It’s second-line brass band music, New Orleans-style. It’s Ethiopian jazz. It’s Afrobeat, a la Fela Kuti. It’s funk, it’s punk. It’s Dingonek Street Band, it’s a party and it returns to the festival on Sunday, September 24, to close out GreenStage 2023!
Fronted by trumpeter Bobby Spellman and Guilford’s own saxophonist Emily Pecoraro, Dingonek is a Brooklyn-based brass band dedicated to human culture and sonic adventure. Built on the celebratory energy and raw spontaneity of the second-line brass band tradition, Dingonek has created a funky, high-energy party music all its own by absorbing and reworking elements of Afrobeat, Ethio-jazz, punk rock, free jazz and Balkan brass music.
The sextet’s music is a wild blending of worlds, mixing African rhythms with jazz improvisation, Romani scales with second-line grooves, brass and reeds with drums, gongs, bells and broken glass. Well, maybe not broken glass for this show.
The fast-paced instrumental adventure finds the band taking creative risks without losing hold of the earthy grooves that form the foundation for party music the world over. For example, the original piece Dinkinesh, performed here live at Brooklyn’s Barbes night blub.
Dingonek was a hit at the 2019 festival. Come on out and see why!