Museum admission is free
galleries opening 11AM Thursday
Hammer Channel

Watch 1,000+ talks, performances, artist profiles, and more.

Go to Hammer Channel
Collections
Collage of five diverse artworks from the Hammer Museum Collections side by side. From left to right: 1) Contemporary painting of two embracing figures with surreal elements. 2) Post-impressionist style painting of trees with vibrant blues and greens. 3) Black and white illustration of a face with intricate patterns. 4) Japanese woodblock print style image of a figure in a checkered robe. 5) Photograph of a couple dancing, the woman in a black dress and the man in white

See 50,000+ objects, including prints, photographs, paintings, and more.

Go to Hammer Collections
Music & Performance
Part of the series Summer of Soul

Summer of Soul: Breakestra + KCRW DJ Jeremy Sole

  • This is a past program

The Hammer and KCRW 89.9FM present Summer of Soul, four free nights of live music that shine a light on the timeless power of soul music with a diverse line-up of talented musical acts in the Hammer’s courtyard.

A happy hour with cash bar starts at 6:30 p.m. KCRW DJ sets start at 7:30 p.m., and live music starts at 8:15 p.m. The museum’s gallery hours will be extended to 9 p.m. so guests can enjoy the Hammer exhibitions.

Breakestra
+ KCRW DJ Jeremy Sole

Breakestra

The Los Angeles based ensemble is based in deep funk, good ol’ hip hop breaks & psychedelic soul – jazz fever. A Breakestra show is about dancing & getting your wig flipped back by a non stop throwdown of eight folks on stage getting loose & flexing some soulful skills over some serious funk grooves both original and deeper covers drawn from the vault of Miles music’s vast vault of funk. Think James Brown, The Meters, early Kool & The Gang, Funkadelic, and Sly & The Family Stone mixed in a gumbo pot of non stop funk. Watching the Breakestra live is a tour de force. As Miles says, “What are the first three letters of FUNK?”

The Breakestra began as the house band for the legendary club called the Breaks. Egon from Stones Throw Records further explains the etymology of their name: “Break. As in “breakbeat.” That ten second slice of percussive magic in the middle of a funk song that, when looped together by progressive South Bronx DJs in the 1970s, became the basis of the hip-hop movement. Arkestra. Out-there jazzer Sun Ra’s funkafied concept of the stuffy classical orchestra.” When we combine the two concepts, you have the Breakestra or in other words an orchestra that plays breaks. 

ATTENDING THIS PROGRAM?

ALL HAMMER PROGRAMS ARE FREE
Location: Courtyard 
Ticketing: This drop-in event is not ticketed.
Parking: Under the museum, $3 flat rate after 6 p.m. (cash only)

All Hammer public programs are free and made possible by a major gift from the Dream Fund at UCLA. 

Generous support is also provided by Susan Bay Nimoy and Leonard Nimoy, Good Works Foundation and Laura Donnelley, an anonymous donor, and all Hammer members. 

The Hammer’s digital presentation of its public programs is made possible by the Billy and Audrey L. Wilder Foundation.

Related Programs