3rd Everybody LES Fest

A live communal music experience – celebrating Lower East Side traditions of group improvisation – featuring members of several local groups

EVERYBODY LES – MOMENT NYC / Subterra / Drom

A live communal music experience celebrating Lower East Side music culture – featuring members of Groove Collective, Los Cumpleaños, the Hieroglyphics, Subterra Soundsystem, the New JBs, special guests & 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), & 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 resilient and infamous 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 rsvp entries to arrive 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. Attendees can be added to the $5 guest list with email signup and RSVP to info@momentnyc.org. This is an all-ages event.

MOMENT NYC's mission is to celebrate and support music diversity through exhibition, education, and performance. Our programs support independent artist communities and individual artistic vision with work opportunities that: promote diverse musical connections, cross-generational dialog, and draw from local music history.

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.

For media inquiries please contact Genji Siraisi at info@momentnyc.org

About MOMENT NYC (The Museum of Music & Entertainment in New York City), aka The MOMENT Museum, as in – it’s always now!

Founded in Manhattan’s Lower East Side, MOMENT is a volunteer-run nonprofit live museum of music popping up in various locations, dedicated to independent and underground music, artists, and naturally occurring music communities. We promote the intrinsic value of music and music-making to enrich lives beyond commercial use and commodification.

MOMENT NYC also provides free after-school music programs to underserved public schools in New York City; and has created programming in collaboration with the New York Library for the Performing Arts, the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery, the University of Virginia, International House, Henry Street Settlement, local venues Nublu, Shapeshifter Lab, Ibeam Brooklyn, and SOBs, community gardens, NYC DOT Open Streets, and DIY art spaces. Learn more and support us at: www.momentnyc.org and follow us on IG & FB at momentnyc.