Tony Allen's North American tour returns to New York City for a two-day stretch featuring two free outdoor performances plus the late-night Jump 'n' Funk at (Le) Poisson Rouge. Allen's recent show in Chicago was a critic's choice for Chicago Reader, which says: "Allen merges James Brown funk with jazz, highlife, and traditional West African rhythms, and his calling card is a doubled-up kick-drum accent that's weighted like a heartbeat, pinning his grooves solidly to the earth no matter how intricate his syncopations and permutations get up top."
Tony Allen's week-long North American tour has returned to New York City, where it began last week with Allen's appearance on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, as he sat in with the show's house band, The Roots. Today marks the start of a two-day, three-show stretch in New York, which includes two free, outdoor performances—this evening at the Stuyvesant Town Oval and Thursday at noon at MetroTech Commons in Brooklyn for BAM's Rhythm & Blues Festival. Later that night, Allen heads back into the city to headline Jump 'n' Funk at the Greenwich Village club (Le) Poisson Rouge, also featuring Sierra Leonean musician Janka Nabay and special guest DJ Rich Medina.
After his New York City run, Allen and his band head to the West Coast for two shows this weekend: Saturday in Seattle and Sunday in Boonville, California, for the Sierra Nevada World Music Festival. For more on these tour dates, visit nonesuch.com/on-tour.
Prior to last night's show in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Allen spoke with the Boston Herald about his relationship with Fela Kuti, with whom he created the Afrobeat sound, in an interview at bostonherald.com.
Time Out Chicago, previewing Allen's free concert in Chicago's Millennium Park this past Monday, says: "Fela may forever be the public face and patron saint of Afrobeat, but the pulse came from Allen." The show was a critic's choice for Chicago Reader's Peter Margasak. "Allen merges James Brown funk with jazz, highlife, and traditional West African rhythms, and his calling card is a doubled-up kick-drum accent that's weighted like a heartbeat, pinning his grooves solidly to the earth no matter how intricate his syncopations and permutations get up top," writes Margasak. Secret Agent, Allen's recent World Circuit / Nonesuch debut offers "a fluid dose of Afrobeat that emphasizes different elements of the style from one track to the next. It's such a rock-solid sound that its power stands up to every tweak." Read more at chicagoreader.com.
To pick up a copy of the Secret Agent CD with high-quality MP3s of the album included at no additional cost, plus a special discount offer on tickets to the Tony Award-winning Broadway musical Fela!, head to the Nonesuch Store.
- Log in to post comments
