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Slavic Soul Party! performs at Bay Street Theater on March 22. COURTESY THE ARTISTS
On Saturday, March 22, at 8 p.m., Hamptons Jazz Fest presents Slavic Soul Party! at Bay Street Theater, a group made up of fiery brass, throbbing funk grooves, Roma accordion wizardry and virtuoso jazz chops.
Slavic Soul Party! pumps a strong Balkan brass sound through the filter of life in New York’s outer boroughs, making new music out of the unplanned results of immigration, proximity and globalization. Over the past 15 years the band has released seven full-length albums and toured in the United States, Canada, Mexico, Europe, Turkey and Zimbabwe, from pasha palaces to dive bars, Carnegie Hall to Serbian schoolyards, festival stages to prison courtyards. The band’s music has fans on both sides of the Atlantic and its tunes have been covered by Serbian brass stars, New Orleans funk stalwarts and legendary street bands.
In September 2016 Ropeadope Records released “Slavic Soul Party! Plays Duke Ellington’s Far East Suite.” On the album, the band reimagines Duke Ellington’s iconic “Far East Suite” as an Eastern European brass band discovering an exotic American sound, reversing the “exotic tinge” and reveling in this subtle, funky and brilliant music. Ellington’s suite (created with Billy Strayhorn) was inspired by a 1963 State Department tour that was cut short — the group didn’t make it to the Far East — and serves as a perfect foil for Slavic Soul Party!’s blend of East European, Romani and American sounds.
Tickets are $42 to $54 at baystreet.org. For details, visit hamptonsjazzfest.org. Bay Street Theater is on Long Wharf in Sag Harbor.
Staff Writer on Mar 10, 2025