Last week, I attended a lot of CMJ shows. There were some great bands, some mediocre bands, and a lot of downright terrible bands. I’m at a loss as to how some of them even secured record contracts. I suppose it’s the nature of these type of massive events with thousands of bands (1600 I believe), so one needs to take the good with the bad. And obviously, something I may consider bad could be perceived as amazing to someone else. With thousands of bands in NYC for CMJ, it should go without saying that I didn’t see everything, but I saw enough.
I’ll highlight the good in this post with the 3 standouts for me. They are The Soul Rebels Brass Band from New Orleans, Nigerian-German singer Nneka and Boston based Ethiopian music collective Debo Band. I won’t add commentary. Just watch the videos and view the linked photos I shot.
The Soul Rebels Brass Band with Maceo Parker, Moon Hooch, Hailey Niswanger and Billy Martin from Medeski Martin and Wood.
Nneka.
Click here for an article at This is Africa.
Debo Band.
Filed under: Video, CMJ, Debo Band, Ethio-Jazz, Ethiopia, New Orleans, Nigeria, Nneka, photography, Soul Rebels, The Soul Rebels Brass Band
