On Sunday evening, Galactic and MonoNeon hit the stage at City Parks Foundation’s SummerStage at Rumsey Playfield in Central Park for a pair of performances as part of the Blue Note Jazz Festival.
To kick off the evening, MonoNeon, the enigmatic Prince protege and current bassist for Ghost-Note, gathered a cast of familiar instrumentalists under his own name for the first time ever to help bring the material from his recent Supermane and Basquiat & Skittles albums to life.
The band assembled to tackle the bassist/guitarist/vocalist’s off-kilter sound included fellow Ghost-Note players Dominique Xavier (keys), Peter Knudsen (guitar) and Jonathan Mones (saxophone) as well as vocalist Rojo “REDD” Lavoe, guitarist Xavier Lynn, drummer Blaque Dynamite and trumpeter Maurice “Mobetta” Brown.
Related: George Clinton & Parliament Funkadelic Bring The Funk Back To Central Park [Photos]
When he wasn’t singing lead or propelling the band, MonoNeon, typically a man of few words onstage, ceded the set’s emcee duties to Dominique Xavier. Saying all that needed to be said, Xavier explained, “We are MonoNeon.”
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Following the debut of the MonoNeon live project, Galactic took the stage along with featured vocalist Anjelika “Jelly” Joseph. After imploring the audience to get up (and get down), Jelly helped the band get the show started as the sun came down, injecting some New Orleans attitude into the New York crowd.
As always, drummer Stanton Moore, bassist Robert Mercurio, keyboardist/organist Rich Vogel, guitarist Jeff Raines, saxophonist/harmonica player Ben Ellman, and trumpeter Eric Gordon served as the tightest backing band in the land, whether for instrumental numbers or fan-favorite sing-alongs new and old like “Float Up”, “Going Straight Crazy”, and “Dolla Diva”.
After explaining how New Orleans invented bounce music (shoutout to Big Freedia), Joseph led the band through an energetic take on “Getcha Sum”, the bounce track she recently released with HaSizzle, as a cool rain misted the Central Park audience.
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Check out a gallery of photos from the Sunday Galactic and MonoNeon sets at SummerStage in Central Park below courtesy of photographer Andrew O’Brien.
For a list of upcoming performances as part of the Blue Note Jazz Festival, head here. For information on what’s coming up for the rest of the SummerStage season throughout the city, head here. For ticketing details, head here.
