour and work on an album due to drop in 2009, which he says may feature the exhilarating, highly underrated jazz vocalist Dee Dee Bridgewater. Meanwhile, Verve has reissued three of his albums from the 1970s, which highlight some of his best work.
The crowd was really appreciative, and it seemed as though some of them were big Roy Ayers fans because we heard them speak about him with an authority we certainly don't possess. Ayers' versatility is what's truly amazing; he makes you see what a malleable instrument a vibraphone can be in a number like "The Woodpecker." His band was also superb. Our favorite was "No Stranger to Love," written by William Allen. Unfortunately, we're in the middle of teaching an intensive five-day-a-week summer session class and we had to go home early to grade papers, so we didn't get to see much of DJ Jon Quick. But he'll be at some later shows this summer, and we're really grateful the City Parks Foundation has gotten around to bringing SummerStage to Brownsville. We're (originally) from the Ville -- never ran, never will.
Returning from "New York," I would take the longest routes home from the subway, get off a station ahead of our own, only for the unexpectedness of walking through Betsy Head Park and hearing the gravel crunch under my feet as I went beyond the vegetable gardens, smelling the sweaty sweet deampness from the pool in summer and the dust on the leaves as I passed under the ailanthus trees.
