Southampton Arts Center Will Offer Summer Free Music, Films

The Southampton Arts Center will kick off its summer music programs with three free outdoor concerts on Saturday and Sunday. Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Jazz for Young People on Tour program will return to the center on Saturday afternoon at 4 with a free performance on the outdoor stage by Thunderswamp, a party jazz collective whose music celebrates the culture and legacy of New Orleans. Compositions by Louis Armstrong, Sidney Bechet, Professor Longhair, and others will be on the program.

Jake Lear, a blues guitarist and songwriter who recently moved back to East Hampton from Memphis, where he performed for thousands on that city’s Beale Street, will hold forth Saturday evening at 7, also on the center’s outdoor stage. Born in Vermont, Mr. Lear was raised on the music of John Lee Hooker, Jimi Hendrix, and Howlin’ Wolf. Claes Brondal on drums and Jeff Marshall on bass will accompany the hard-hitting bluesman.

Jazz will move to the center’s front steps on Sunday at noon, when Yacouba Sissoko, who was born and raised in Mali, will perform on the kora, a 21-string instrument used extensively in West Africa. In demand as one of the best kora players in the world, Mr. Sissoko is equally at home with jazz, Latin, R&B, and African music. He has toured with a variety of well-known artists and recorded with Harry Belafonte, Paul Simon, Abdoulaye Diabate, and Ami Koita.

The center’s film program will launch next Thursday at 8:30 p.m. with a free outdoor screening of “Racing Extinction,” presented with Telluride Mountain Film Festival and React to Film. The documentary by Louie Psihoyos, an Academy Award-winning director, is about the mass extinction of species and the efforts of scientists, activists, and journalists to bring attention to the issue.

The Walker Art Center’s Internet Cat Video Festival, which will be shown under the stars on Friday, July 8, at 8:30, will present a lighter look at the animal world. William Braden, who assembled the program of more than 100 videos, will attend the screening.