Antibalas horns at Carnegie Hall Bill Withers Tribute (VIDEO)

Last month, the Antibalas horns Martín Perna, Jordan McLean, Raymond Mason and Jas Walton were part of an all star cast recreating Bill Withers's legendary 1974 "Live at Carnegie Hall" concert. The band was composed of Greg Phillinganes, Steve Jordan, Willie Weeks, Felicia Collins, Bashiri Johnson, David Delhomme and an amazing massive string section.

Singers included Aloe Blacc, Dr. John, Gregory Porter, Michael McDonald, Anthony Hamilton, Jonathan Butler, Keb Mo, Valerie Simpson, Ledisi, Amos Lee, Kori Withers, Kathy Mattea, and Ed Sheeran.

Rolling Stone wrote about it HERE.

Okayplayer was on the scene documenting it. Photos and writeup HERE.

Okayplayer also put together this video from the rehearsals:

Also on the internet:

Here's a shaky fan video of Dr. John performing "Use Me." Here's a fan video from Carnegie Hall of us performing "Lonely Town, Lonely Street" with Ed Sheeran.

Another fan video of "Let Us Love" with Kori Withers and Kathy Mattea:

And the encore "I Wish You Well" with Keb Mo and the entire cast of singers:

Antibalas horns join The Roots @ Global Citizen Fest, Central Park, NYC

 

Last Saturday the horns (Martín Perna-baritone saxophone, Jas Walton-tenor saxophone, Jordan McLean-trumpet and Raymond Mason-trombone) joined the Roots and singers from the FELA musical to perform Fela Anikulapo Kuti's "Water No Get Enemy" at the 2014 Global Citizen NYC Festival. 

It was a beautiful day. Sun shining, the great lawn filled with over 60,000 people, all committed in some way to eliminating global poverty. Also performing were Jay-Z (and special guest Beyoncé), Tiesto, No Doubt with Sting, Alicia Keys, and Carrie Underwood.

Thanks for inviting us to help create the soundtrack.

Watch a video excerpt of our performance (HERE). Read the OkayAfrica write up (HERE)

Summer 2014: Daptone Super Soul Revue, Arcade Fire

Thanks for stopping by and please pardon the radio silence...we've been busy. This summer has been another whirlwind. Nine countries and tens of thousands of miles later, there is a spare write a blog entry.

We performed live at the Primavera Festival in Barcelona, Summer Jazz in Leiden (NL), and two shows at Le Zenith with Arcade Fire.

Then we flew back to the US and played two shows at Mountain Jam in New York.

Then we flew to Rome, and did a show there with Arcade Fire. Then we got on a shuttle, a subway a train and a bus, and went to Verona, where we played in a castle, also with Arcade Fire. Then we woke up, flew to London, and met up with the 18 other musicians from the Daptone Super Soul Revue.

We had a long day of rehearsal, then played the next night at the Shepherd's Bush Empire. From there Glastonbury and a whole bunch of other festivals, zigzagging across Europe in a caravan of three buses and a production truck with Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings, Charles Bradley and the Extraordinaires, Saun and Starr, and the Sugarman Three. You can read more about the day-by-day of the tour (logged by Antibalas's Martín Perna) here: http://daptonerecords.tumblr.com/

One of the best shows was in Vienne, France. Here's a video of the complete performance:

Each night we would finish the whole revue with "Family Affair" by Sly and the Family Stone. Most nights it was something like this...

After Montreux Jazz Festival in Switzerland, we flew back to the US and a few days later went played Maximum Fun's Atlantic Ocean Comedy and Music Festival on a boat full of comedians and musicians that left from Florida and went to two islands in the Bahamas.

Coming up in August we have a few more big shows with the Arcade Fire in Maine, Massachusetts and Washington, DC.

In September, we'll be doing a show in NYC at Le Poisson Rouge where we'll be playing some of the music of prolific composer John Lurie along with our original music and will be spending a lot of the fall working on finishing (and maybe even recording) new material.