HARLEM — A new Harlem music festival debuting this weekend features over 50 performers, including a brass band and a cellist playing everything from classical to funk to house to afro-beat.
The two-day event — Harlem Creates Music Festival — will feature a show at the Apollo Saturday night and a free concert at Riverbank State Park on Sunday. Unlike other summer festivals, its aim is to showcase a community, not any particular kind of music.
“There are definitely other festivals in Harlem but there is a tendency to focus on a specific genre,” Jason Kallman, one of the co-founders, said “The focus [of our festival] is on the community. It’s all about appealing to people’s sense of community. Harlem has its own music. Harlem is proud of its own music.”
The lineup includes the Earthman Experience's worldbeat music, cellist Jacob Shaw, the jazz band Rakiem Walker Project, the New Orleans-flavored Sugartone Brass Band, afro-punk quartet Quantum Split and The Westerlies.
Kallman and co-founder Charlie Martin Casal live a couple of blocks away from each other near 150th Street and Amsterdam Avenue. They noticed that although there are a lot of cafes and restaurants to play live music in the neighborhood, many performers and composers work downtown.
They wanted to create a platform for bands playing at different Harlem venues to collaborate, Kallman said.
When they reached out to local businesses, many told them that this sort of project had been tried before. Some said didn't want to be involved until the pair could prove they were the real deal, Casal said.
So they enlisted the help of Rakiem Walker, whose band the Rakiem Walker Project plays at Red Rooster every week. His involvement in the project gave Kallman and Casal a needed sense of legitimacy.
Through their own music contacts and Walker’s help they found seven bands for their lineup. Although not all of them are based in Harlem, they all have a connection to the neighborhood.
The Sugartone Brass Band, for example, had a residency at Harlem Tavern for about 18 months. They’ve also played benefit shows for the Harlem Village Academies, said one of their trumpet players Kenny Bentley.
Harlem’s music scene took a hit with the closing of venues like Lenox Lounge and St. Nick’s Club but it is slowly coming back, he said.
“It’s important for the community to have music,” he said. “It livens up the spot, it brings different people together.”
The long-term goal of Harlem Creates extends beyond a music festival.
Kallman and Casal are close to establishing a monthly Harlem Creates show at Park 112 that features a different artist. They also want to give back to the community by teaming up with local organizations that teach children how to play instruments.
Although not a single note has been played, Kallman and Casal area already thinking about next year's festival. They would like to make it more representative of the different communities that live in Harlem, specifically the West-African and Latino communities, Casal said.
Harlem is always changing so the goal is to capture that change while celebrating its history, Kallman said.
"It's all about appealing to peoples' sense of community," he added.
