Watch A Sneak Peek Of '100+ BPM'
Watch A Sneak Peek Of '100+ BPM' with tags 2014-06-21
We put out a call and they came — by the hundreds. When we invited wind, brass and percussion players to join us yesterday in Brooklyn to perform a world premiere by Red Baraat's Sunny Jain for the annual Make Music New York festival, we were hoping that lots of different kinds of musicians would join us. And boy, did they ever.
On this absolutely gorgeous Saturday afternoon, about 350 musicians assembled on the steps of the Brooklyn Public Library to play Jain's 100+ BPM. Young, older, professional drumlines, community marching bands, seasoned jazz players, Indian wedding band musicians, Brazilian samba drummers and scads of amateur players came out to play. It was just incredible.
In the meantime, I keep coming back to what one of the musicians said to me after the performance. I was chatting with saxophonist and composer Ken Thomson, a member of the Bang on a Can All-Stars who joined in the performance (and who, coincidentally, has been a friend of mine for nearly two decades). He remarked, "You know that moment when you finally realize that your jaw hurts because you've been genuinely smiling non-stop for hours? I have that right now." I did, too — and given all the positive energy, fantastic playing and beaming faces I witnessed yesterday afternoon, I'm pretty sure we weren't the only ones. --ANASTASIA TSIOULCAS
