November 14, 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.

ABAJI, Satalla, 37 West 26th Street, Chelsea, (212) 576-1155. Born in Beirut, Abaji plays various stringed and wind instruments in fusions of Middle Eastern and European styles. Tonight at 7:30 as part of an evening of music presented by the French Music Office; admission is free (Jon Pareles).

AEROSMITH, KISS, Arena at Harbor Yard, 600 Main Street, Bridgeport, Conn., (203) 345-2400; Madison Square Garden, 33rd Street and Seventh Avenue, Manhattan, (212) 465-6741. Two durable arena-rock trademarks are still on the road. Since Aerosmith's first heyday in the 1970's and with its resurgence in the 1990's, its songwriting team, Steven Tyler and Joe Perry, has created a durable cartoon of teenage romance, always ricocheting between extremes. The band's songs are half snickering double-entendres (with genuine blues and rhythm-and-blues roots) and half self-absorbed, heart-on-sleeve power ballads. All Kiss had to do was put the makeup back on, hook up the fireworks and stage blood and voila! Nostalgic old fans raced younger thrill-seekers for tickets. The heavy-breathing songs are workmanlike; the spectacle is its own reward. At Arena at Harbor Yard tonight at 7: tickets are $89.50 and $139.50. At Madison Square Garden Sunday night at 7:30; tickets are $49.50 to $175 (Pareles).

JOHN BENITEZ QUINTET, Jazz Gallery, 290 Hudson Street, below Spring Street, South Village, (212) 242-1063. This Puerto Rican bassist has become one of the most valuable parts of the new Latin-jazz scene in New York; he has recently been seen leading a number of different bands, and this is yet another. It includes Ivan Rentas on tenor saxophone, Luis Bonilla on trombone, Luis Perdomo on piano and Tony Escapa on drums. Tonight and tomorrow night at 9 and 10:30; admission is $15, $10 for members (Ben Ratliff).

BRIAN JONESTOWN MASSACRE, Mercury Lounge, 217 East Houston Street, at Ludlow Street, Lower East Side, (212) 260-4700. With songs like "If Love Is the Drug, Then I Want To O.D.," Brian Jonestown Massacre harks back to the 1980's British rock that merged punk iconoclasm with woozy memories of psychedelia. Tomorrow night at 11, with the Ankles at 8, the Capitol Years at 9 and the High Strung at 10; tickets are $10 in advance, $12 tomorrow (Pareles).

VINICIUS CANTUÁRIA, Tonic, 107 Norfolk Street, near Delancey Street, Lower East Side, (212) 358-7503. Mr. Cantuária, a Brazilian songwriter who has lived in New York since the mid-1990's, is steeped in the bossa nova and knows it well enough to extend it in personal ways. Tonight at 8 and 10; admission is $15 plus a one-drink minimum per set (Pareles).

* BILL CHARLAP TRIO, Village Vanguard, 178 Seventh Avenue South, at 11th Street, West Village, (212) 255-4037. Mr. Charlap, the jazz pianist, is not a composer, but in repertory his thinking is directed toward American jazz and theater songs and, in execution, toward certainties: speed, fluency, constant variation, wit. Though the playing never rises above medium volume, it isn't staid music; Mr. Charlap's tight trio (with the bassist Peter Washington and the drummer Kenny Washington) comes armed with dozens of quickly deployable ideas about how to freshen performances. Tonight through Sunday night at 9 and 11, with a 12:30 set tomorrow; cover charge is $30 tonight and tomorrow, $25 on Sunday (Ratliff).

CROOKED FINGERS, AZURE RAY, the Knitting Factory, 74 Leonard Street, TriBeCa, (212) 219-3006. Crooked Fingers is the project of Erich Bachmann, formerly of Archers of Loaf; on "Red Devil Dawn" (Merge), he shudders and croaks through songs that aim to conjure up the ragged glory of older American singer-songwriters, with mixed results. Azure Ray, a female duo, recently released "Hold on Love" (Saddle Creek), a collection of hushed songs that whisper along without ever quite taking hold. Tomorrow night at 9, with Paper Cranes and the bombastic neo-folkie Dave Dondero; tickets are $12 (Kelefa Sanneh).

DONNA THE BUFFALO, THE CAMPBELL BROTHERS, Bowery Ballroom, 6 Delancey Street, near the Bowery, Lower East Side, (212) 533-2111. Donna the Buffalo is not named after its fiddler and singer, Tara Nevins. The band's good-natured rock leans toward the Appalachian side of country music, with songs that ponder love and humanity's place in the universe. It has a hard act to follow: the Campbell Brothers, who are part of the sacred steel tradition of the House of God, Dominion church. The Campbell Brothers turns the steel guitar into a swooping, wailing lead instrument in gospel songs. Some friendly sibling rivalry between Chuck Campbell, on pedal-steel guitar, and Darick Campbell, on lap-steel guitar, only revs things up further; another brother, Phillip Campbell, is on bass, with his son Carlton Campbell on drums. Tomorrow night at 8; admission is $15 (Pareles).

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 is one of the up-and-coming musicians that elder players have high hopes for. Tonight at 9:30 ; cover charge is $5 at the bar, $10 at the tables (Ratliff).

* BENNY GOLSON QUARTET, Smoke, 2751 Broadway, at 106th Street, (212) 864-6662. Mr. Golson, in his mid-70's, is an unlikely jazz hero: upbeat, fascinated with technique, a nonpurist who has spent equal time among the different aesthetic dispositions of East and West Coast jazz, a tinkerer who has written soul-jazz standards like "Killer Joe" as well as his own classical music. Above all, he is a first-class saxophone improviser, a Philadelphia colleague of John Coltrane going back to the mid-1940's whose own notions of phrasing and harmony have been deeply influenced by his friend's. The quartet plays tonight and tomorrow night at 9, 11 and 12:30; cover charge is $30 (Ratliff).

* DAVE HOLLAND QUINTET, Birdland, 315 West 44th Street, Manhattan, (212) 581-3080. Mr. Holland's group, which has become sophisticated beyond recognition since the mid-1990's, represents a pinnacle of small-group arranging, though not in a fussy way. The arranging is almost antifussy, given the perseverance of its ostinatos and its funky cycling grooves; those grooves are subtle, and they keep changing. Improvised counterpoint is probably the best kind, and what these players can do in performance, repeatedly, in various combinations — including Robin Eubanks on trombone, Chris Potter on saxophones and clarinet, Steve Nelson on vibraphone, Billy Kilson on drums and Mr. Holland on bass — can astonish you. Tonight and tomorrow at 9 and 11; cover charge is $35, and there is a $10 minimum (Ratliff).

INTI-ILLIMANI, Satalla, 37 West 26th Street, Chelsea, (212) 576-1155; Queens Theater in the Park, Flushing Meadows-Corona Park, (718) 760-0064. Inti-Illimani, from Chile, is fond of traditional Andean music and the hybrids that layer together American Indian, Spanish and African elements. With traditional flutes, panpipes, percussion and charango (small guitar) alongside clarinets and fiddle, the group's repertory includes new songs in courtly, old-fashioned styles along with traditional tunes. At Satalla, tomorrow night at 8 and 10; admission is $25. At Queens Theater in the Park, tomorrow at 11 a.m. and 1 p.m.; tickets, $12, $9 for members (Pareles).

* HANK JONES QUINTET, Fat Cat, 75 Christopher Street, West Village, (212) 675-6056.Mr. Jones, who made his first album in 1947, can improvise with such a minimum of fuss that it's not immediately obvious how many idioms he shuttles among: you hear bebop, drawling blues, a little repeated riff, some refracted harmony. Throughout, there is swing, sure and steady, and a seemingly endless number of songlike phrases that could conceivably have come from any part of American popular music in the last 50 years. This weekend Mr. Jones plays a group that includes the fabulous saxophonist Frank Wess and the drummer Mickey Roker. Tonight and tomorrow at 10 and Sunday night at 9; cover charge is $15 (Ratliff).

LITTLE FEAT, Community Theater, 100 South Street, Morristown, N.J., (973) 539-8008; B. B. King Blues Club and Grill, 243 West 42nd Street, Manhattan, (212) 997-4144. In the 1970's Little Feat merged the South and Southern California, giving blues and funk some surreal Hollywood twists. The death of its founder and conceptualizer, Lowell George, in 1979 broke up the band for nearly a decade, but the other members couldn't resist the sound they had made and regrouped in 1988. They have added an old friend, the guitarist Fred Tackett, and a female lead singer, Shaun Murphy, and are on a tour playing acoustic instruments. At the Community Theater tonight at 8; tickets are $32 to $37. At B. B. King Blues Club tomorrow night at 8 and 10:30; tickets are $25 in advance, $30 tomorrow (Pareles).

* PAT METHENY, Beacon Theater, Broadway at 74th Street, (212) 496-7070. One of the most influential living jazz musicians tonight in two contexts: the first recreates the music of his solo acoustic-guitar album "One Quiet Night," with deep harmony and some beautiful, inward-gazing folk-pop ideas; the second is his dynamic trio, bringing it back to improvisation and jazz. Tonight at 8; tickets are $48.50 and $68.50 (Ratliff).

* MOLOTOV, EL GRAN SILENCIO, MALDITA VECINDAD, RABANES, YERBA BUENA, Hammerstein Ballroom, 311 West 34th Street, Manhattan, (212) 307-7171. Rock is still rebel music in Latin America, and this all-star bill promises to be a joyful demonstration of the music's vitality as it knocks together local and imported ideas. The lineup encompasses the punk roar and mosh-pit frenzy of Molotov; the high-powered rock, cumbia and hip-hop hybrids of El Gran Silencio; the punk-ska of Maldita Vecindad and Rabanes; and the African-Caribbean hip-hop hybrids of Yerba Buena. The concert is tonight at 6:30; tickets are $20 (Pareles).

* MORR MUSIC TOUR, Luxx, 256 Grand Street, near Roebling Street, Williamsburg, Brooklyn, (718) 599-1000; the Knitting Factory, 74 Leonard Street, TriBeCa, (212) 219-3006. The German record label Morr Music is known for gently experimental work that draws from indie-rock and electronica. This tour features Ms. John Soda, a band that wraps up its songs in warm, gurgling textures, alongside the intriguing electronic producers B. Fleischmann and Christian Kleine. At Luxx tomorrow night at 8; tickets are $12. At the Knitting Factory Sunday night at 8; tickets are $12 (Sanneh).

NEW WINDS, Location One, 26 Greene Street, SoHo, (212) 334-3347. A handful of inventive saxophone, brass and flute players from jazz and new music — Herb Robertson, Robert Dick, Ned Rothenberg, Sayuri Goto, Reuben Radding, Federico Ughi, Daniel Carter — gathered in an ensemble that started its life in the 1980's. Tonight at 8:30; admission is $12 (Ratliff).

LEO NOCENTELLI, BERNIE WORRELL AND RUSSELL BATISTE, B. B. King Blues Club and Grill, 243 West 42nd Street, Manhattan, (212) 997-4144. New Orleans funk — with the Funky Meters' guitarist, Leo Nocentelli, and drummer, Russell Batiste — meets P-Funk's keyboardist, Bernie Worrell. Tonight at 8; tickets are $20 (Pareles).

MARK O'CONNOR'S HOT SWING TRIO, Iridium, 1650 Broadway, at 51st Street, (212) 582-2121. This creditable and indeed swinging jazz group led by Mr. O'Connor, the bluegrass fiddler, always brings Stephane Grappelli and Django Reinhardt to mind. Tonight through Sunday night at 9 and 110; cover charge is $35 tonight and Sunday, $37.50 tomorrow, and there is a $10 minimum all nights (Ratliff).

ARTURO O'FARRILL TRIO, Up Over Jazz Cafe, 351 Flatbush Avenue, at Seventh Avenue, Prospect Heights, Brooklyn, (718) 398-5413. Mr. O'Farrill, son of the composer and arranger Chico O'Farrill, came into his father's band through the piano chair and now, since the father's death in 2001, has become its boss; more recently he became leader of Lincoln Center's impressive new Afro-Latin Jazz Orchestra. He is as conceptually invested in Afro-Cuban jazz as his father was, but in his own band he gets the jolt of the new by collaborating with the great younger players. Tonight and tomorrow night at 9, 11 and 12:30; cover charge is $18 and there is $5 minimum (Ratliff).

POI DOG PONDERING, Bowery Ballroom, 6 Delancey Street, near the Bowery, Lower East Side, (212) 533-2111. Poi Dog Pondering predates most of the current crop of jam bands, but it is just as eclectic. Its tales of free association and woe are set to upbeat blues, gospel, country-rock, funk and smatterings of world music. Tonight at 8, with Abra Moore opening; tickets are $20 (Pareles).

WALTER SALAS-HUMARA, Tonic, 107 Norfolk Street, near Delancey Street, Lower East Side, (212) 358-7503. Mr. Salas-Humara, leader of the Silos, learned a lot from Bob Dylan, the Band and the Velvet Underground. He is on his own for this show, on a bill with his fellow songwriters Amy Allison and Pete Galub. Sunday night at 8; admission is $8 (Pareles).

* RAVI SHANKAR AND ANOUSHKA SHANKAR, Carnegie Hall, 881 Seventh Avenue, at 57th Street, Manhattan, (212) 501-1390. Ravi Shankar single-handedly opened the subtleties of Indian classical improvisation to a Western audience — not by simplifying the music, but by directly communicating the songful delicacy and speedy, virtuosic delights of the raga. He shares the stage with his daughter and musical disciple Anoushka, a skillful player who is finding her own voice as an improviser. Tomorrow night at 8; tickets are $24 to $87 (Pareles).

GRANT STEWART QUARTET, Kavehaz, 37 West 26th Street, Chelsea, (212) 343-0612. Mr. Stewart was one of the saxophonists often booked at Smalls in the latter half of the 90's, in a group that included Myron Walden, Greg Tardy, Charles Owens and Mark Turner; he is a skillful postbop player. Tonight and tomorrow night at 11; no cover charge (Ratliff).

DEREK TRUCKS BAND, VUSI MAHLASELA, Town Hall, 123 West 43rd Street, Manhattan, (212) 840-2824. Mr. Trucks, a nephew of Butch Trucks, drummer for the Allman Brothers, has become a full-time member of his uncle's band, and he leads his own blues-rocking band between Allman Brothers gigs. The opening act is a rarer visitor: Vusi Mahlasela was one of the most important songwriters of the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa, not just for his political courage but also for his sterling voice and for three-chord rockers that make earnest sentiments bounce. The concert is tomorrow night at 7:30; tickets are $25 (Pareles).

PAUL VAN DYK, the Roxy, 515 West 18th Street, Chelsea, (212) 645-5156. This German progressive-house D.J. and producer has two current releases. "Global" (Mute), a CD and DVD package, pairs some of his most popular tracks with video clips from the D.J.'s never-ending world tour. "Reflections" (Mute) is a new album that finds Mr. van Dyk collaborating with a wide range of vocalists; the result is a rather banal collection of pop songs interrupted by slightly less banal rhythmic breaks. Expect a long night full of the usual dancefloor-pleasing devices: heroic synthesizer lines, sudden (or gradual) volume changes and lots of wooshing sounds. Tonight after 11, with Luis Diaz; advance tickets are $35; at the door, $40 (Sanneh).

VISION COLLABORATION FESTIVAL, St. Patrick's Youth Center, 268 Mulberry Street, Little Italy, www.visionfestival.org. A two-day music-and-dance event, brought to you by the same people who put on the annual Vision festival in early summer. The performances run from about 8 to 11 each night and are broken up into pairings of musicians and dancers: tonight's lineup includes the violinist Mat Maneri with the dancer Christine Coppola at 8, and the dancer Yoshiko Chuma, the poet Bob Holman and the violinist Billy Bang at 10. Tomorrow's schedule includes the dancers K. J. Holmes and Ray Chung with the trumpeters Roy Campbell and Baikida Carroll, at 8:30. Admission is $20 a night or $30 for a two-day pass; tickets are sold at the door only. (Ratliff).

"WAIL: THE MUSIC OF BUD POWELL," Jazz Standard, 116 East 27th Street, Manhattan, (212) 576-2232. No jazz musician ever loses sight of Bud Powell, no matter how he comes to jazz. To prove it, here are a number of musicians who travel the outer lines of jazz, through involvement in experiments with style or repertory: the saxophonist Greg Osby, the trumpeter Steven Bernstein, the pianists Uri Caine and Rodney Kendrick. On bass and drums are two musicians more central to Powell's bebop legacy: Dwayne Burno and Billy Drummond. Tonight through Sunday night at 7:30 and 9:30, with an 11:30 set tonight and tomorrow; cover charge is $25, $20 on Sunday (Ratliff).

* GILLIAN WELCH, Town Hall, 123 West 43rd Street, Manhattan, (212) 840-2824. Ms. Welch wasn't born to sing dour, death-haunted Appalachian songs — she's from Los Angeles — but she and David Rawlings, her guitarist and collaborator, have reinvented that music without a hint of irony or condescension. Singing melodies that sound as if they came from the backwoods, with a tight little tremor in her voice, Ms. Welch conjures the stoic perseverance, hard times and stubborn faith of a mythic rural America. Lately she has been delving into her own memories as well. Tonight at 8; tickets are $25 (Pareles).

KELLER WILLIAMS, Irving Plaza, 17 Irving Place, at 15th Street, Manhattan, (212) 777-6800. Mr. Williams is a skillful guitarist and one-man band, using echo boxes and other gadgets to multiply his quick-fingered lines into upbeat funk. His mild-mannered James Taylor voice and his songs have not caught up with his grooves. Tomorrow night at 9; tickets are $18.50 (Pareles).

YONDER MOUNTAIN STRING BAND, Irving Plaza, 17 Irving Place, at 15th Street, Manhattan, (212) 777-6800. Yonder Mountain String Band, from Colorado, carries a traditionalist bluegrass lineup — banjo, guitar, mandolin and bass, with high vocal harmonies and no drums — onto the jam-band circuit, picking its way through songs of wanderlust and thwarted love. Lately, its picking has been sampled by the rapper Bubba Sparxxx in his "Comin' Round." Tonight at 9, with the fiddler Darol Anger and Citigrass opening; tickets are $19.50 (Pareles).