Over the weekend, New York Afrobeat heroes Antibalas headed to Capital One City Parks Foundation’s SummerStage at Rumsey Playfield in New York’s famed Central Park for an evening of global music with support from Cochemea and DJ Tara.
Of note, the show’s opener, Cochemea “Cheme” Gastelum had to break off from his recent gig filling in for James Casey in Trey Anastasio Band to head to New York for the Central Park gig. In Boston that night, trombonist Natalie Cressman‘s father, Jeff Cressman, stepped in to fill out the horn section in his absence.
Antibalas (“bulletproof” in Spanish) is an ensemble of quintessentially New York musicians that makes an original blend of Afrobeat and Afrocaribbean-inspired jazz and funk music. Founded in 1998 by Martín Perna with players from Brooklyn’s Daptone Records, Antibalas grew from a local fixture to international feature on jazz and world music stages in the mid-2000s.
Related: Antibalas Amplifies The Names Of Victims Of Racial Violence At Justice Comes Alive [Watch]
The collective’s mastery of the repertoire of Afrobeat icon Fela Kuti earned them a stint on Broadway in 2009 as the core of Bill T Jones’s FELA! musical, and to later house band roles performing the music of Aretha Franklin, David Byrne, and Paul Simon at Carnegie Hall (2014—2017). Their seventh and most recent album, Fu-Chronicles was nominated for Grammy in 2020 for “Best Global Music Album.”
For a full list of upcoming Antibalas tour dates, head here. For a full list of upcoming shows as part of City Parks SummerStage, head here.
Below, check out a gallery of photos from the Antibalas show at SummerStage in Central Park courtesy of photographer Ken Spielman.
