2nd Annual Brasilfest at Cornelia Street Cafe

The Cornelia Street Cafe is hosting a three-day series of Brazilian music August 15-17.  Billy Newman, a fabulous musician, composer, friend, and teacher with whom I've sometimes studied, will be curating the event.  The series promises a delightful array of local New York talent, both well-known and lesser known, with many musicians playing their original compositions of samba, choro, baiao, and other styles.  There will be Brazilian music by accordionist and world musician Rob Curto, guitarist and up-and-coming master composer Benji Kaplan, samba-jazz pianist Helio Alves, and Guilherme Monteiro and Jorge Continentinho, two members of Forró in the Dark -- a band widely credited with beginning the current forró mania in New York.  And people are already talking about the show to be put on by Billy Newman's combo, the Billy Newman Sextet, on the 16th.

The Cornelia Street Cafe is a West Village mainstay, an award-winning restaurant with a performance space in a separate room downstairs, so that those who want to listen quietly to music and those who want to just eat and talk both get what they need.  The space is an intimate, cozy environment -- I dare say one of the last in New York City -- and it's one of my favorite places to hear Brazilian music.  I'll be writing more about some of the musicians who'll be performing there as the dates of their shows approach.  For now, here's Billy Newman playing one of his original compositions, "Groove Choro", with his choro ensemble in a performance at Cornelia two years ago.