‘Wild’ In-Person Event in Memorial Park Toasts the New Eastern Glades

Daniel Ortiz
‘Wild’ In-Person Event in Memorial Park Toasts the New Eastern Glades

Clayton Katz, Jeffrey Yates, Diandra Breen and Robert Erni

WITH VACCINATIONS ON the rise and decent weather — albeit a little muggy lately — in the forecast, H-Town's spring social season is heating up! Last week at the new Clay Family Eastern Glades in Memorial Park, members of the park conservancy's young professionals group, Urban Wild, gathered in person for the first time since the project's completion last July.


More than 200 supporters celebrated the 100-acre section — which includes the 5.5-acre Hines Lake, walking trails, picnicking areas, wetlands and, as seen on this night, fabulous outdoor event spaces — to the sounds of DJ Aiden Kennedy. Picos provided refreshing margs, and 8th Wonder and Topo Chico supplied additional refreshments. Thanks in part to a selection of door prizes from vendors like Pondicheri, Mirth and Do or Dye salon, the event raised more than $60,000 for Memorial Park Conservancy.

The Eastern Glades is the first of many projects from the Memorial Park Master Plan to be brought to completion. The visionary Ten-Year Plan, funded largely by a $70 million gift from Nancy and Rich Kinder's Kinder Foundation, will also reunite the park's main green spaces on the north and south sides of Memorial Drive via a "land bridge" over the thoroughfare, under construction now.

Adam and Becca Hines;

Caroline Dawson, William Finnorn, Tori Christensen, Meghan Horne

Charlotte Hutson, Nicole Turpin, Keri Miller

Daniel Harrison, Margaret Strode, Thomas Smith

Danielle O'Bannon, Zoe Cadore, Iman Garrett-Price

Erica Matthews, Yvette Salazar, Megan Blaisdell Willis, Grace Salvie

George and Krissy Pepi

Kendra Lynch, Brandon Cook

Lauren Paine, Paige Matthews

Matt Mogas, Louise and Gary Moss

Tara Simon and George Lancaster

Zach Gaitz, Annemieke Lupton, John Montgomery

Parties

Mwenso Carnegie Squad

WITH SUMMER FAR from over, DACAMERA continues to roll out some of the hottest musical programming to be enjoyed here — and anywhere else in the South for that matter — with Houston SUMMERJAZZ 2023 (Aug. 17-20). The series highlights the breadth of contemporary jazz, with nods to the music’s Cuban, pan-African, funk, pop, and soul connections. This year’s festival includes performances by the Spanish Harlem Orchestra (Aug. 17), vocalist Gretchen Parlato in her first Houston appearance (Aug. 18), and crowd-pleasing global artists Mwenso & The Shakes (Aug. 19), whose members come from Sierra Leone, London, South Africa, Greenwich Village, Madagascar, France, Jamaica and Hawaii. (Jazz is, indeed, “global” music.) All Houston SUMMERJAZZ concerts take place in the Wortham Center’s Cullen Theater.

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BEGINNING THIS THURSDAY, Aug. 17, DACAMERA’s Houston SUMMERJAZZ festival presents a concise, three-night program of jazz in a myriad of contemporary forms, with the Spanish Harlem Orchestra (Aug. 17) illuminating its historical connections to Cuba and Puerto Rico, and internationalists Mwenso and The Shakes (Aug. 19) extolling the music’s pan-African, funk, and pop potential. In between those two hits, on Friday, Aug. 18, all of these tributaries and more will be explored in a set by two-time Grammy-nominated vocalist Gretchen Parlato, making her first appearance in Houston.

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Art + Entertainment