10th Annual New York Gypsy Festival

Various locations, including DROM
85 Avenue A, (212) 777-1157
Through Oct. 17

To participate in this exciting happening, increasingly one of the most anticipated events of the fall, I recommend two things: coffee and/or Red Bull, because with no fewer than five groups playing on Saturday night, you’re going to need a lot of energy, and ear plugs, because some of those brass combinations can get rather noisy. The two-week festival reaches an early climax this weekend with Zlatne Uste, Raya Brass Band, Frank London ’s Klezmer Brass All-Stars and others on Saturday. But the big show is the night after (at PACE University’s Schimmel Center) with the legendary Boban i Marko Markovic Orkestar, one of the world’s leading brass ensembles. Here’s a band that reveals precisely what the Gypsies gleaned from their travels around the globe, such as Middle Eastern pentatonics, Yiddishkeit minor key moaning and wailing, Cubano-style clave, and even New Orleans funk backbeats.