April 23, 2004

Pop and Jazz Listings

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

ACOUSTIC AFRICAN SPECTACULAR, Satalla, 37 West 26th Street, Manhattan, (212) 576-1155. Acoustic doesn't mean quiet in this triple bill of West African music. It includes the Ghanian drummer Dolsi-naa Abubakari Lunna, playing talking-drum music from the Dagomba culture; the Fula Flute Ensemble, which centers on the assertive sound of the tambin, a flute associated with the Fulani people that has a penetrating tone roughened by the player's singing through the instrument, and the Senegalese djembe drummer Mamadou Guisse and his group Bakh Yaye. The evening's host is Banning Eyre, the author of "In Griot Time: An American Guitarist in Mali" (Temple University Press, 2000) and a mainstay of the public-radio program Afropop Worldwide (www.afropop.org). Tomorrow night at 8; admission is $18 (Jon Pareles).

BIO RITMO, ZEMOG EL GALLITO, the Knitting Factory Tap Bar, 74 Leonard Street, TriBeCa, (212) 219-3006. A double bill of salsa hybrids. Bio Ritmo, from Richmond, Va., mixes straightforward big-band salsa with tinges of jazz and Mozart. Zemog El Gallito, from Boston, rides danceable vamps toward improvisational detours out of Mingus and Sun Ra. Tomorrow night at 8; admission is $8 (Pareles).

* MARY J. BLIGE, MUSIQ, GLENN LEWIS, Radio City Music Hall, 1260 Avenue of the Americas, at 50th Street, (212) 632-4000. Back on her debut album in 1992, Mary J. Blige forged an urban-pop archetype: a woman tough enough for hip-hop and soulful enough to sing rhythm-and-blues. The ups and downs of her career ever since have provided drama that matches the dynamics of her big, untamed voice. She shares the bill with two of the many Stevie Wonder emulators in rhythm-and-blues: the high-minded Musiq and the rambling Glenn Lewis. Tonight and tomorrow night at 7:30; tickets, $39.50 to $99.75 (Pareles).

DEERHOOF, Northsix, 66 North Sixth Street, Williamsburg, Brooklyn, (718) 599-5103. There's no telling what will happen next in Deerhoof's songs. At any moment, they can jump from childlike singing to shifty-meter rock to punky clamor, but somehow they hold on to a tinge of innocent pop. Tonight at 9, with Dymaxion, 54-71 and Tim Barnes opening; tickets are $10 (Pareles).

MARK DRESSER AND RAY ANDERSON, Location One, 26 Greene Street, SoHo, (212) 334-3347. Mr. Dresser, the bassist, and Mr. Anderson, the trombonist, big names in the experimental jazz of the 1970's and 80's, have recently made a CD, "Nine Songs Together"; they'll perform duets. The evening also includes a set by Mr. Dresser alone, a formidable solo performer with great technique. Tonight at 8:30; admission is $10 (Ben Ratliff).

ESSEX GREEN, SODASTREAM, Fez, 380 Lafayette Street, at Great Jones Street, East Village, (212) 533-2680. Essex Green, from Brooklyn, prizes the seeming innocent of mid-1960's pop, with its airy harmonies and elaborate but buoyant structures. Sodastream, from Australia, has a 1960's streak, in mostly acoustic songs that seek the brooding delicacy of Nick Drake. Tonight at 9:30; admission is $10 (Pareles).

CURTIS FULLER, Iridium, 1650 Broadway, at 51st Street, (212) 582-2121. Trombonist for Benny Golson's Jazztet and Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers in the late 1950's and early 60's, Mr. Fuller can be a remarkable player, inspired in part by John Coltrane's language; it's fairly rare to see him leading a group these days. This one will include the trumpeter Wallace Roney and the drummer Louis Hayes. Tonight through Sunday night at 8 and 10, with an 11:30 set tonight and tomorrow night; cover charge is $27.50; minimum, $10 (Ratliff).

JAZZ MANDOLIN PROJECT, B. B. King Blues Club and Grill, 243 West 42nd Street, Manhattan, (212) 997-4144. Burlington, Vt., that hotbed of jam bands, has yielded not just Phish but also the Jazz Mandolin Project. Featuring Jamie Masefield on mandolin, it has a repertory that extends from Miles Davis to "Amazing Grace," the band jams mostly on acoustic instruments. The songwriter Jen Chapin opens Sunday night at 8; tickets are $12 in advance, $14 Sunday (Pareles).

* HOLLERTRONIX, B-Bar, 40 East Fourth Street, at the Bowery, East Village, (212) 475-2220. The Philadelphia-based D.J. team behind 2003's best party album, "Never Scared" (Turntable Lab), comes to town to chop up other people's records. Expect to hear new wave, bhangra, dancehall reggae and lots of crunk — the rowdy Southern hip-hop sub-genre. Tonight's party is to be followed by a brunch tomorrow afternoon. (They call it "Brunk," and they promise to serve "Ludicroissants.") Tonight after 10, with Nate the Great, DJ Technics and others. Tomorrow afternoon from 2 until 6, with Cutlazz Supreme, Twerkanomics and others. Admission to both parties is free (Kelefa Sanneh).

MASON JENNINGS, JASON COLLETT, Bowery Ballroom, 6 Delancey Street, near the Bowery, Lower East Side, (212) 533-2111. Mr. Jennings recently released "Use Your Voice" (Bar/None), a CD of sturdily written songs with a familiar ring to them. It's clear that Mr. Jennings is not unfamiliar with Bob Dylan. Mr. Collett sings winsome, well-worn songs that should appeal to disillusioned fans of Ryan Adams. Tonight at 9, with the Pierces; tickets are $15 (Sanneh).

LOCAL H, TriBeCa Rock Club, 16 Warren Street, TriBeCa, (212) 766-1070. Half a decade before the White Stripes made the rock duo trendy, Local H was knocking out tuneful, high-powered rock with just guitar, drums and voice. Tonight at 9, with Suffrajet and Scarlet Fields; admission is $12 (Pareles).

THE 90 DAY MEN, Maxwell's, 1039 Washington Street, Hoboken, N.J., (201) 653-1703. Guitar lines jump from one dissonance to the next; bass lines slink in contrary directions, and lyrics juggle ominous absurdities in the intricate, nervy songs of the 90 Day Men. Tonight at 10, with the Ankles and Houston McCoy opening; admission is $8 (Pareles).

* ORCHESTRE BAOBAB, Skirball Center, 566 LaGuardia Place, Greenwich Village, (212) 545-7536. Orchestre Baobab was formed in 1970 in Senegal, at a time when the Cuban and Congolese music that had been taken up across Africa was giving way to local styles. Its 1982 recordings, reissued as "Pirates Choice" (Nonesuch), revealed a band that eased through Cuban-style songs alongside crackling Senegalese rhythms and led to a reunion in 2001. Since then, the band's African, funk and Afro-Caribbean hybrids have ranged further and deeper, from suave rumbas to wailing griot-style songs. Tonight at 8; tickets are $30 and $35, or $26 to $30 for World Music Institute members (Pareles).

PLANKTON, Tonic, 107 Norfolk Street, near Delancey Street, Lower East Side, (212) 358-7503. Syd Straw has a big, gutsy, country-tinged voice, and in Plankton she joins some promising company: the pop-rock songwriter Don Piper, the versatile clarinetist Doug Weiselman and a ukulele player named Little Red Tiny Baby. Tonight at 8; admission is $12 (Pareles).

Q AND NOT U, MARY TIMONY, Bowery Ballroom, 6 Delancey Street, near the Bowery, Lower East Side, (212) 533-2111. Q and Not U, a band from Washington that updates (slightly) the spiky, anxious sound of the British new-wave group Gang of Four. Ms. Timony, the former lead singer for the indie-rock band Helium, writes weird, insinuative songs full of odd twists and mystical imagery that evoke progressive rock. Sunday night at 9, with the Boggs; tickets are $12 in advance, $14 at the door (Sanneh).

TODD RUNDGREN AND FRIENDS, Joe's Pub, 425 Lafayette Street, East Village, (212) 539-8778 or (212) 239-6200. Todd Rundgren's long career has extended from garage-rock to wistful pop to progressive rock to producing Grand Funk Railroad. In this benefit concert for Joe's Pub, he'll be playing acoustic versions of old favorites along with selections from "Up Against It," a musical he was commissioned to write for the Public Theater by Joseph Papp in 1989, based on an unfinished screenplay originally written for the Beatles by the savagely funny English playwright Joe Orton. Tomorrow night at 7:30; tickets are $150, including a reception after the show and a ticket to the Public's Central Park production of "Much Ado About Nothing" (Pareles).

* SOUND TRIBE SECTOR NINE, B. B. King Blues Club and Grill, 243 West 42nd Street, Manhattan, (212) 997-4144. Jam-band fans come to dance; dance-music fans strive for communal utopia. It was inevitable that they would meet, and in the instrumental jam band Sound Tribe Sector Nine they do, as the live musicians embrace the rhythms of drum-and-bass, house and other current dance music. Tonight at 8; tickets are $22 (Pareles).

* LUCIANA SOUZA, Joe's Pub, 425 Lafayette Street, East Village, (212) 239-6200 or (212) 539-8778. Ms. Souza, the jazz mezzo-soprano, who grew up in Brazil, has an alert, clear voice, with undertones of calm conversation and the sound of a well-rested intelligence. She is also a composer of intriguing art songs, and her most recent project has been setting Pablo Neruda poems to music, for a new album on Sunnyside called "Neruda." She'll be performing that music here, in duets with the pianist Ed Simon. Tonight at 9:30; cover charge is $20 (Ratliff).

SPIRIT MUSIC SEXTET FEATURING ME'SHELL NDEGEOCELLO, the Blue Note, 131 West Third Street, West Village, (212) 475-8592. Me'shell Ndegeocello's songs mingle jazz, funk, hip-hop, rhythm-and-blues, consciousness-raising and sensuality. She is likely to raise the jazz quotient in this engagement playing bass in the Spirit Music Sextet with Ron Blake on tenor saxophone, Michael Caine on piano, Chris Dave on drums, Peck Allmond on trumpet and, for a hip-hop tinge, DJ Jahi Sundance on turntables. Tonight through Sunday night at 8 and 10:30; admission is $20 at the bar and $30 at tables, with a $5 minimum at the tables and one drink at the bar (Pareles).

MARCUS STRICKLAND, Jazz Gallery, 290 Hudson Street, below Spring Street, South Village, (212) 242-1063. Here's a musician who earns your trust, never blustering or throwing notes away, as he demonstrates a strong grounding in jazz's last 40 years. Mr. Strickland, a young saxophonist who has been playing in bands led by Roy Haynes, Eric Reed and Jeff Watts, is one of the young players to keep an eye on. He appears with the pianist Danny Grissette, the bassist Vicente Archer and the drummer E. J. Strickland. Tonight at 9 and 10:30; admission is $15 a set, $10 for members (Ratliff).

SWEET MICKY, S.O.B.'s, 204 Varick Street, at Houston Street, SoHo, (212) 243-4940. Michel Martelly, or Sweet Micky, is the bad boy of compas, sometimes dressing in drag or making song lyrics bawdy as he stokes the party. Tonight at midnight and 2 a.m., with the folkloric Mikerline Dance Co.; tickets are $22 (Pareles).

TOWER OF POWER, Inter-Media Art Center, 370 New York Avenue, Huntington, N.Y., (631) 549-2787. A funk band from Oakland, Calif., that's renowned for the punch of its horn section, Tower of Power has persevered since the 1970's, concentrating less on songs (though it had moderate hits with "So Very Hard to Go" and "Don't Change Horses" in the early 1970's) than on a danceable groove. Tonight at 8 and 10:30; admission is $40, $30 for members (Pareles).

SIR CHARLES THOMPSON, Jazz Standard, 116 East 27th Street, Manhattan, (212) 576-2232. A pianist in his mid-80's, Mr. Thompson worked with Coleman Hawkins and the beboppers; he's a respected elder, and he doesn't often appear in New York. His band includes the bassist Earl May and the drummer Eddie Locke, veterans who have much of their own historical wisdom. 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).

THE WAIFS, Irving Plaza, 17 Irving Place, at 15th Street, Manhattan, (212) 777-6800. The Waifs are a young, frisky Australian band in love with older American music like folk-rock and the blues, singing about trains and city life and huffing up a storm on harmonica. Tonight at 8, with the Navigators opening; tickets are $16.50 (Pareles).

* WBAR-B-QUE, Lehman Lawn, Barnard College, Morningside Heights, (212) 854-6538. An outdoor concert sponsored by WBAR, the Barnard College radio station. The impressive line-up emphasizes neo-psychedelia: the performers are to include the free-rock collective No Neck Blues Band, the beyond-fey folkie Devendra Banhart, and others. (Full line-up: www.wbar.org.) Today at noon; free. Mr. Banhart is also scheduled to give a free performance on Sunday evening at 7:30 at Other Music, 15 East Fourth Street, East Village, (212) 477-8150 (Sanneh).

WHIRLING DERVISHES OF TURKEY, Town Hall, 123 West 43d Street, Manhattan, (212) 840-2824 or (212) 545-7536. In their long white robes and tall white hats, the dervishes of the Mevlevi order twirl like planets orbiting a sun as they enact a sema, a Sufi ritual of spiritual rebirth, with stately, otherworldly music and a soberly disciplined ecstasy. Tomorrow night at 8; tickets are $25 to $45, or $21 to $40 for World Music Institute members (Pareles).

* STEVE WILSON QUARTET, Village Vanguard, 178 Seventh Avenue South, at 11th Street, West Village, (212) 255-4037. Steve Wilson, a saxophonist, has been in demand all over the jazz world since the 90's; everybody wants his light sound and his total assimilation of postwar saxophone history, from Parker to Coleman. Tonight through Sunday night at 9 and 11; cover charge is $30 (Ratliff).

ZEN TRICKSTERS, TriBeCa Blues, 16 Warren Street, TriBeCa, (212) 766-1070. The Zen Tricksters got started two decades ago playing Grateful Dead songs. While they now have their own songs to jam on, they haven't forgotten their early repertory; no less a figure than Phil Lesh of the Dead has called on their expertise. Tomorrow night at 9; tickets are $15 (Pareles).