The Wandering Photographer

2012 Concert of Colors Recap

The 2012 Concert of Colors is now history. The four-day festival was a great party and grand time was had by all.

From the Asian stylings of Pipa virtuoso Wu Man and the Detroit Symphony to the funky sound of George Clinton and Parliament Funkadelic an eclectic and diverse presentation wowed the crowds. Once again Don Was presented his trademark Detroit All-Star Revue, this year presenting some of Detroit's Jazz greats, including Regina Cater, Marcus Belgrave and Dennis Coffey. Tito Puente Jr. pleased the fans with his set honoring his late father the great Latin percussionist Tito Sr.

I thought I would take this opportunity to present some Images of the 2012 Festival.

Enjoy!

Dennis Coffey (Detroit All-Star Revue, Detroit Jazz City Edition)

 

Marion Hayden (Detroit All-Star Revue, Detroit Jazz City Edition)

 

Wu Man performs with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra

 

Oliver Mtukdzi & The Black Spirits; all the way from Zimbabwe

 

The extremely photogenic Tito Puente Jr.

 

Tito had great fun on stage

 

Tito's entire band wore Concert of Colors T-shirts on stage

 

French Canadian folk group de Temps Antan entertained the crowd on Friday night at the DIA

 

de Temps Antan

 

George Clinton and Parliament Funkadelic brought the house down at the Sunday finale

 

George's band was dressed, well lets just say eccentrically

The weekend was a success and thousands of Metro Detroiters had a ball celebrating the great diversity of cultures in Southeast Michigan.

Blue Note Records will be releasing a CD of The Don Was Detroit All-Star Review: Jazz City Edition. All proceeds will go the the Detroit civil rights organization Focus Hope. Also, My Damn Channel filmed the Revue and over the next few months will be posting in on their web site.

The show was great and I'm looking forward to next year.

© 2012 Tim Marks

Metro Detroit's Diversity Festival 2012

Once again it is time for, in my opinion, Detroit's most important festival of the year, and it's FREE. Produced by the community groups ACCESS, The Arab American National Museum, The DIA, The Detroit Symphony Orchestra and the Museum of African American History, the festival is intended to bring everyone together to celebrate the vast diversity of our region. They accomplish it through the presentation of music, stories and dance.

 

This year the festival will be held July 12th thru the 15th at three venues.Thursday night at the Museum of African American History, Friday at the Detroit Institute of Arts, and Saturday and Sunday at the Max M. Fisher Music Center (home of the DSO).

 

The music line up is eclectic and diverse. From a mash of cultures featuring Mike E and Afro-flow on Thursday to the DSO with Pipa virtuoso Wu Man on Sunday in Orchestra Hall. Other wide ranging genres include Irish Rock, Algerian Folk, Latin Jazz, Australian Blues, Indian Funk and much more.

 

On Saturday night record producer and Oak Park Native Don Was returns to present his 5th annual Detroit All Star Revue. The revue is made up entirely of Detroit Musicians. This year for the first time the revue is an all jazz event. Don decided to present a Jazz program this year to honor the late great Detroit sax player Faruq Z. Bey who died this year at the age of 70. Faruq played in previous revues at the Concert of Colors. Don's revues are always the highlight of the weekend.

The Festival wraps up on Sunday by presenting the great George Clinton and Parliament Funkadelic, guaranteed to be a show not to be missed

 

Complete schedules for the four day concert are available on the Concert of Color's website www.concertofcolors.com

As far as I'm concerned this is the event of the year in Detroit and I wouldn't miss it for anything!

© 2012 Tim Marks all rights reserved