September 5, 2003

Pop and Jazz Listings

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

DAVE BINNEY, 55 Bar, 55 Christopher Street, West Village, (212) 929-9883. Mr. Binney is a nimble alto saxophonist who also experiments with live digital processing in his shows — a rarity in the jazz world. This weekend he gets together with some of his friends, who are also among the most revered younger jazz musicians in the country. They include the tenor saxophonist Chris Potter, the pianist Craig Taborn, the guitarist Adam Rogers, the bassist Scott Colley and the drummer Brian Blade. Tonight and tomorrow night, starting at 9; cover charge is $10 and there is a two-drink minimum (Ben Ratliff).

CAKE, CHEAP TRICK, DETROIT COBRAS, CHARLIE LOUVIN, HACKENSAW BOYS, Roseland Ballroom, 239 West 52nd Street, Manhattan, (212) 777-6800. Cake's songs are a seemingly offhand mixture of droll storytelling, light funk, country twang and an occasional trumpet line. Its Unlimited Sunshine Tour links the band with its many kindred spirits: the long-running, guitar-charged pop rockers Cheap Trick, the garage-rock revivalists in the Detroit Cobras, the old-timey updaters in the Hackensaw Boys and, most intriguingly, Charlie Louvin, who recorded songs of pain and salvation with the Louvin Brothers that became cornerstones of country music. Tomorrow night at 6:45 p.m.; tickets are $36.50 (Jon Pareles).

LAURA CANTRELL, NINA NASTASIA, Bowery Ballroom, 6 Delancey Street, near the Bowery, Lower East Side, (212) 533-2111. Laura Cantrell, a singer and songwriter born in Nashville, plays country and alt-country music as a disc jockey on WFMU. She has obviously been listening carefully to what she spins, since her own unassuming, genuine songs speak from the heart. Nina Nastasia sings visions of desolation and unflinching love — "dirty hands and dirty feet and all" — with melodies that can hint at the symmetries of Appalachian music and a homespun backup from instruments like accordion and banjo. Tonight at 9; tickets are $15 (Pareles).

ROSANNE CASH, Friends of the Arts, Planting Fields Arboretum State Historic Park, Oyster Bay, N.Y., (516) 922-0061. Rosanne Cash writes about the ache and aftermath of love with durable folky melodies, chiseled lyrics and calmly telling insights. She underplays her songs, letting them hit home quietly, but they reach deep. Tomorrow night at 8; tickets are $20 to $40 in advance, $25 to $45 tomorrow (Pareles).

* BILL CHARLAP TRIO, Jazz Standard, 116 East 27th Street, Manhattan, (212) 576-2232. Still relatively new to bandleading, though it seems as if he's been at it for decades, Mr. Charlap has a steady trio with Peter Washington and Kenny Washington; his performances have become extraordinary displays of discipline and improvisation — the wonders of an organized imagination. He's been inviting guests to join his trio lately; tonight his trio will be joined by the alto saxophonist Phil Woods, and tomorrow by the tenor saxophonist Houston Person. Tonight through Sunday are at 7:30 and 9:30, with an 11:30 set tonight and tomorrow; cover charge is $30 tonight and tomorrow, $25 on Sunday (Ratliff).

* CONSONANT, KAITO, Northsix, 66 North Sixth Street, Williamburg, Brooklyn, (718) 599-5103. When Mission of Burma, a fondly remembered post-punk band from Boston, broke up in 1983, Clint Conley gave up music. In 2001 he decided to pick up his guitar again and wrote new songs for the band that became Consonant. Mission of Burma fans (who include Moby and R.E.M.) will welcome the return of Mr. Conley's intelligent, troubled rock, sometimes barricading tender feelings with noisy guitars. Kaito also looks back to the post-punk era of Liliput, the Raincoats and the B-52's, guarding catchy riffs with dissonance and distortion. The lineup includes the Prosaics and Scout Niblett. Tomorrow night at 9; admission is $10 (Pareles).

CROSBY, STILLS AND NASH, PNC Bank Arts Center, Garden State Parkway, exit 116, Holmdel, N.J., (732) 335-0400; Jones Beach Theater, Wantagh, N.Y., (516) 221-1000. Self-satisfied baby-boom nostalgia and close high harmonies that may be more or less in tune. At PNC Bank Arts Center tonight at 8; tickets are $30.25 to $70.25. At Jones Beach Theater Sunday night at 8; tickets are $32.50 to $72.50 (Pareles).

* DANU, BOHOLA, the Bottom Line, 15 West Fourth Street, Greenwich Village, (212) 228-6300. Two strong bands send Irish music reeling (and jigging) into the 21st century. Danu, from Ireland, is a seven-member band that just added its first female member, a singer named Muireann Nic Amhlaoibh. Bohola, a Chicago trio, includes Jimmy Keane, an all-Ireland champion accordionist, along with a fiddler, Sean Cleland, and a bouzouki player and singer, Pat Broaders. Tonight at 7:30 and 10:30; admission is $15 (Pareles).

THE DICTATORS, WIDE RIGHT, LES SANS CULOTTES, Southpaw, 125 Fifth Avenue, at Sterling Place, Park Slope, Brooklyn, (718) 230-0236. It's amazing how many punk bands from the 1970's started to take themselves seriously. The Dictators, however, were never one of them; how could they be, with a leader named Handsome Dick Manitoba? They're sharing the bill with Wide Right, a band rooted in straightforward 1970's rock but led by Leah Archibald, whose perspective as an adult working woman is a long way from the swaggering bad boys whose music she loves. Les Sans Culottes, opening the bill, raise the camp level of the the early-1960's French rock called ye-ye. Tonight at 9; admission is $13 (Pareles).

* D.J. LE SPAM AND THE SPAM ALL-STARS, S.O.B.'s (Sounds of Brazil), 204 Varick Street, at Houston Street, South Village, (212) 243-4940. D.J. Le Spam's regular club shows became a sensation in Miami, where he mixed the electronic rhythms of dance-club music with live musicians steeped in Cuban salsa. Now he's establishing a New York outpost. Tonight at 10; admission is $12 (Pareles).

* MARTY EHRLICH QUARTET, Sweet Rhythm, 88 Seventh Avenue South, above Bleecker Street, West Village, (212) 255-3626. Mr. Ehrlich is a saxophonist who also became an original voice on clarinet, bass clarinet and flute; he's an all-arounder, and his activities stretch from his own tight compositions to much more open-ended music. He is joined this weekend by the pianist James Weidman, the bassist Michael Formanek and the drummer Billy Drummond. Tonight and tomorrow night at 8, 10 and midnight; cover charge is $15 and there is a $10 minimum (Ratliff).

FM EINHEIT, TRZTN, ELECTRO ATOMU, Sin-e, 148 Attorney Street, below Houston Street, Lower East Side, (212) 388-0077. Noisy experiments and experimental noise are likely when FM Einheit, from the ritualized demolition band Einsturzende Neubauten, collaborates with Trztn from Flux Information Sciences and Electro-Atomu, a composer from Cologne. Tonight at 11, with Mazing Vids at 9 and Lary 7 at 10; admission is $8 (Pareles).

KURT ELLING, Birdland, 315 West 44th Street, Clinton, (212) 581-3080. Mr. Elling, a youngish singer, tends to imitate a horn, sometimes a specific one: he'll put lyrics to a well-turned old solo by Dexter Gordon or Wayne Shorter. At other times, he's flirting with beat literature, delivering run-on stream-of-consciousness raps that undulate with the music. Tonight and tomorrow night at 9 and 11; cover charge is $30, and there is a $10 minimum (Ratliff).

DAVE GIBSON QUINTET, Swing 46, 349 West 46th Street, Manhattan, (212) 262-9554. Mr. Gibson is a young jazz trombonist with a strong tone and great chops; he's one of the up-and-coming musicians the elder players are hopeful for. Tonight from 9:30 to 1; cover charge is $10 (Ratliff).

GIPSY KINGS, Westbury Music Fair, 960 Brush Hollow Road, Westbury, N.Y., (516) 334-0800. Strumming half a dozen guitars, singing in a husky rasp and stamping their heels on the floor, this French pop group is to flamenco what Rice-a-Roni is to paella. Which is not to say that some of their international hits, like "Bamboleo," aren't fiendishly catchy. Tonight at 8; tickets are $49 (Pareles).

* TOM HARRELL QUINTET, Smoke, 2751 Broadway, at 106th Street, (212) 864-6662. Mr. Harrell, a fluegelhornist, can be an acquired taste: he's soft and lyrical, but also severely logical and self-editing. At his best, he's a consummate jazz improviser, and for musicians, he's at the top of the class. His bands are typically full of the better young players. Tonight and tomorrow at 9, 11 and 12:30; cover charge is $20 (Ratliff).

* WANDA JACKSON, Maxwell's, 1039 Washington Street, Hoboken, N.J., (201) 653-1703. Wild boys weren't the whole story of 1950's rockabilly. Wanda Jackson, from Oklahoma, was out on the road too, belting songs like "Fujiyama Mama" (a big hit in Japan) and "Mean Mean Man." In the 1970's, she became a Christian and turned to singing church music. But in 1996 one of her fans, the honky-tonk singer Rosie Flores, sought her out for duets, and since then Ms. Jackson has been reclaiming her crown as queen of rockabilly. Tonight at 9:30, with the Small Potatoes opening; admission is $15 (Pareles).

HIP-HOP HOODIOS, Joe's Pub, at the Joseph Papp Public Theater, 425 Lafayette Street, at Astor Place, East Village, (212) 539-8778 or (212) 239-6200. Latin alternative rock was already scrambling the definitions of musical categories, and this group throws in humor and ethnicity for extra confusion. Hoodios puns on Judeos, or Jews, and the group brings together rap-loving Latin-rock musicians with Jewish backgrounds. One of its songs, "Gorrito Cósmico," made its way into a Volkswagen ad. Tomorrow night at 9:30, with a warmup set from DJ Juba; admission is $12 (Pareles).

J-LIVE, Northsix, 66 North Sixth Street, Williamsburg, Brooklyn, (718) 599-5103. This local rapper is a hard-core formalist: on "All of the Above" (Coup d'État), he builds rhymes from extended jokes and unexpected tricks. The album includes a song called "One for the Griot," in which the rapper tells a story and then doubles back twice to provide alternative endings. Tonight at 11, with J-Zone, El Da Sensei, Wordsworth, Rok One and the Coalition; tickets are $12 (Kelefa Sanneh).

JAMES KEANE, Blarney Star, 43 Murray Street, Lower Manhattan, (212) 732-2873. The button accordionist James Keane has been both an inspiration and a mentor to Irish musicians since the 1960's. He opens the Blarney Star's season of Irish traditional music. Tonight at 9 and 10:30; $15 admission covers both sets (Pareles).

TOBY KEITH, PNC Bank Arts Center, Garden State Parkway, exit 116, Holmdel, N.J., (732) 335-0400. Post-Sept. 11 jingoism with a twang has gave the country hitmaker Toby Keith an extra boost lately. As his song "Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue" warned, "This big dog will fight when you rattle his cage." He's also earned the respect of Willie Nelson, who sang along with him on his hit about frontier justice, "Beer for My Horses." Tomorrow night at 7:30; tickets are $24 to $54 (Pareles).

OLIVER LAKE STEEL QUARTET, Up Over Jazz Cafe, 351 Flatbush Avenue, at Seventh Avenue, Prospect Heights, Brooklyn, (718) 398-5413. Mr. Lake, an original member of the World Saxophone Quartet, claims Eric Dolphy as a stylistic father in his acidic tone and in the darting movements of his playing. But his structural mindset has led him all over the place: toward reggae, big-band exercises and steel-drum music, the focus of his Steel Quartet. Tonight and tomorrow at 9, 11 and 12:30 a.m.; cover charge is $15 with a $5 minimum (Ratliff).

NELLIE McKAY, TODD SNIDER, the Bottom Line, 15 West Fourth Street, Greenwich Village, (212) 228-6300. Nellie McKay, a whiz-kid teenage songwriter, plays piano and riffles through styles from Tin Pan Alley to hip-hop. Todd Snider tells droll stories between songs of the traveling troubadour's life. The lineup, one of the showcases called Required Listening that are presented in association with the station WFMU, also includes Raul Midon and Soulfarm. Tomorrow night at 7:30 and 10:30; admission is $17.50 (Pareles).

MINK LUNGS, KAITO, PALOMAR, Mercury Lounge, 217 East Houston Street, at Ludlow Street, Lower East Side, (212) 260-4700. Mink Lungs, a Brooklyn band, packs its low-fi recordings with skewed echoes of folk-rock, psychedelia and 1960's proto-punk. Kaito and Palomar play pop with a jagged overlay. Tonight with Apollo Sunshine at 8:30, Palomar at 9:30, Kaito at 10:30 and Mink Lungs at 11:30; admission is $10 (Pareles).

* MOGWAI, Irving Plaza, 17 Irving Place, at 15th Street, Manhattan, (212) 777-6800; Warsaw, 261 Driggs Avenue, Greenpoint, Brooklyn, (718) 387-5252. Mogwai plays slow-motion pieces: three or four chords that meditate or build inexorably, with touches of dissonance and, perhaps, a conversation or an under-the-breath vocal attached. There's dark bliss by the crescendos' end. At Irving Plaza tomorrow night at 8, with Part Chimp opening; tickets, $18. At Warsaw Sunday at 9 p.m., with Part Chimp and Chris Brokaw opening; tickets are $15 in advance, $17 Sunday (Pareles).

* PAUL MOTIAN-JOE LOVANO-BILL FRISELL TRIO, Village Vanguard, 178 Seventh Avenue South, at 11th Street, West Village, (212) 255-4037. This longstanding trio makes some of the most outré and beautiful jazz you'll hear at the Village Vanguard: no bassist, and Mr. Lovano, the guitarist, with his electronic devices and beautiful, delicate touch, lets his imagination go free. Tonight through Sunday night at 9 and 11, with a 12:30 set tonight and tomorrow; cover charge is $20 with a $10 minimum (Ratliff).

MARIA MULDAUR: A TRIBUTE TO PEGGY LEE, Iridium, 1650 Broadway, at 51st Street, (212) 582-2121. Ms. Muldaur — yes, she sang "Midnight at the Oasis" — is a New York-born singer who has sung everything: folk, pop, blues, jazz. Lately she has been focusing on the songs of Peggy Lee, through a recent appearance at the JVC Jazz festival, a recent Lee tribute album ("A Woman Alone With the Blues"), and this weeklong engagement. Tonight through Sunday night at 8 and 10;, cover charge is $27.50 and there is a $10 minimum (Ratliff).

* MY MORNING JACKET, Bowery Ballroom, 6 Delancey Street, near the Bowery, Lower East Side, (212) 533-2111. My Morning Jacket, from Louisville, Ky., plays richly wistful songs that emerge from somewhere between Neil Young and Merseybeat. Amid garage-rock drumbeats and reverbed guitars, Jim James plaintively wonders, "Why does my mind go to bits every time they play that song?" Tomorrow night's show is sold out; Sunday at 9, with Sleepy Jackson opening; admission is $15 (Pareles).

* NEW YORK SALSA FESTIVAL, Madison Square Garden, 33rd Street and Seventh Avenue, Manhattan, (212) 465-6741. This annual all-star concert mixes and matches Latin musicians from New York and beyond. The headliners are two of the strongest singers in Latin music, Gilberto Santa Rosa and Oscar de León, whose voices trumpet the verbal and musical improvisations that are the province of the salsa sonero. The other performers include Johnny Pacheco, Ray Barretto, Papo Luca, Larry Harlow, Cheo Feliciano, Ismael Mirando, Adalberto Santiago, Ismael Quintana, Alfredo de la Fe, Jimmy Bosch, Roberto Roena and many more. Tomorrow night at 8; tickets are $59.50 to $99.50 (Pareles).

NIGHTWISH, L'Amour, 1545-63rd Street, near 15th Avenue, Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, (718) 837-9506. Hard-rock singers with high voices are routinely described as operatic, but Tarja Turunen, lead singer of this Finnish group, has done much more to deserve the adjective: she turns every song into an aria, and her band mixes chugging guitars with crashing pianos. Perhaps, with the huge success of the similar (but much less esoteric) American group Evanescence, Nightwish will pick up a few new fans. Doors open Sunday at 5 p.m., with Operatika and many other bands; tickets are $20 (Sanneh).

MIKE PATTON AND RAHZEL, Knitting Factory, 74 Leonard Street, TriBeCa, (212) 219-3006. Mr. Patton is the man with 1,000 voices, from assured crooning to electric-shock shrieking, who sang in the influential early 90's rock band Faith No More. Now he spreads his talents between the groups Tomahawk and Mr. Bungle while keeping up a list of collaborations. Here's a curious one: he teams up with Rahzel, the human-beatbox par excellence, who used to make drum noises with his mouth onstage with the Roots. Sunday night at 8 and 10:30; admission is $15 (Ratliff).

POLYGRAPH LOUNGE, Joe's Pub, at the Joseph Papp Public Theater, 425 Lafayette Street, at Astor Place, East Village, (212) 539-8778. Career sidemen with a bucketful of loony ideas, the two members of Polygraph Lounge see the history of popular music (from Tchaikovsky to Jimi Hendrix) as one big excuse to superimpose, say, the lyrics of "Green Acres" on the music of "Purple Haze." It's old-fashioned college humor, but very funny. Sunday night at 7; cover charge is $15 (Ratliff).

* RED HOT CHILI PEPPERS, QUEENS OF THE STONE AGE, PNC Bank Arts Center, Garden State Parkway, Exit 116, Holmdel, N.J., (732) 335-0400. Thanks largely to their adventurous (and relatively subtle) guitarist, John Fruiscante, the Red Hot Chili Peppers have gotten better — much better — with age. They'll undoubtedly prove it once again tomorrow night, mixing excellent songs from their two most recent albums with a few rather embarrassing old rap-rock tunes. Expect a typically brutal "robot rock" set from Queens of the Stone Age, who must be getting sick of playing songs from their great 2002 album "Songs for the Deaf." Tomorrow night at 7; tickets are $34.25 to $44.25 (Sanneh).

NED ROTHENBERG'S SYNC, Whitney Museum of American Art, 945 Madison Avenue, at 75th Street, (212) 570-3676, extension 4. Mr. Rothenberg, a saxophonist and clarinetist who is a strong, adventurous musician and conceptualist, will perform with his group Sync, an improvising trio including Jerome Harris on bass and guitar, and Samir Chatterjee on tables. Tonight at 7; pay what you wish (Ratliff).

LALO SCHIFRIN, Blue Note, 131 West Third Street, Greenwich Village, (212) 475-8592. Mr. Schifrin, born in Argentina, made his money writing soundtracks ("Mission Impossible," "Dirty Harry") but kept his hand in jazz; "Gillespiana," a long-form piece he wrote for Dizzy Gillespie, has been a favorite album of trumpeters for ages. His ensemble this week features the great bassist Ron Carter. Tonight through Sunday night at 8 and 10:30; cover charge is $25, and there is a $5 minimum (Ratliff).

JALEEL SHAW, MARCUS STRICKLAND GROUP, Jazz Gallery, 290 Hudson Street, at Spring Street, South Village, (212) 242-1063. The tenor saxophonist Marcus Strickland earns your trust, never blustering or throwing notes away, as he demonstrates a strong grounding in jazz's last 40 years; he has been playing in bands led by Roy Haynes, Eric Reed and Jeff Watts. And Jaleel Shaw, an alto saxophonist with the Mingus Big Band, is working some of the same territory. Tonight at 9 and 10:30 p.m.; cover charge is $15 a set, $10 for members (Ratliff).

SONNY SIMMONS, ANTHONY BRAXTON'S GHOST TRANCE TENTET, Bowery Poetry Club, 308 Bowery, near Bleecker Street, East Village, (212) 614-0505. Back in the 60's Mr. Simmons was one of the firebreathing saxophonists who recorded for the ESP label but had an attraction to structured music, too. Almost four decades later, he can still make some powerful music. Mr. Braxton's "Ghost Trance" material — reams and reams of through-composed music for groups of different sizes — has been his main preoccupation for five years or so. Mr. Simmons starts tonight at 10 and Mr. Braxton's group at 11:15; cover charge is $25 (Ratliff).

* THE SOUL OF JOHN BLACK, Joe's Pub, at the Joseph Papp Public Theater, 425 Lafayette Street, at Astor Place, East Village, (212) 539-8778 or (212) 239-6200. John Bigham, the guitarist and singer who leads the Soul of John Black, played percussion in Miles Davis's final band before spending eight years as a guitarist with Fishbone. His own songs merge guitar-strumming rock with strong undercurrents of funk and gospel; like Prince and Sly Stone, he contemplates life and death as the grooves roll by. Abenaa shares the bill. Tomorrow night at 7; tickets are $12 (Pareles).

THE SOUNDS, Luxx, 256 Grand Street, Williamsburg, Brooklyn, (718) 599-1000. A Swedish rock revival band that takes a slightly less single-minded approach than most, brightening its proto-punk with simple synthesizer melodies borrowed from new wave. Tomorrow night at 9; admission is $10 (Sanneh).

TOMMY STINSON, THE FIGGS, the Knitting Factory, 74 Leonard Street, TriBeCa, (212) 219-3006; Maxwell's, 1039 Washington Street, Hoboken, N.J., (201) 653-1703. The most famous tonsils in rock belong to Tommy Stinson, who was the wild-card lead guitarist in the Replacements when they belted "Tommy Gets His Tonsils Out." The Figgs join the pop-punk lineage that stretches back to the early, rowdy Beatles and any number of 1960's garage bands, making their guitars blare through the neat constructions of their songs. At the Knitting Factory tonight at 10; admission is $12. At Maxwell's tomorrow night at 9:30, with Jake Brennan opening; admission is $10 (Pareles).

BILLY BOB THORNTON, Irving Plaza, 17 Irving Place, at 15th Street, Manhattan, (212) 777-6800. Not content with praise for his acting and directing, Billy Bob Thornton indulges his lesser skills: songwriting and what passes for singing. Tonight at 8, with Holly Williams opening; tickets are $25 (Pareles).

VINX, S.O.B.'s (Sounds of Brazil), 204 Varick Street, at Houston Street, South Village, (212) 243-4940. Vinx is a charmer with his own twist on the potential of a one-man band. He's a singing percussionist who carries an orchestra in his throat. Tonight at 8:30; admission is $15 (Pareles).

WALKMEN, Maxwell's, 1039 Washington Street, Hoboken, N.J., (201) 653-1703. On "Everybody Who Pretended to Like Me Is Gone" (StarTime International), the Walkmen take elegiac songs and smear the edges: the guitars are slightly out of time, the keyboards sound as small as music boxes, and part of the appeal is hearing Hamilton Leithauser's weary vocals come unglued. Sunday night at 9, with Kaito; Monday night at 9, with Dead Meadow; admission is $15 (Sanneh).

* CASSANDRA WILSON, Battery Park, Pearl Street at State Street just west of the Staten Island Ferry terminal, Lower Manhattan, (212) 528-2733. Ms. Wilson, a jazz singer at heart though she's become much broader than the term implies, surrounds herself with an imaginative, magicked-up idea of American rural music. While her last album was mostly covers in the service of a Southern theme, her next, "Glamoured," due out in a month, is covers for the sake of covers; she sings songs by Sting, Bob Dylan and Abbey Lincoln over her typically slinky, misty group sound. Sunday afternoon at 2; free (Ratliff).

WITNESSES, Pianos, 158 Ludlow Street, at Stanton Street, Lower East Side, (212) 505-3733. Joining the garage-rock revival, the Witnesses bring back the sound of the early Rolling Stones. Tomorrow night at 8, with Angriest Pussycat and the Garrets opening; admission is $7 (Pareles).