Free Outdoor Concerts Coming to the South End

Beginning this Saturday, South End parks and plazas will come alive with the sound of music.

A brand-new program, the Thayer Street Outdoor Concert Series, debuts this Saturday at 4 p.m. with a set by Your Neighborhood Saxophone Quartet in the plaza on Thayer Street near Harrison Avenue.  The concert series is co-sponsored by the South End Arts District and JazzBoston, and this week’s premiere is in conjunction with JazzBoston’s Jazz Week. The series will feature different artists on the first Saturday of each month through October from 4-6 p.m. 

“This series has come together very quickly, and we are very excited about it,” said Jessica de Guardiola of 5s Public Relations, which is coordinating the concerts. 

Another neighborhood favorite, the Summer Concert Series at Titus Sparrow Park, returns on Wednesday, June 15 at 6:30 p.m. with a show by the R&B/funk group, The Chicken Slacks, kicking off what this writer considers its most exciting season yet. 

The schedule will please a wide variety of tastes, featuring the Sinti Rhythm band’s gypsy-jazz; “Shakespeare on Love and A Shakespearean Cabaret,” a musical theater program by the Commonwealth Shakespeare Company and New England Conservatory; Zili Misik, whose “music of the African diaspora” incorporates soul, reggae, gospel, Ethiopian jazz and other African-inspired rhythms; and the Bagboys, bringing bluegrass and western swing to the park in mid-July. As usual, the Titus Sparrow series will close with a family-oriented performance by Ben Rudnick and Friends on August 31.

The Tito Puente Latin Music Series, a collaborative effort by Boston’s ParkArts, the Villa Victoria Center for the Arts and Berklee College of Music, returns to , adjacent to the Villa Victoria Center for the Arts on West Newton Street, for three Thursdays in July. The series celebrates the music of the late Tito Puente by focusing mainly on salsa, but also includes other Latin musical traditions such as cumbia and merengue. 

“The series is characterized [by] a really nice, up-beat and inviting atmosphere which has always turned into a big dance party,” explained Alex Alvear, Performance and Production Manager at Villa Victoria Center for the Arts.

Alvear booked the music for the series with Berklee College of Music’s Jim McCoy, Director for Education and Community Partnerships.

This season’s concerts in O’Day Park commence with the music of Salsa-Latin Jazz great, Ray González, on July 14. The following Thursday, Cincoson will rock the park with its mix of salsa, Latin Jazz and reggae, and jazz bassist Luques Curtis takes the stage on July 28 for the final concert. 

Additional performances in the Tito Puente Latin Music Series take place in Jamaica Plain’s Mozart Park on June 30; at the Mission Hill Playground on July 7; and at the East Boston Greenway on August 4.

This smorgasbord of free, outdoor entertainment is made all the more appetizing by the fact that the concerts are paid for privately, without taxpayer dollars. The city coordinates logistical support in the form of sound, lighting and technical services for the Tito Puente series, according to Ryan Woods, Director of Programming with the Boston Parks and Recreation Department.

“The summer programs are not government funded. We have to recruit sponsors for everything we do,” he said, naming Goya, the Latin food giant, as one important sponsor. 

The city sees outdoor concerts, sports and other events as a deterrent to criminal activity in its parks, he added. 

“The more positive programming we have, the more it kicks out negative activity."

Click here for a complete schedule of the Summer Concert Series at Titus Sparrow Park. Artist information for the Thayer Street Outdoor Concert Series for June and beyond could not be confirmed at press time; for further details, check in at www.jazzboston.org.