August 20, 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.

AFRICAN DIVAS 2004, S.O.B.'s (Sounds of Brazil), 204 Varick Street, at Houston Street, South Village, (212) 243-4940. Four women share this bill of African music just beginning to make itself heard here: the modal funk of the Ivory Coast. Monique Seka, Nayanka Bell and Affou Keita are from the Ivory Coast; Fifi Rafiatou is from Togo. The Ivorian women in the audience may be a show in themselves, twirling in big hoop skirts. Sunday night at 8 and 11; tickets are $22 in advance, $25 Sunday (Jon Pareles).

CARL ALLEN'S NEW SPIRIT, Sweet Rhythm, 88 Seventh Avenue South, above Bleecker Street, West Village, (212) 255-3626. Mr. Allen, a drummer, has been wherever the modern mainstream in New York has been for 20 years. This group includes the saxophonist Donald Harrison, the pianist Anthony Wonsey and the bassist Gerald Cannon. Tonight and tomorrow night at 8, 10 and midnight; cover charge is $20 (Ben Ratliff).

* ANTIBALAS, BURNT SUGAR, NUBLU ORCHESTRA, Delacorte Theater, Central Park, mid-park near 80th Street, (212) 539-8750; www.joespub.com.w. Antibalas delivers a New York makeover to Fela's Afrobeat, the Nigerian funk propelled by burly saxophones, fierce percussion and righteous anger. Performing constantly around New York has given the band a combined tightness and relaxation, the assurance that it can sustain and expand a groove until everyone is dancing. Two other large bands — Burnt Sugar, which draws on the eerie funk of Miles Davis in the 1970's, and the improvisatory Nublu Orchestra conducted by Butch Morris — share the bill. Tomorrow night at 7; free tickets are available the day of the show (Pareles).

BEATSTOCK, PNC Bank Arts Center, Garden State Parkway, Exit 116, Holmdel, N.J., (732) 335-0400. Pop with a dance beat, and sometimes with a Latin undercurrent, is the specialty of WKTU-FM, which is the sponsor of these two shows by current hitmakers and one-hit wonders dating back to the disco era. The lineup includes the Sugar Hill Gang, Doug E. Fresh, Judy Torres, Roc Project, Reina, Lasgo, Tina Ann, Mynt and Kevin Ceballo. At the PNC Bank Arts Center tomorrow night at 6, the lineup also includes Slick Rick and RuPaul; standing room tickets remain, $30. (Pareles).

BEAT THE DONKEY, Tonic, 107 Norfolk Street, near Delancey Street, Lower East Side, (212) 358-7503. Cyro Baptista, a Brazilian percussionist who is fond of melody and humor as well as rhythm, leads a troupe of percussionists and dancers in Beat the Donkey, a 10-member mini-carnival that goes hop-scotching through an international assortment of rhythms and funny noises. Tomorrow night at 8, with the Josh Rosemand unit; admission is $15 (Pareles).

DAN BERN, CITIZEN COPE, South Street Seaport, Pier 17 at Fulton Street, (212) 732-7678. Dan Bern has the Dust Bowl nasality of the young Bob Dylan, a mobile face, a slyly quizzical demeanor and a gift for transforming off-center observations into telling insights. Some of his songs are topical and short-lived, so his set list changes fast from show to show. Citizen Cope, who was once the disc jockey for the oddball hip-hop group Basehead, has gone on to a solo career of songs that move at leisurely tempos below his bluesy moan. Tonight at 6; free (Pareles).

PETER BERNSTEIN TRIO, Smoke, 2751 Broadway, at 106th Street, (212) 864-6662. An ever more refined Grant Green-inspired jazz guitarist, Mr. Bernstein is loved by musicians; at Smoke he has found a place to play more often over the last few years, both in his own group and in a band he leads along with Brad Mehldau. Tonight and tomorrow night at 9, 11 and 12:30; cover charge is $20 (Ratliff).

* GENE BERTONCINI, MICHAEL MOORE, Jazz Standard, 116 East 27th Street, Manhattan, (212) 576-2232. A whispering guitar-bass duo that has done subtle, transformative magic on standards for 30 years and recently reunited. Tonight through Sunday night at 7:30, 9:30 and 11:30; cover charge is $25, $20 on Sunday (Ratliff).

BODY COUNT, the Knitting Factory, 74 Leonard Street, TriBeCa, (212 219-3006. Ice-T's hard rock band, Body Count, was briefly notorious for "Cop Killer," a song more people heard about than heard. More than a decade later, Ice-T is taking time off from his acting career to growl with the band again. Tomorrow night at 11:30, with Live Black opening; tickets are $15 in advance, $18 tomorrow (Pareles).

CANTINERO, Joe's Pub, 425 Lafayette Street, East Village, (212) 539-8778 or (212) 239-6200. Cantinero is Chris Hicken, an Englishman now living in New York. His songs hint at memories of Beatles ballads, with some latter-day touches of anxiety and disorientation. Tonight at 9:30; tickets are $12 (Pareles).

CD 101.9 NY JAZZ FEST, Rumsey Playfield, Central Park , mid-park at 69th Street, (212) 352-1019. The lite-jazz station presents a weekend of music. Today at 6 p.m., the singer Al Jarreau, a genial crooner who can also emulate virtually any instrument, shares a bill with the singer Regina Belle, who has eased her way from pop-soul toward jazz, and the saxophonist David Sanborn. The concert tomorrow at 4 p.m. brings Rite of Strings, a group featuring Al DiMeola on guitar, Jean-Luc Ponty on violin and Stanley Clarke on bass, along with the saxophonist Michael Brecker and the guitarist Robben Ford. Sunday's concert, at 3 p.m., features the positive-thinking pop-soul songwriter India Arie and Soulive, an organ-guitar-drums trio that harks back to the 1950's and 60's, playing meaty, blues-centered jazz, along with the trombonist and keyboardist Brian Culbertson and the saxophonist Kim Waters. Shows begin today at 4 p.m., tomorrow at 2 p.m. and Sunday at 1 p.m. ; tickets for each show are $40 (Pareles).

GUY DAVIS, Satalla, 37 West 26th Street, Manhattan, (212) 576-1155. Guy Davis reaches back to rural fingerpicking blues for songs full of jovial syncopation. Tonight at 8; admission is $15 (Pareles).

GAVIN DeGRAW, Delacorte Theater, Central Park, mid-park near 80th Street, (212) 539-8750. Gavin DeGraw is a piano-playing songwriter who makes his way between Billy Joel and Hall and Oates. He shares the bill with two other songwriters, Toby Lightman and Michael Tolcher. Sunday night at 7; tickets are $25, or $20 for Public Theater members (Pareles).

IRIS DeMENT, Inter-Media Art Center, 370 New York Avenue, Huntington, N.Y., (631) 549-2787. Iris DeMent brings the high, clear voice of an Appalachian singer to songs about a confusing modern world. Tomorrow night at 9; tickets are $37.50 (Pareles).

FACE TO FACE, Irving Plaza, 17 Irving Place, at 15th Street, Manhattan, (212) 777-6800. Another long-running band is calling it quits. After 12 years, the idealistic punk band Face to Face is playing its final series of shows. Tomorrow and Sunday night at 8, with My Chemical Romance and Seconds to Go opening tomorrow and Senses Fail and Say Anything on Sunday; tickets are $17 in advance, $20 on the day. (Pareles).

GOLDEN SMOG, Bowery Ballroom, 6 Delancey Street, near the Bowery, Lower East Side, (212) 533-2111. Golden Smog brings together assorted luminaries of alternative country and indie-rock, including Gary Louris and Marc Perlman of the Jayhawks, Dan Murphy of Soul Asylum and Kraig Johnson of Run, Westy, Run. Sunday and Monday night at 8, with Martha Wainwright opening; tickets are $20 in advance, $25 at the door (Pareles).

GUITARBEQUE, Stone Pony, 913 Ocean Avenue, Asbury Park, N.J., (732) 502-0600; Paramount Theater, 1300 Ocean Avenue, Asbury Park, N.J., (732) 775-3533. A weekend of blues-rooted guitarists meets a barbecue cook-off on the Jersey Shore. Nightly concerts begin with Junior Brown, the twisted country traditionalist who plays the doublenecked guit-steel, which allows him to play biting electric guitar leads in one verse and suave steel guitar in the next, on a double bill with the gravel-voiced, fingerpicking, globe-hopping Taj Mahal. At the Stone Pony tonight at 8; tickets are $25. Tomorrow night at 8 at the Paramount, the festival continues with the double bill of Jorma Kaukonen, who founded Hot Tuna and explores connections between rural blues and country in his Blue Country group, and Guy Davis, who favors the good-timey side of old-fashioned fingerpicking blues; tickets are $25. Sunday night at 8 at the Paramount brings the smooth jazz of the Robben Ford Band on a bill with Eric Warren; tickets are $25. There are free concerts tomorrow, from 2:30 to 7 p.m. and Sunday from 11:30 a.m. to 7 p.m. at Bradley Park across the street from the Paramount. Full information: www.ecmeguitarbeque.com (Pareles).

* HARLEM AFRICAN MUSIC FESTIVAL, Marcus Garvey Park Amphitheater, Mount Morris Park West and 122d Street, (718) 731-3253. A free all-day festival of African music includes Monique Seka, Affou Keita, Miriam Fatim, Mawa Traore, Dodo Pelagie and King Angelo from the Ivory Coast; King Mensah and Fifi Fariatou from Togo; Baba Ara and Emperor Adiche from Nigeria; Martin N'Terry from Burkina Faso; and Rascalimu from Ghana. Sunday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. (Pareles).

* IRIE JAMBOREE, Roy Wilkins Park, Baisley and Merrick Boulevards, Jamaica, Queens, (888) 474-3692. An all-day reggae party with a typically overstuffed (and impressive) line-up, including a rare New York City appearance by the swaggering veteran Shabba Ranks. Also scheduled to appear: the fearsome "warlord" Bounty Killer, the dancehall pioneer Barrington Levy, the brash battler Cécile, the infectious boy band (or, more accurately, man band) T.O.K. and many more. (Full list:iriejamboree.com.) Sunday afternoon at noon; tickets are $40 (Kelefa Sanneh).

* FREEDY JOHNSTON, Lakeside Lounge, 162 Avenue B, at 10th Street, Lower East Side, (212) 529-8463. Freedy Johnston's finely turned country-rock songs have carefully balanced melodies that he sings in a winsome tenor. But for all their classic symmetry, they're the confessions of some some desperate, unsavory and unbalanced characters. Tomorrow night at 11; free (Pareles).

PATTI LABELLE, FLOETRY, Radio City Music Hall, 1260 Avenue of the Americas, at 50th Street, (212) 632-4000. Patti Labelle tears into her love songs with the over-the-top emotionality of a well-traveled soul diva, soaring toward the heavens or growling to get earthy. Floetry, an English duo of a rapper and a singer, is determined to bring some thoughtful messages to the hip-hop-R&B merger. Tomorrow night at 7; tickets are $59.75 to $105.75 (Pareles).

* LEGENDARY CONGUEROS, Satalla, 37 West 26th Street, Manhattan, (212) 576-1155. Carlos Patato Valdes and Candido Camero, two conga drummers with hard hands and an explosive understanding of Afro-Cuban rhythms, will trade salvos of percussion with a Latin band led by the drummer Bobby Sanabria. Tomorrow night at 8 and 10; tickets are $20 in advance, $25 tomorrow (Pareles).

LOSER'S LOUNGE TRIBUTE TO THE HEROES OF THE LOWER EAST SIDE, CBGB, 315 Bowery, at Bleecker Street, East Village, (212) 982-4052. Joe McGinty and his troupe of interpreters venture into the cradle of punk-rock to play some of the songs first heard there: music by New York bands including the Ramones, Blondie, Television, Patti Smith, Talking Heads and Richard Hell. Tonight at 8 and 10; tickets are $15 (Pareles).

* TONY MALABY TRIO, Barbes, 376 Ninth Street, at Sixth Avenue, Park Slope, Brooklyn, (718) 965-9177. Open to freefall but schooled in harmony and rhythmically poised, Mr. Malaby pokes holes in the barriers between inside and outside jazz; it's exciting music. The band includes the pianist Angelica Sanchez and the drummer Tom Rainey. Tonight at 9; admission is $8 (Ratliff).

JOHNNY MATHIS, Westbury Music Fair, 960 Brush Hollow Road, Westbury, N.Y., (516) 334-0800. The smoothie of smoothies, Johnny Mathis has been crooning for romantic moments ever since the late 1950's, setting a standard for effortless seduction that many pop Romeos still envy. Tonight and tomorrow night at 8; tickets are $56.50 (Pareles).

* BILL McHENRY QUARTET, Cornelia Street Cafe, 29 Cornelia Street, Greenwich Village, (212) 989-9319. Like players decades ago, young Mr. McHenry comes with a sound before anything else, big and round; he likes playing slowly and choosing his moves. Hearing his compositions, you know right away that Ornette Coleman is one of his gods; hearing his tone and rhythm, you reason that Don Byas must be in there too. Tonight and tomorrow, music begins at 8:30; cover charge is $8 to $12 and there is a one-drink minimum (Ratliff).

THE MOONEY SUZUKI, Maxwell's, 1039 Washington Street, Hoboken, N.J., (201) 798-0406; Northsix, 66 North Sixth Street, Williamburg, Brooklyn, (718) 599-5103. The Mooney Suzuki determinedly resurrects mid-1960's garage-rock. Sexy Magazines is the opening act. At Maxwell's tonight at 10; tickets are $12. At Northsix tomorrow night at 9; admission is $12 (Pareles).

* CHARLIE PARKER JAZZ FESTIVAL, tomorrowat Marcus Garvey Park, 124th Street and Mt. Morris Park, Harlem; Sunday at Tompkins Square Park, East 7th Street between Avenues A and B; (212) 360-8290 or www.cityparksfoundation.org. An annual event now under the aegis of the City Parks Foundation, the Charlie Parker Jazz Festival is where hometown jazz musicians go to hang out and be around one another. It's an honest, low-key thing, the jazz scene at its best in some ways: the concert is for the neighborhood audiences and the musicians, not for promoters or advertisers or anyone else. Tomorrow's show in Harlem, starting at 3, includes Rachel Z, Vanessa Rubin, Donald Harrison and Jimmy Heath. Sunday's show on the Lower East Side includes Terri Lyne Carrington, Kenny Garrett, Frank Morgan and Mr. Heath again, who in both concerts will present a new composition commissioned by the City Parks Foundation, "Bird Is the Word." More information at (Ratliff).

* MADELEINE PEYROUX, Housing Works Used Books Cafe, 126 Crosby Street, SoHo, (212) 334-3324. Before Norah Jones came along, Madeleine Peyroux was singing her own tenderly melancholy mixture of Billie Holiday, country and pop. Her next album, "Careless Love" (Rounder), is due on Sept. 14, placing songs by Leonard Cohen and Elliott Smith alongside Hank Williams. She's sharing a bill with Marc Broussard and Griffin House. Tonight at 7:30; tickets are $25 (Pareles).

ROOTS OF AMERICAN MUSIC FESTIVAL, North Plaza and Damrosch Park, Lincoln Center, (212) 875-5766. A weekend of afternoon and evening concerts brings together all sorts of music connected to traditions. Tonight's headliner, at 9 p.m. at Damrosch Park, is the Saw Doctors, a band hugely popular in its native Ireland for small-town songs that turn into rousing sing-alongs. That concert also includes the Navigators at 7 and the Lee Boys at 8, playing what's called sacred steel — gospel songs in which pedal steel guitar sings and swoops through the songs. Today at the North Plaza at 3 will be Rani Arbo and Daisy Mayhem, playing old-timey music, followed by a Canadian-Ukrainian group called Zeellia at 4, the Memphis blues singer Sid Selvidge at 5 and a rockabilly group called the Starlight Drifters at 6. Tomorrow's headliner is Arlo Guthrie, performing old and new songs and telling tall tales, at 9 p.m. at Damrosch Park. He's preceded at 7 by the rhythm-and-blues shouter Nappy Brown and the King Bees and at 8 p.m. by the Irish singer Rosemary Woods. Tomorrow's afternoon show on the North Plaza starts at 1 with children's stories by Sheila's Brush Theater Company, followed by songwriters hourly: Ian Bell at 2, Evalyn Perry at 3, Enoch Kent at 4, Ronny Elliott at 5 and David Olney at 6. Admission to all shows is free (Pareles).

MICHAEL W. SMITH, MERCYME, Radio City Music Hall, 1260 Avenue of the Americas, at 50th Street, (212) 247-4777.. A night of Christian pop praise and worship songs, with the piano-centered tunes of Michael W. Smith and the earnest rock of MercyMe. The David Crowder Band is also on the bill. Tonight at 7:30; tickets are $40.50 to $80.50 (Pareles).

* SUFJAN STEVENS, Mercury Lounge, 217 East Houston Street, at Ludlow Street, Lower East Side, (212) 260-4700. Last year, this captivating singer and songwriter released "Greetings From Michigan: The Great Lake State" (Asthmatic Kitty), which he said was the first in a series of albums about all the states. Having completed 2 percent of his task, he switched directions and released the stripped-down "Seven Swans" (Sounds Familyre), a gorgeous, hushed CD full of glowing songs of love and faith. Tonight at 9, with Jim Guthrie (from the Toronto indie-rock band Royal City) and the Sea Snakes; tickets are $10 (Sanneh).

STIFF LITTLE FINGERS, Irving Plaza, 17 Irving Place, at 15th Street, Manhattan, (212) 777-6800. Before Rancid revived the political fervor and punk and ska momentum of the Clash, Stiff Little Fingers were around to insist that the Clash had the right ideas all along. Throw Rag and the God Awfuls are the opening acts. Tonight at 8; tickets are $20 (Pareles).

* McCOY TYNER, Blue Note, 131 West Third Street, West Village, (212) 475-8592. Mr. Tyner, the pianist in John Coltrane's 1960's quartet, has been sounding great lately, strong and focused and imposing, with an invigorating new band. Tonight through Sunday night at 8 and 10:30; cover charge at the tables is $40 with a $5 minimum, $30 at the bar with a one-drink minimum (Ratliff).

"VISION HOWL," St. Nicholas of Myra Church, 288 East 10th Street, Lower East Side, (212) 696-6681;www.visionfestival.org. The organizers of the annual Vision Festival, Arts for Art, contribute their free-jazz component to the multi-media Howl! festival, which spreads across the Lower East Side this weekend. Organizing into duos and trios and bigger, louder principalities, the participants includes the bassist William Parker, the trumpeters Lewis Flip Barnes and Matt Lavelle, the guitarist Joe Morris, the violinist Billy Bang and many more. Tomorrow night from 7:30 to 9:30 p.m. and 10 p.m to midnight; admission to each show is $10, with a $5 drink minimum (Ratliff).

* CEDAR WALTON TRIO, Village Vanguard, 178 Seventh Avenue South, at 11th Street, West Village, (212) 255-4037. With strong hands and tidy arranging impulses, Mr. Walton has established himself as one of the finest mainstream jazz players in New York, if not in the world; he is a commanding performer. Tonight through Sunday night at 9 and 11; cover charge is $30 (Ratliff).