Prepare to dance during this year’s Free Concert Series.
The lineup this year includes a mix of jazz, hip-hop, salsa, and bluegrass bands, with local and regional openers. This summer marks the sixth season of the series. Cassie Paup, director of the Friends of the Moab Folk Festival nonprofit (which also puts on the Free Concert Series), said after six years, the nonprofit has figured out what works with the Moab crowd: people like upbeat music they can dance to.
“The dancing is really joyous and uplifting to people, whether you’re up front dancing or just watching in the crowd,” Paup said. She wanted to have music played by big bands that won’t get drowned out by conversations in the crowd.
Paup said she works with Pickin’ Productions, a concert producer/talent buying agency that supports small local organizations in the western Colorado region. This year’s series is also funded in part by a National Endowment for the Arts “Challenge America” grant, awarded to “reach historically underserved communities with rich and dynamic cultural identities”; thus, the lineup this year will be more diverse than in past years.
Each concert will take place on a Friday night from 6 to 9 p.m. at Swanny Park.
The concert series will kick off with a concert by Shamarr Allen & The Underdawgs: “Hailing from the Lower 9th Ward of New Orleans, Allen has influences in jazz, hip-hop, rock, funk rhythms, blues, and country,” the free concerts website reads. Allen & The Underdawgs’ most popular song on Spotify is “Party All Night,” a jazz-rap anthem with an upbeat sound.
“Shamarr has quite a reputation in the music community—he’s collaborated and toured with a lot of pretty famous people,” Paup said. “We’re pretty excited for him.”
The local honky tonk/bluegrass band Juniper Drive will open: Moabites will recognize Juniper Drive from the Backyard Theater, where they play every Thursday night.
The next concert will take place on July 21 in conjunction with the monthly Arts & Ag market, opening with local blues band MarciaBlues and featuring the band Nosotros, an 11-piece Latin music band.
“The group seamlessly combines a myriad of Latin rhythms with elements of rock, salsa, jazz, and cambia, creating an innovative and imaginative Latin sound that is unique, undefinable, and unmistakably Nosotros,” the website reads.
Paup said Nosotros reminded her of last year’s Los Mocochetes, a funk band whose concert was cut short by an impressive monsoon-season rainstorm. Nosotros will be easy to dance to: the music features long brass solos accompanied by easy and groovy beats.
“They’ll be the largest band to ever grace one of our stages,” Paup said. “I think it’ll be really enjoyable, and it always feels good to celebrate Latin culture and Spanish language in our community.”
August 4 will see Kaleta & Super Yamba Band, led by Leon Ligan-Majek (Kaleta), a singer/guitarist from Benin, a country in West Africa; the website describes the band’s sound as drawing inspiration from the “raw, psychedelic sounds that captivated Kaleta as a music loving kid in 1970s Benin.”
“I heard someone describe them saying, ‘If you can’t get down to Kaleta and the Super Yamba band, you don’t have a pulse,’” Paup said. The band’s most popular songs on Spotify, “Mr. Diva” and “Jibiti” were released in 2019 with the album “Médaho.” The tunes feature danceable electric guitar riffs and Kaleta’s energetic vocals.
The Fiery Furnace Marching Band will open.
The series will round out with Pixie & The Partygrass Boys, opened by The Butch Cassidies, on August 18 (another Arts & Ag day). Thefeatured band has played multiple times in Moab.
“They’re a homegrown, Salt Lake band, but they’ve really broken out into touring regionally and nationally, which is great to see,” Paup said. “It’ll be really fun to hear—they’re a great dance band.”
Each concert is free to attend; there will also be a beer garden onsite. You can find more information at www.moabfreeconcerts.com.
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