Normal 0 MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 st1\:*{behavior:url(#ieooui) } /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman";} We just checked and there are still tickets available for this weekend’s two Red Hot & New Orleans shows at BAM.
Seats start at $25, and for sheer bang-for-buck, may be the bargain of the season. Because one, this is no ordinary concert: Red Hot & New Orleans is the third partnering of BAM and the Red Hot organization, which has helped fund AIDS research through music projects since releasing Red Hot + Blue in 1990 (which saw the likes of Debbie Harry and Iggy Pop covering the songs of Cole Porter—revisit the album, it’s largely brilliant).
And two, the lineup is pure NOLA musical goodness, both established and up and coming: Dr. John, Irma “Soul Queen of New Orleans” Thomas, Kermit Ruffins, Ledisi, Marc Broussard, Ivan Neville, Partners-N-Crime, Roger Lewis, Phil and Keith Frazier, and James Andrews are all on the bill alongside neo-trad upstart Trombone Shorty, who’ll play with his band Orleans Avenue but is also the musical director and sound curator of the whole shebang. (Check him out in the video below, where he joined Lenny Kravitz--who hired him for a tour when Shorty was just 19--for a show in Paris.)
The show is presented to coincide with World AIDS day, today, December 1, and part of the proceeds will benefit New Orleans’ NO/AIDS Task Force. So get on it, tax-deduct those tickets, feel good about doing good as the season kicks off, and then go and pour a long evening’s worth of soul-stirring jazz and funk in your ear.
Red Hot & New Orleans, part of the BAM 2010 Next Wave Festival. Howard Gilman Opera House, 30 Lafayette Avenue, Brooklyn; 718 636 4100. December 3 & 4, 8PM. Tickets start at $25, available here.
What I'm listening to: It Ain’t My Fault – Mos Def, Lenny Kravitz...
