Live Concert Photography: Bridge Grooves: PitchBlak Brass Band with Maurice “Mobetta” Brown and DJ OP at Brooklyn Bridge Park 7/20/16
Perhaps most famously known for producing the renowned Brooklyn Hip-Hop Festival, Brooklyn Bodega is a multimedia content production and branding company, which specializes in event production, journalism, digital and grassroots marketing, radio, video and content distribution and branding, as well as BrooklynBodega.com and Bodega Pictures— all centered around celebrating and preserving hip-hop and its culture. Along with Brooklyn Bridge Park Conservancy, they hosted two shows in what both organizations hope will be a long-running event in Brooklyn Bridge Park, a carefully curated festival that they’ve dubbed Bridge Grooves. And the first show of their two part series featured locally-based brass band and hip-hop 11 member collective PitchBlak Brass Band and Chicago-based Grammy Award-winning trumpeter Maurice “Mobetta” Brown.
Comprised of Chanell Critchlow (sousaphone), Alison Shearer (sax), Bryan Walters (trumpet), Brian Lotze (trumpet), T.J Robinson (trombone), Alaina Alster (trombone), Max Sholl (trombone), Jovan Johnson (trumpet), Ben Brody (guitar, French horn), Chris Johnson (percussion) and Ashley Baier (drums), New York-based brass band collective Pitchblak Brass Band specialize in brass band sound inspired by hip-hop. And adding to a growing reputation for being one of the best local brass band units in town, the collective has collaborated with a number of locally renowned emcees — and as up-and-coming locals, the band headlined the night.
(Photo Caption: Arguably the best view of Lower Manhattan around. And to see bands performing there as the sun is setting behind them and over Manhattan is a glorious sight!)
(Photo Caption: PitchBlak Brass Band performing last month at Brooklyn Bridge Park.)
Maurice “Mobetta” Brown” is a Chicago, IL-based, Grammy Award-winning, classically trained trumpeter, who has been mentored by Wynton Marsalis and Ramsey Lewis and who has made guest spots on the albums of an incredibly diverse list of acclaimed artists including Santigold, Ski Beatz, John Legend, Talib Kweli, Cee-Lo Green, Sean “Puff Daddy” Combs, Musiq Soulchild, Tedeschi Trucks Band (with whom he won a Grammy in 2012 for Best Blues Album) and others. Interestingly, as a solo artist and bandleader, the Chicago-based Brown’s genre meshing sound spiritually draws from the work of Louis Armstrong but filtered through hip-hop, soul and funk.
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(Photo Caption: Maurice “Mobetta” Brown and backing band performing at Brooklyn Bridge Park last month)
DJ OP! is New York-based DJ and founding member of the renowned I Love Vinyl Party and a co-partner of the long established Afrokinetic Party here in NYC, as well as a resident DJ at Bathtub Gin and Royal Palms Shuffleboard Club. Sonically speaking, his sets feature hip-hop, R&B, reggae, pop, rock, house music, future soul, several electronic sub-genres out of the UK, as well as some of the hottest sounds out of Africa and elsewhere.
(Photo Caption: DJ OP! on the 1s and 2s last month at Brooklyn Bridge Park.)
(Photo Caption: New Yorkers dancing during DJ OP!’s set last week.)
For these photos and more, check out the Flickr set here: https://flic.kr/s/aHskFzBzFM