The 19th Akbank Jazz Festival is commencing tonight. Tomorrow’s big deal is Terje Rypdal at Aya Irini, but we’ll be skipping it to check out the NYC Brass band Hypnotic Brass Ensemble.

I’ve mentioned a few posts ago that HBE is responsible for one of the best afrosoul offerings this year. The 9 piece is known for their notoriously fun live shows, and they’ve played Glastonbury and The Big Chill among others this year, and an amazing (and oft repeated) trivia about the band is 8 of the 9 members are sons of the legendary Sun Ra trumpetist Phil Cohran. Wow what a fam.

They’ll be performing at Babylon tomorrow, twice, first at 21:00 and the next at 00:00. It’ll probably be packed so make sure you have the energy to withstand the crowd and dance at the same time.

Image by Bookenligne