A live communal music experience – celebrating Lower East Side traditions of group improvisation – featuring members of Groove Collective, Los Cumpleaños, The Hieroglyphics, Subterra Soundsystem, and The New JBs, with special guests, local heroes, and live music experiments.

The event will kick off with a rapid-fire presentation of 100 years of LES/NYC music history in 20 minutes!!, followed by a live conducted group improvisation – This genre-defying tribute to the neighborhood’s connection to Butch Morris, Sun Ra, Ornette Coleman, and John Zorn will feature members of Groove Collective, with Hieroglyphics Ensemble founder – Peter Apfelbaum, Eric Lane (Los Cumpleaños, Joan As Police Woman), and surprise guests mixing free-spiritual-jazz, lo-fi, rock, hip-hop, and dance grooves. The third part of this event will expand the band, adding guests and Subterra regulars. Musicians will mix it up with audience-provided prompts and participation, and finally morph into a community open jam, synchronizing time, voices, and space in transient creative moments, culminating in a group interpretation, deconstruction, and possibly unrecognizable version of Charlie Parker’s, “Now’s the Time”. This event will feature musicians in all stages of life and career, featuring people who have worked with Don Cherry, Tupac Shakur, Celia Cruz, Elvis Costello, Tito Puente, Vernon Reid, Cab Calloway, Defunkt, Chucho Valdez, Curtis Mayfield, Tom Brown, Sugar Hill Gang, Harry Belafonte, Wu-Tang, Digital Underground, Eddie Palmieri, Cecil Taylor, Levon Helm, Pharoah Sanders, Fred Wesley, Bernie Worrell, Guru, Donald Byrd, Clark Terry, and countless others.

“Since the days of Five Points the Lower East Side has been a place of mixing cultures, danger, drinking, dancing, debauchery, drugs, resilience, resistance, and music – all pushing the limits, and often breaking the laws of the day. This melting pot has inspired and attracted outcasts, artists, and misfits for over a century. Sex workers, drag queens, beatniks, yipees, free jazzers, rumberos, and punk rockers all found the creative freedom to thrive here. We are really excited to bring some of this history into a present-day interpretation of what the area represents to NYC and the world of music.”

– Genji Siraisi, Executive Director, MOMENT NYC

We are giving away one free copy of Jesse Rifkin’s fantastic new book, “This Must Be the Place – music, community and vanished spaces in New York City”, and 2 free vouchers for Jesse’s, Walk on the Wildside, NYC music tours. The book and vouchers will be given away to 3 random lucky people arriving before 7:30 pm. More information at Walk on the Wildside tours: https://walkonthewildsidenyc.com/

Doors open at 7 pm. Show begins promptly at 7:30 pm. Admission is $15 in advance and $20 at the door. Tickets are available at Dromnyc.com. People facing financial limitations can be added to the $5 guest list with email signup and RSVP to [email protected]. This is an all-ages event.

This partnership between MOMENT NYC, Drom, and Subterra Art Space is part of a series of MOMENT NYC / Drom programs made possible by funding from The Live Music Society, The New York City Dept of Cultural Affairs, and the New York State Council on the Arts.