PLAYlist’s finale night, Friday, October 1, presents Soul Understated featuring Mavis “Swan” Pool! Led by vocalist extraordinaire Mavis ’SWAN’ Poole (Lauryn Hill, Prince) and powerful yet melodic drummer Jeremy ‘BEAN’ Clemons (who has performed with Gregory Porter and Burning Spear), Soul Understated delivers a beautifully performed organic sound with stellar musicianship. As a result, they’ve appeared at such major festivals as The Blue Note Jazz Fest, The Brooklyn Hip Hop Fest and Toronto Jazz Festival. Mavis appeared in the HBO series Vinyl! Check out this Kennedy Center footage and look at all this local talent rounding out the band:
WNCU’s Friday night Funk, Old School and Disco show and its host, DJ Travis Gales, simulcasts live from Durham Central Park at 7 p.m. Soul Understated play a 90-minute set at 8 p.m. Local food and beverage vendors are Amagee’s, Oink n’ Moo, Epic Vegan Food Truck, JAM Ice Cream, Glass Jug, Bull City Burger and Brewery and Portfolio Group.
PLAYlist Concert Series Announcement: we were excited to share this year’s PLAYlist Concert Series lineup with you but, after much consideration and consultation with the City of Durham, NC Government, we have decided to cancel our 2020 PLAYlist Concert Series (June-Sept) in order to protect public health amid the #COVID-19 pandemic. We will miss gathering and the camaraderie of these concerts but feel that the risk and uncertainty is too great at this time. Photo credit Ryan Moeller Photography, 2018. #DurhamNC
We have been working closely with city officials to determine the best plans for keeping our community safe at Durham Central Park during the COVID-19 pandemic. As a result, we are following the city and state guidance and all of the scheduled events at Durham Central Park are cancelled through April 10th, including the March 22 Food Truck Rodeo and the Durham Farmers Market. As this is a rapidly evolving situation, we will continue to monitor and follow the leadership of city and state government and keep you posted of any changes.
As of now, Durham Central Park and the parks in the Durham Parks and Rec system are open. You are welcome to take walks, enjoy the sunshine, and smell the flowers. It is a beautiful time of year and in the midst of this uncertainty, enjoying nature in a socially distant and responsible way can help.
If you are a patron of the Durham Farmers’ Market and want to get food from local farmers, sign up for their newsletter. The Durham Farmers’ Market Manager is working with their vendors on ways to connect people with local farmers and vendors for food deliveries at this time. DFM will be sending out information through their newsletter regularly.
We are still working on DCP’s summer event schedule and planning on moving forward with our summertime events. Our next Food Truck Rodeo is scheduled for June 21. Our PLAYlist Concert Series is set to start on June 12 and run every other Friday through September 18. Not to mention, our Children’s Fourth of July parade is still in the works! We’ll share more details about all of these events soon and if anything changes, we’ll let you know.
These next few weeks and months will be a hardship for everyone. Remember to look after your community as you can – your family, friends, neighbors, local businesses and the non-profits that help to make the Durham community vibrant, healthy, connected and safe. We look forward to enjoying the park together very soon.
Warmly, Erin Kauffman Durham Central Park Executive Director
Durham Central Park is a 5-acre park that is managed, developed and programmed by Durham Central Park, Inc., a 501c3 non-profit organization. Our mission is providing space for community. We work hard to provide the community a beautiful, safe, vibrant and welcoming park in downtown Durham. To do all of this, we rely on generous donations from people like you. You can help support and sustain this vital community space through this uncertain time.
Become a friend of the park today. You can support Durham Central Park by:
“Inspired by the music of The Delfonics, Parliament-Funkadelic, Pink Floyd and Billie Holiday, Hunt chronicles love, loss, and nostalgia through the sounds of original funk and old soul. He achieves the kind of heated, raw sound that has virtually disappeared in to much of today’s overly-manicured R&B and Hunt never loses sight of the past as he progressively forges his own way forward” –The Boston Globe. VAN HUNTheadlines PLAYlist, Durham Central Park’s free, annual concert series Friday, July 12, 7 p.m.
A Dayton, Ohio-born musician, Hunt made his way to Atlanta where he drew acclaim for his production efforts and crafty songwriting, featured on recordings by such diverse artists as Dionne Farris and Rahsaan Patterson, as well as the platinum-selling soundtrack, Love Jones. 2019 marks the 15th anniversary of his own self-titled debut album.
It instantly established Hunt as a distinctive and original talent with its idiosyncratic melding of R&B, soul, funk, pop, and rock ‘n’ roll. Hunt received a 2005 “Best Urban/Alternative Performance” Grammy nomination for his breakthrough hit single, Dust featured on that album.
Parking is free in the lot beside Durham Central Park, and there are metered spaces along Foster Street which change to free parking meters after 7 p.m.
Picnics, blankets and folding chairs are welcome. Local food trucks and craft beer vendors will be on site serving at 6 p.m. There are restrooms at Durham Central Park and the venue is wheelchair accessible. For more information, visit https://durhamplaylist.com/
This third year of PLAYlist Concert Series features a few changes, inspired by audience feedback. We are extending the series into the fall, by presenting concerts every other Friday evening from June 14 to September 20. We have also shifted the time: local food trucks and craft beer vendors will start serving at 6 p.m. but music starts at 7 p.m. Finally, we are including more opening acts with the concerts.
One thing that has not changed is the fact that each of these concerts is welcoming to the whole community and, most importantly, absolutely free to attend! The series is curated by Tess Mangum Ocaña, who works for Durham Central Park and leads Durham-based production company Sonic Pie Productions.
The full line up ranges from progressive R&B to Latin, soul, Americana, hip hop and world music:
Alanna Royale-Friday, June 14
Ricardo Diquez y la Orquesta Trópico-Friday, June 28
An Evening With Van Hunt-Friday, July 12
Bull City All-Stars Drumline w/ Caroline Brodie-Friday, July 26
New Reveille w/ Raleigh Rockers-Friday, August 9
&More (Chill Moody & Donn T) w/ Niito-Friday, August 23
Project 919 Band w/ Empower Dance lesson-Friday, September 6
Les Filles de Illighadad w/ Diali Cissokho-Friday, September 20
The concert series also continues a tradition of community partnerships and free educational/experiential before or during some of the performances, such as an audience Q&A with Les Filles de Illighadad (from Niger) facilitated by Chatham County-based kora player Diali Cissokho. Cissokho will act as their French to English translator. “We are so excited to present this free concert series to the Durham community. Providing welcoming, inclusive and free programming is central to Durham Central Park’s mission” says Durham Central Park Executive Director Erin Kauffman.
Parking is free in the lot beside Durham Central Park, and there are metered spaces along Foster Street which change to free parking meters after 7 p.m.
Admission to PLAYlist Concert Series is free, due to support from sponsors North Carolina Arts Council, Durham Arts Council, Durham 150, WeWork, Friends of World Music, Urban Durham Realty, Resolute Building Company, Cambria Durham, PickleFest, 90.7 WNCU, Duke Performances, Acme, Morningstar Law, Pinnacle Financial Advisors and Downtown Durham Inc., Kompleks Creative.
Picnics, blankets and folding chairs are welcome. Local food trucks and craft beer vendors will be on site. There are restrooms at Durham Central Park and the venue is wheelchair accessible. For more information, visit https://durhamplaylist.com/
As the skyline around the park continues to change, DCP, Inc. remains committed to our mission of Providing Space for Community. It is critical that Durham has a gathering space in the heart of the city where everyone can feel welcome. This year, along with the hard work of maintaining the park and continuing our free, inclusive programming, we have been able to make some great improvements. In November, we installed our new interactive pixel art wall where park-goers make new art every day. We planted 30 new trees. Moving into the winter, we will be installing a pollinator garden around the bee hotel, planting more trees, and adding several new benches.
In 2019, we will undertake the hard work of updating our strategic and master plans. In the park’s short history, with the constant support of the community, we have been able to build a great park. But, it is time to look towards the future and ensure that the park lives up to its full potential and becomes the jewel of downtown Durham that was envisioned from the start.
Will you help build on this success and sustain the park into the future? Your year-end gift, of any size, will help to safeguard this space and all that it means to you and your family.
This Friday, we will be unveiling the full lineup for our newly named PLAYlist Concert Series! You may be wondering what’s behind the name. Here’s why we named it PLAYlist.
Over the years, Durham Central Park has become a place for people of all ages to relax and play. As the park has developed, we have built physical playgrounds like Mount Merrill and our climbable statues, the skate park has become one of the most regularly activated areas in the park, and there is open areas where people can play with kids and dogs. But, it’s not just physical structures. We have worked to intentionally design events that cultivate community interactions and maintain a lighthearted and fun atmosphere.
Last year, as we expanded our concert series from 4 to 10 weeks and invited bands of diverse genres, we started noticing how playful the crowd had become. People of all ages and from all walks of life were coming together on a Friday evening, seeing friends, dancing, laughing, having a good time. As the organizer of this series, we were absolutely delighted to see a field full of happy people playfully enjoying a few hours together in the park. So, incorporating the word “play” into the name really felt like a natural fit.
You may have also noticed that before each concert, we have put together a custom playlist of songs to set the mood for the evening and get folks pumped up for the show.
As we build the series every year, we are also very intentional about the musicians that we invite to our stage. Each concert is meant to evoke an evening that feels spirited, soulful, refreshing, warm, and happy. We hope that concert attendees feel uplifted during the evening and can take that feeling into the weekend. What better way to do that, after seeing a great show, than to add the music to your own personal summer playlists.
So, there you are… PLAYlist.
We hope that you can join us for a fun and playful concert series at the park this summer!
More about PLAYlist Concert Series
PLAYlist Concert Series covers a wide range of genres (funk, soul, jam, jazz, americana, hip hop, etc.) and feature local, regional and national performers from diverse backgrounds as well as a diversity of age, race, and gender. The concerts are intentionally designed to be all ages, family friendly events that are welcoming to all. Every concert and event associated with the series is completely free of charge (of course, donations are always welcome). One of our major goals for this series to to ensure, as downtown changes and revitalizes, people are not priced out of enjoying live music. We hope that PLAYlist Concert Series enriches our community and deepens appreciation for the arts.
The 2018 PLAYlist Concert Series starts June 8th and runs every Friday evening from 6-8pm through August 10th.
