Jazz: NIKARA WARREN

Brooklyn’s own Nikara Warren is a vibraphonist, composer, arranger, and educator. Granddaughter of world-renowned jazz pianist Kenny Barron, daughter of a half-Trinidadian soca/dancehall-loving father and a classic 90s Brooklyn “‘Round the Way” girl mother, Warren is taking vibes to the people with her postmodern patchwork of influences and cultural signposts, and her fearless musicality. Her bold quest comes from being well-versed in the vibraphone lineage, but seeking to adventure beyond it.

Warren’s debut album, Black Wall Street, represented a convergence of Nikara’s personal, cultural, familial, and musical journeys. On it, she explores abstract sound-collage, hip-hop, jazz, neo-soul, Afro-Latino, and Afro-Caribbean rhythms, and more – an eclectic but cohesive study of how people’s identities are a product of their varied heritage and associations.

Her sophomore album The Queen of Kings County, which was made with support from a prestigious grant by the NYFA Women’s Fund for Music, is a deeply personal homage to Warren’s hometown of Brooklyn. “This album emerges from the complex realities of Brooklyn,” says Warren, “a place where dreams are pursued relentlessly against a backdrop of gentrification: affluence mixed with social struggle.”

Doors will open at 8:00pm, with Nikara's performance starting at 9:00pm, followed by records by Stretch Armstrong at 10:00pm.