June 13, 2003

Pop, Rock and Jazz Listings

selective listing by critics of The Times of noteworthy pop and jazz concerts in the New York metropolitan region this weekend. * denotes a highly recommended concert.

ACID MOTHERS TEMPLE, Northsix, 66 North Sixth Street, Williamburg, Brooklyn, (718) 599-5103. Serious as only a Japanese band can be, Acid Mothers Temple seeks the deep, swelling drone of late psychedelia and diehard 1970's acid-rock, harking back to bands like Amon Duul and Hawkwind; when last seen, band members even had Gandalf-style hooded robes. Tomorrow night at 8, with various band spinoffs opening: Tsurabami, Pardons, Fursaxa, Afee Khomin and a solo set by Makoto Kawabata. Admission is $10 (Jon Pareles).

* ERIC ALEXANDER QUARTET, Smoke, 2751 Broadway, at 106th Street, (212) 864-6662. A young tenor saxophonist who has inherited the blues sense, dramatic feel and aggressive tone of the hard-bop musicians and who has logged a lot of time with bandleaders, including Charles Earland and Harold Mabern, also leads his own band. What counts most is his beautiful sound, a thing that's not easy to come by. Tonight and tomorrow night at 9, 11 and 12:30 a.m.; cover charge is $18 and there is a $10 minimum (Ben Ratliff).

* JOAN ARMATRADING, Inter-Media Art Center, 370 New York Avenue, south of Main Street, Huntington, N.Y., (631) 549-2787. With her deep, longing voice and songs about love and affection and all the ways they can wound a gentle heart, Joan Armatrading was a beacon for songwriters in the 1970's and 1980's. She has just released her first album in eight years, "Lovers Speak" (Denon). Tonight at 8 and 10:30; admission is $40 (Pareles).

BLACKALICIOUS, Celebrate Brooklyn, Prospect Park Bandshell, Ninth Street and Prospect Park West, (718) 855-7882, Ext. 33. On "Blazing Arrows" (MCA), this California duo proved that it had mastered the underground hip-hop formula, which requires heavy (or sometimes sprightly) backbeats, tongue-twisting (and vaguely New Age) lyrics and — inevitably — weak similes. (It's hard not to cringe when Gift of Gab proclaims himself "Free, like a bird out in the wind in the night.") Fortunately, the group also knows how to write a catchy chorus, and its buoyant style should be well suited to a concert in the park, providing, of course, it doesn't rain. Tomorrow night at 7:30, with the poet and storyteller Sekou Sundiata; admission is free, although a $3 donation is suggested (Kelefa Sanneh).

BOSTON, Jones Beach Theater, Wantagh, N.Y., (516) 221-1000; PNC Bank Arts Center, Garden State Parkway Exit 116, Holmdel, N.J., (732) 335-0400. Tom Scholz has labored for years, overdubbing countless guitar parts, to create Boston's cavernous version of 1970's rock. Live, fans' memories fill in the extra tracks while they sing along to songs like "More Than a Feeling." At Jones Beach Theater tomorrow night at 8; tickets are $30.50 to $48.40. At PNC Bank Arts Center Sunday night at 8; tickets are $18.50 to $48.50 (Pareles).

* JERRY BUTLER, GENE CHANDLER, BEN E. KING, LLOYD PRICE, Westbury Music Fair, 960 Brush Hollow Road, Westbury, N.Y., (516) 334-0800. Jerry Butler, the Chicago soul singer who just demonstrated his vitality in "Only the Strong Survive," and three other rhythm-and-blues troupers — Gene Chandler ("Duke of Earl"), Ben E. King ("Stand By Me") and Lloyd Price ("Personality") — share a night of oldies steeped in doo-wop, gospel and New Orleans R & B. Tomorrow night at 8; tickets are $33.50 (Pareles).

* KATHLEEN EDWARDS, RICHARD
BUCKNER, Bowery Ballroom, 6 Delancey Street, near the Bowery, Lower East Side, (212) 533-2111. On her album "Failer" (Zoe/Rounder), Kathleen Edwards sings about hard drinkers, rock stars, lovers and killers in songs that look toward the craggy directness of Lucinda Williams and Neil Young and add her own scrappiness. Women and booze keep letting Richard Buckner down, and his glum, scuffed-up voice is just right for songs that bring together the depressive sides of honky-tonk country and singer-songwriter confessionals. Tonight at 9; admission is $18 (Pareles).

FOUR GENERATIONS OF MILES, Blue Note, 131 West Third Street, West Village, (212) 475-8592. Miles Davis changed his music a lot, and you can talk about his career in terms of style or — why not? — in terms of generations. This group presents music associated with Miles Davis through the fingers of George Coleman (saxophonist in Davis's early-60's band), Ron Carter (bassist in his mid-60's band), Mike Stern (guitarist in his late-80's band) and Jimmy Cobb (drummer in his late-50's/early-60's band, and on the album "Kind of Blue.") Tonight through Sunday night at 8 and 10:30; cover charge at the tables is $30 with a $5 minimum, or $20, with a one-drink minimum at the bar (Ratliff).

* *AARON GOLDBERG TRIO, Fat Cat, 75 Christopher Street, near Seventh Avenue South, West Village, (212) 675-6056. A young pianist who is getting more and more of a foothold in New York's jazz scene, and for good reason: he's versatile and impressive, and he swings hard. He's playing with Doug Weiss on bass and Eric Harland on drums. Tonight and tomorrow night starting at 10; admission is $15 (Ratliff).

* BUDDY GUY, LOS LOBOS, Westbury Music Fair, 960 Brush Hollow Road, Westbury, N.Y., (516) 334-0800. The blues arrives in burst after burst of adrenaline when Buddy Guy plays his songs, full of gut-level belting and speedy guitar curlicues. He makes nearly every excess sound heartfelt. Los Lobos started out in Mexican music, went on to dig deeply into Americana from blues to country to rhythm-and-blues to salsa, and then added some twists. Lately, a new Latin percussionist has been revitalizing the band. Sunday night at 7; tickets are $41.50 (Pareles).

ISAAC HAYES, B. B. King Blues Club and Grill, 243 West 42nd Street, Manhattan, (212) 997-4144. From his days as a songwriter and producer at Stax-Volt to the orchestrated funk of his album "Hot Buttered Soul" to his cartoon role (as Chef) in "South Park," Isaac Hayes has adapted his deep voice and down-home charm to every era. Tonight and tomorrow night at 8 and 10:30; admission is $45 (Pareles).

DAVID JOHANSEN AND THE HARRY SMITHS, Bottom Line, 15 West Fourth Street, Greenwich Village, (212) 228-7880. David Johansen's latest genre excursion heads for the recorded roots of American music: the blues, ballads, country and gospel songs, full of murder and adultery and hope for redemption, that were collected by Harry Smith for his Anthology of American Folk Music, a foundation of the 1950's folk revival. Although Mr. Johansen is a master of irony, he sings the songs as straightforward folk with a touch of rock, making the old narratives sound current. Tonight at 7:30 and 10:30; admission is $20 (Pareles).

* B. B. KING, B.B. King Blues Club and Grill, 243 West 42nd Street, Manhattan, (212) 997-4144. The great bluesman B. B. King and his latest guitar, called Lucille, can, on a good night, summon all the tribulation and joy and resilience of the blues. He's celebrating the third anniversary of his namesake Times Square club. Sunday and Monday nights at 8; tickets are $70 (Pareles).

CHRIS THOMAS KING, Central Park Summerstage, midpark at 69th Street, Manhattan, (212) 360-2777. An advance taste of "The Blues," the PBS documentary series overseen by Martin Scorsese, shares the bill with live music by Chris Thomas King, a bluesman who is determined to encompass the entire history of the music, from Delta picking to blues backed by hip-hop turntables. Tomorrow night at 7; free, with donations requested (Pareles).

* LOSER'S LOUNGE TRIBUTE TO XTC, Fez (downstairs at the Time Cafe), 380 Lafayette Street, at Great Jones Street, East Village, (212) 533-2680. The pop archivists of Loser's Lounge apply themselves to the twisted, tuneful songs of the reclusive and prolific English band XTC, which emerged with the new-wave rock of the late 1970's but doesn't tour. That makes this a rare chance to hear live versions of some of the smartest and most pugnacious songs of the last two decades. Tonight and tomorrow night at 7 and 10:30 p.m.; admission is $20 (Pareles).

* MORELENBAUM2, SAKAMOTO, Joe's Pub, 425 Lafayette Street, East Village, (212) 239-6200. The singer Paula Morelenbaum, the cellist Jaques Morelenbaum and the pianist Ryuichi Sakamoto — a Brazilian-Japanese triad of bossa nova worshipers — are at the core of this little group, and beautiful, controlled surfaces are all-important to it. What they do to bossa nova is to boil it down and recast it so that it becomes slower, cleaner and more classical. Depending on your taste, it can be chilly or breathtaking. Sunday night at 7 and 9; cover charge is $35 (Ratliff).

* VAN MORRISON, SOLOMON BURKE, Theater at Madison Square Garden, Seventh Avenue and 33rd Street, Manhattan, (212) 465-6741. Onstage, Van Morrison leads his band through meticulous soul vamps and awaits the kind of vocal inspiration that turns straightforward phrases into pleas or incantations. He'll have a lot to live up to with his opening act, Solomon Burke, whose most recent album had songs written for him by Bob Dylan and Brian Wilson. He's a larger-than-life, gospel-rooted 1960's soul man who is still a vocal powerhouse and earns the right to perform from a throne. Tonight at 8; tickets are $54.50 to $104.50 (Pareles).

* KOFFI OLOMIDE, Supper Club, 240 West 47th Street, Manhattan, (212) 868-9102 or (212) 921-1940. As bandleader and sex symbol, Koffi Olomide is one of his generation's major stars playing Congolese rumba, the music built around sweetly importunate vocals, endless skeins of intertwined guitar lines and lilting rhythms that have bounced from Africa to Cuba and back. He holds on to the music's old two-part structure — slow, gentle rumbas shifting to faster dance workouts — and he's a modern showman who commands dance routines as well as a superb band. In Paris, he plays to arena crowds, and even for this club show he's thinking big. His band, Quartier Latin, includes 20 musicians and four dancers. Tonight at 10; tickets are $30 in advance, more at the door, or $50 including a V.I.P. pre-party at 8 p.m. with an hourlong open bar (Pareles).

* EDDIE PALMIERI, Lehman Center for the Performing Arts, 250 Bedford Park Boulevard West, at Goulden Avenue, Bedford Park, the Bronx, (718) 960-8833. Latin pianists have a longstanding affinity for jazz, but Eddie Palmieri may well be the jazziest and most experimental of them all, plunging into modal harmonies and burly, splashing chord clusters, building suspense and then detonating it with rhythm. The singer Brenda K. Starr shares the bill. Tomorrow night at 8; tickets are $25 to $35 (Pareles).

* PUNK ROCK AEROBICS, Parkside Lounge, 317 East Houston Street, near Avenue B, Lower East Side, (212) 673-6270; Luxx, 256 Grand Street, near Roebling Street, Williamsburg, Brooklyn, (718) 599-1000. It's exactly what it sounds like: 90 minutes of rock 'n' roll calisthenics. These two sessions feature a guest host — the underground wrestling star Mistress Betty (from the not-as-mainstream-as-it-sounds All Pro Wrestling League), who lists her weight as "a biscuit shy of 300." The organizers offer only two pieces of advice: "wear sneakers" and "bring a mat." Tomorrow at 2 p.m. at Parkside Lounge; admission is $7. Sunday at 2 p.m. at Luxx; admission is $7 (Sanneh).

* DAFNIS PRIETO QUARTET, Jazz Gallery, 290 Hudson Street, below Spring Street, South Village, (212) 242-1063. Dafnis Prieto, the young Cuban drummer, arrived in the United States two and a half years ago and was quickly hired by all kinds of bands. The essence of his style is his collation of various Afro-Cuban percussion sounds — from old religious music to modern — within one set of trap drums. His playing is infernally complicated, and infernally precise; the blizzard of accents he throws into any pattern have their places as surely as pixels in a computer image. He is also a gifted composer. In his own work, rearranged danzons jostle against experiments in meter and harmony; his music switches between smoothly cushioned rhythms and spiky ones. tonight and tomorrow night at 9 and 10:30; admission is $12 a set, $10 for members (Ratliff).

* ? AND THE MYSTERIANS, THE VAGRANTS, LYRES, DEXTER ROMWEBER DUO, Warsaw, 261 Driggs Avenue, Greenpoint, Brooklyn, (718) 387-0505. The garage-rock legacy wouldn't be the same without the immortal Vox organ riff that drove "96 Tears," a song that was recorded in a living room and went on to reach No. 1 in 1966. The former Rudy Martinez, now known as "?," leads a band that sounds as if it climbed straight out of a 1960's time capsule: the missing link between Tex-Mex music and the Doors. There'll be fuzztone guitar, riffing organ and rockabilly twang on the bill from the Vagrants, Lyres and the Dexter Romweber Duo. Tonight at 8; tickets are $13 (Pareles).

* SPANISH HARLEM ORCHESTRA, ALFREDO DE LA FÉ, Celebrate Brooklyn, Prospect Park Bandshell, Ninth Street and Prospect Park West, (718) 855-7882 extension 45. Anyone who's heard a salsa band in New York City has probably seen some of the members of the Spanish Harlem Orchestra: they're the virtuosic journeymen who are one of New York City's great musical resources. As the Spanish Harlem Orchestra, they reclaim salsa classics under the direction of the keyboardist Oscar Hernández, who has worked with Rubén Blades and Paul Simon. Alfredo de la Fé is a Cuban violinist whose solos set fire to dance tunes. Tonight at 7:30; free, with a $3 donation requested (Pareles).

* MARK TURNER TRIO, Fat Cat, 75 Christopher Street, near Seventh Avenue South, West Village, (212) 675-6056. There's no band quite like this one. It's a fascinating and ambitious little cooperative, with each member contributing one-third of the writing, but the substantial thrill is in hearing the saxophonist Mark Turner, one of the most influential players of the last decade, in a trio without guitar or piano to support him. Some of it sounds like chamber music; some operates as intense jazz-trio stuff; some sounds Latin; some, with breathtaking long-line improvisations and tight group communication, is just weird and good. Sunday night at 10; admission is $15 (Ratliff).

* THE WARLOCKS, Mercury Lounge, 217 East Houston Street, at Ludlow Street, Lower East Side, (212) 260-4700; Sin-é, 148-150 Attorney Street, below Houston Street, Lower East Side, (212) 338-0077. With two drummers and four guitars, the Warlocks escalate the surging psychedelic drone-rock of early Pink Floyd, with a touch of Steppenwolf thrown in. At Mercury Lounge tonight at 11, preceded by Head of Femur (10), Todd Deatherage Band (9) and Mildew and Star (8). At Sin-é Sunday night at 11, with the Ghost Exits at 10 and Re/Tada at 9; admission is $10 (Pareles).

JOHNNY WINTER, JAMES COTTON BAND, Central Park Summerstage, midpark at 69th Street, Manhattan, (212) 360-2777. Johnny Winter started out as a roaring, sliding blues-rocker and has grown more traditionalist in the later years of his career. When James Cotton played in Muddy Waters's bands in the 1950's, he helped define modern blues harmonica with his moaning, wrenching phrases and his train-whistle wails. Mr. Winter and Mr. Cotton have played together before, and this concert might well end in a jam session. Sunday night at 7; free, with donations requested (Pareles).