BRIC’s 2024 JazzFest Marks a Decade of Discovery
A small boy with shaggy, long hair and a purple flannel shirt sat on his father’s lap, sprawled across the floor in front of the gallery stage at BRIC House in Brooklyn for BRIC JazzFest’s opening night on October 17, 2024. This marked ten years of innovative musical triumph for the arts and culture organization. The theme, “A Decade of Discovery,” punctuates each iconic performance throughout the night. For Milena Casado and the father-son duo at her feet, this message could not ring more true. Her band championed the stage with vibrant flair, taking on new variations of the music and leading the audience through the murky beats until they became clear and palatable.
Milena Casado. Photo by Julia Drummond, courtesy of BRIC.
Before picking up her brass to perform The Circle, Casado pushed up the sleeves of her red sweater. The room was only slightly stuffy, but the physicality and strenuousness of her performance prompted this adjustment. “This is for when you make the same choices over, and over, and over again,” said Casado. Everyone nodded, familiar.
In the next room, the audience has gathered quietly and patiently. Brandee Younger, a pedal harpist, is joined by Rashaan Carter on bass and Allan Mednard on drums. The projector behind them focused on the fingers of Younger, who plucked the strings with precision and grace, each strum guiding the audience somewhere farther, greener, and more tranquil. Her innovative style reimagines harmonies and rhythm, carefully weaving us through the melody as if we have become the air between the harp strings, floating through the music with her.
Rashaan Carter (left) and Brandee Younger (right) on stage. Photo by Julia Drummond, courtesy of BRIC.
“We’re going to do an Alice Coltrane song that’s less obscure than the first one we played,” said Younger, laughing. “This is from my favorite album of hers.” Then, they began their dizzying and mystifying cover of Turiya & Ramakrishna. To watch Rashaan Carter pluck away at the fingerboard of an upright bass was a privilege. He nonchalantly transitioned to the bass guitar midway through the set. Carter leaned against the stage railing, coolly strumming his new instrument with ease and swagger, as if he had not just accomplished an impressive feat only one song ago.
When the time arrived for Mednard’s drum solo, all the air was sucked out of the room. The vacuum worked—the perfect storm for an all-encompassing drum kit to sweep you away. When the percussionist's journey petered out and slowly built back into a crescendo, Carter and Younger waited with hands at the ready to delicately reenter the song.
An hour ago, this same ballroom was alight with fervor. Kassa Overall, drummer and producer, was joined by Tomoki Sanders, Ian Finkelstein, Bendji Allonce, Giulio Xavier Cetto, J. Hoard, and Nick Hakim for a riveting, lively performance. The group hastily passed thumps and vibrations across the stage, feeding off each other in an energetic frenzy. But the crowd was not an innocent bystander in this exchange either; the audience rapidly joined in a shuffling, infectious party.
Kassa Overall and band. Photo by Julia Drummond, courtesy of BRIC.
If you’re reading this and wondering: Is jazz even for me?—the answer is that it might not be for everyone. But BRIC JazzFest was surely the place to figure it out. Whether you’re interested in the contemplative rhythms from Casado, the hypnotizing melodic journeys from Younger, or the dance floor beats from Overall, you could find it here.
The aforementioned boy and his father were my barometer for the evening. I saw them at every performance, dancing, giggling, falling asleep, or rolling about on the cool cement floor. By the end of the night, they were grinning and content. I found myself smiling too, bidding my new friends farewell and strolling off into the night, inspired to press play on an Alice Coltrane song.
The 2024 run of BRIC Jazz Fest was from October 17 through 19. The full program can be viewed here.
