New Haven Register (New Haven, CT)
New Haven breaks out ‘Big Dog’ for neighborhood festivals
NEW HAVEN — It’s a challenge to run a neighborhood festival — designed specifically to bring the International Festival of Arts & Ideas to the city’s neighborhoods — virtually, but four city neighborhoods are doing it, and one has even responded by bringing in the “big dogs” to perform.
That’s Chris “Big Dog” Davis, the twice Grammy-nominated jazz artist and producer who grew up in Waterbury and for years as a youth studied in a Yale-affiliated music program in the Dixwell Avenue Congregational United Church of Christ, along with some of his friends.
Davis will headline the Dixwell Neighborhood Festival, which will be the last of the four neighborhood festivals at 1 p.m. June 5.
Malakhi Eason, Arts & Ideas’ director of programming and community impact, said the neighborhood festivals “are usually in person, but we had a long meeting,” and while things are beginning to stabilize with COVID-19, “we don’t want to expose our community to anything.”
So “neighborhood organizers said they’d prefer that it be virtual this year,” he said. “For me virtual is a little more easier to move forward with.”
Each neighborhood festival involves “a partnership with the neighborhood ... and they basically tells us what they want for each festival,” Eason said.
Consequently, each neighborhood festival has its own unique personality, he said.
Diane Brown, branch manager of the Stetson Library on Dixwell Avenue, also is member of the Arts & Ideas board of directors and a member of the organizing team along with Dixwell Management Team Coordinator Nina Silva and Jacquie Glover.
This year, “we wanted to do something a little different because we know people have been stuck in the house,” Brown said. “For several years, we had community people involved” and it was “all-local talent,” she said. This year, “the three of us sat down and talked” and asked each other, “What can we do different?”
So they reached out to Davis, who “has adopted Stetson (and Dixwell) over the years,” Brown said. “I called Chris and asked, ‘Can you help us?’”
What they got back from Davis was a pleasant surprise.
“Well, he came back with Grammynominated artists ... that he personally produces and works with,” Brown said. “I said, ‘We only have a couple of dollars,’” she said.
“He said, ‘We’ll make it it work.’” As it turned out, Big Dog “did the entire concert. All Arts & Ideas has to do is put it on their site,” Brown said.
Next year, “we will go live — and already, Chris Davis said he would like to get with some of the local artists and work with them,” she said.
Meanwhile, “We’re able to bring these three charted artists into one hour that not only Dixwell but all of New Haven can go and see.”
Davis said that while he didn’t grow up in Dixwell, or New Haven, he has strong ties there and he wanted to give back.
“I grew up in Waterbury but when I was 14 years old, my music teacher, Miss Grossman,” with whom he studied from age 8 to age 14, suggested
that he also enroll in an afterschool program at Yale, which took place in the Dixwell Avenue Congregational United Church of Christ, Davis said Tuesday.
He came to New Haven because in Waterbury “we didn’t have an afterschool program like that,” said Davis, who now lives in Granby. “I wanted to do something for the community,” he said.
Now he does Christmas shows at the library every year — and now he’s doing the Dixwell Neighborhood Festival.
And because it’s virtual this year, “That day for the concerts, the whole world will be tuning in to Dixwell,” he said.
Vaughn Collins, who has led New Haven’s groundbreaking R&B and funk band Boogie Chillun for 30 years now, said he’s hoping for the same at the West Rock / West Hills Neighborhood Festival.
“Representing this particular neighborhood means a lot to me because I grew up in that particular section, on Valley Street,” Collins said. West Rock and West Hills is where “I got my early music formation, playing with guys when I lived in West Hills.”
Boogie Chillun participated in the neighborhood’s first neighborhood festival a few years ago and “now that it’s virtual, I’m hoping that we can be seen around the world,” Collins said.
This will be the first appearance in a while for Boogie Chillun, which began in 1991 and has been fronted by Collins the whole time.
Other events are planned for later in the year, including the release of Boogie Chillun’s new album, “Funk Upon A Rhyme,” Collins said.
Thabisa, who performs under her first name, has been part of Arts & Ideas neighborhood festivals — and the festival itself — previously and said she loves the neighborhood festivals “because of the richness of the cultures” that they represent.
She will miss the live format because when it’s live, “I know I’m not only going to be performing for people but I’m also going to be benefiting from seeing the other performers,” she said.
While Thabisa does not hale from Newhallville, she’s looking forward to playing for the neighborhood — and beyond — and she believes that her music “adds to the sunshine,” she said.
The other neighborhood festivals are The Hill neighborhood’s Hillfest 2021 at 1 p.m. May 22, the Newhallville Neighborhood Festival at 1 p.m. May 23 and the West Rock / West Hills Neighborhood Festival at 1 p.m. May 29. Each of the festivals will be livestreamed — for free — on Facebook Live, YouTube, Twitch and the Arts & Ideas Festival’s Virtual Stage at www.artidea.org.
The lineups are as follows: — Hillfest 2021: Virtual performances by R&B guitarist Manny James, contemporary violinist and vocalist Charisa “Charisa The Violin Diva” Rouse and a showcase at the Hill Museum.
— Newhallville Neighborhood Festival: South Africa-born New Haven artist Thabisa Rich, rapper T Ski Valley, a performance by community connectors Ice the Beef, a set by DJ Prime, the Wayne Brown Band and KP on the Set.
— West Rock / West Hills Neighborhood Festival: A concert and town meeting featuring a discussion of Ward 30, a glimpse at Solar Youth’s programming in the neighborhood and an address from Committee Chairs Carlton Staggers and Iva Johnson, with performances by Corey Staggz and John the Violinist, Randolph Duo, local dance and entertainment company MegaHurtz Entertainment, Pastor Burgess, longtime New Haven funk & R&B ensemble Boogie Chillun, and more.
— Dixwell Neighborhood Festival: Chris “Big Dog” Davis, Grammynominated, Soul Train Award-winning soul, jazz and R&B performer Maysa; Rhythm & Blues Hall of Fame inductee Phil Perry, and Billboard Chart-topping urban and smooth jazz artist Nick Colionne.