August 27, 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.

AGATSUMA, North Plaza, Lincoln Center, (212) 875-5456. The shamisen is an ancient Japanese instrument that sounds like a banjo with more of a snap. Agatsuma is a rock musician who has put the shamisen at the center of his songs. Tonight at 6; free (Jon Pareles).

AMERICAN IDOLS LIVE, Hartford Civic Center, 1 Civic Center Plaza, Hartford, (860) 727-8010; Continental Airlines Arena, East Rutherford, N.J., (201) 935-3900. The judges are off duty, so it's just singing the oldies, changing costumes, grouping themselves in stage tableaux and smiling, smiling, smiling for the third batch of 10 "American Idol" finalists, including Fantasia Barrino, Jasmine Trias, Diana DeGarmo, La Toya London and George Huff. At Hartford Civic Center tomorrow night at 7; tickets are $35 to $45. At Continental Arena on Sunday night at 7, tickets are $35 to $45 (Pareles).

DAN BERN, Joe's Pub, at the Public Theater, 425 Lafayette Street, at Astor Place, East Village, (212) 539-8778 or (212) 239-6200. The songwriter Dan Bern has the Dust Bowl nasality of Woody Guthrie or the young Bob Dylan, a mobile face, a slyly quizzical demeanor and a gift for transforming off-center observations into telling insights. In his fast-changing set lists, some of the songs are topical and short lived, others sly and durable. As part of the Imagine Festival greeting the Republican convention, this concert is likely to be full of political zingers. Tomorrow night at 9:30; tickets are $20 (Pareles).

BIG SANDY AND HIS FLY-RITE BOYS, Southpaw, 125 Fifth Avenue, near Sterling Place, Park Slope, Brooklyn, (718) 230-0236. Big Sandy and His Fly-Rite Boys hark back to 1940's and 50's country music, playing bass-slapping rockabilly and swinging honky-tonk. Tonight at 8, with Shortstack and the Soul Shakers opening; admission is $10 (Pareles).

THEO BLECKMANN'S WEIMAR KABARETT, PHIL KLINE'S ZIPPO SONGS, Joe's Pub, at the Public Theater, 425 Lafayette Street, at Astor Place, East Village, (212) 539-8778 or (212) 239-6200. Theo Bleckmann, who has sung with Laurie Anderson and Meredith Monk, performs a set of corrosive cabaret songs from the 1930's that were banned by the Nazis as "degenerate art," with lyrics by Bertolt Brecht and music by Kurt Weill, Hanns Eisler and others. Phil Kline's Zippo Songs are settings of poems scratched into cigarette lighters by American soldiers in Vietnam, sung by Mr. Bleckmann with a Minimalism-tinged ensemble including xylophone, guitar and violin. Tomorrow night at 7; tickets are $15 (Pareles).

BRAZILFEST '04: THE RAINFOREST CONCERT, Damrosch Park, Lincoln Center, (212) 875-5456. Bossa nova and other Brazilian rhythms lilt through the music of the guitarist Oscar Castro-Neves. In this tribute to the bossa nova composer Antonio Carlos Jobim, Mr. Castro-Neves is joined by Antonio Adolfo, Carol Soboya and Paulo Jobim, the composer's son. Sunday night at 8; free (Pareles).

* RON CARTER TRIO, FREDDY COLE TRIO, Blue Note, 131 West Third Street, Greenwich Village, (212) 475-8592. Mr. Carter, one of the great jazz bassists, never stops readjusting his focus, from the classical canon to Brazilian music to straight-ahead jazz. With this group — which includes the pianist Mulgrew Miller and the guitarist Russell Malone and no bass or drums — he recently made a thoughtful, serene chamber-jazz album called "The Golden Striker" (Blue Note). Also on the double bill is the singer Freddy Cole. He's the brother of Nat King Cole, but they sound only semirelated, more like cousins: though the quick-reflex delivery is there in the voice, Freddy has a richer, wider tone. Tonight through Sunday night at 8 and 10:30; cover charge is $20 for the bar and $30 for a table (Ben Ratliff).

"LA CASITA: A HOME FOR THE HEART," North Plaza, Lincoln Center, (212) 875-5456. Stories, songs, poetry, satire and dance all intertwine in many cultures' oral traditions, and this two-afternoon showcase features more than a dozen performers a day from styles as diverse as poetry slams, comedy, Mexican jarocho, hip-hop, Bolivian flute songs, Native American poetry, Dominican merengue, Ghanaian "magic words" and the poet laureate of Queens, Ishle Yi Parks. The performers include Tahuantinsuyo, Quincy Troupe, Bob Holman and Papa Susso, Letitia Guillroy, Pa'lo Monte, the Hip-Hop Jazz Orchestra, Raices Habaneras, Abena Appiah and Kubi Koomson, Anand Yankaran, Sendebar and many others; full information is at www.lincolncenter.org. The events begin at 1:30 p.m. tomorrow and Sunday, with 10-to-20 minutes sets throughout the afternoon; free (Pareles).

THE CORRS, SOPHIE B. HAWKINS, Jones Beach Theater, Wantagh, N.Y., (516) 221-1000. Four Irish siblings — three harmonizing sisters and a brother — lead this pop band, which has traveled from Celtic folk-rock, complete with Sharon Corr's fiddle and Andrea Corr's tin whistle, to formulaic love songs modeled on 1970's Fleetwood Mac. Sophie B. Hawkins, the independent-minded songwriter who had a hit in 1995 with "As I Lay Me Down," opens the concert. Tonight at 8; tickets are $29.50 to $49.50 (Pareles).

DJ DAN, Avalon, 660 Avenue of the Americas, at 20th Street, Chelsea, (212) 807-7780. This California-based D.J. spins (and sometimes produces) energetic house tracks that clatter and thwack; his oeuvre includes "That Phone Track" (based on touchtone sounds) and "That Zipper Track" (based on — well, you get the idea). Tonight after 10; admission is $20 before 2:30 a.m. and $30 after (Kelefa Sanneh).

DUBYA'S UKULELE FAREWELL PARTY, Fez, 380 Lafayette Street, at Great Jones Street, East Village, (212) 533-7000. Warming up for the scheduled march on Sunday to protest the Republican National Convention on Sunday, some longtime ukulele strummers billing themselves as Ukuleles for Sanity will bring out their protest songs in a benefit for United for Peace and Justice. The lineup includes Peter Stampfel, Carmaig de Forest, Songs From a Random House, LD Beghtol and the New Criticism, Kings County Queens, the Whisky Rebellion and Sonic Uke. Tonight at 7; tickets are $15 (Pareles).

JOHN EDDIE, Bowery Ballroom, 6 Delancey Street, near the Bowery, Lower East Side, (212) 533-2111. John Eddie followed Bruce Springsteen up from the Jersey Shore in the mid-1980's but never reached the arenas. Instead, he has settled into a career of steady performing at clubs, and his 2003 album, "Who the Hell Is John Eddie?" (Lost Eddie), shows he has a sense of humor about it, along with plenty of empathy for life's also-rans. Tonight at 8, with Roger Clyne opening; tickets are $15 (Pareles).

MIKE ERRICO, Joe's Pub, at the Public Theater, 425 Lafayette Street, at Astor Place, East Village, (212) 539-8778 or (212) 239-6200. Introspection and affection ally themselves with a defiant streak in Mike Errico's volatile songs, which can be folky or build to Jeff Buckley peaks. Tonight at 7:30; tickets are $12 (Pareles).

* BARRY HARRIS QUINTET, Birdland, 315 West 44th Street, Clinton, (212) 581-3080. Over the last decade or two, as the musicians of the bebop years have grown older, we've been lucky to notice the salutary effects of aging on that youthful music. Barry Harris's commitment to the pianists of the bop era, particularly Bud Powell and Thelonious Monk, has been unequaled. And as he continues — as a teacher and as a performer — to reveal the mysteries of their music, the hard glint of the originals grows softer, the edges rounder, the lines more flexible and permeable. In other words, he plays the language of bebop more slowly, with its passing tones and curling phrases, and turns a hard-shell, macho art form into more voluptuous stuff. He appears this weekend in a band including the saxophonist Charles Davis. Tonight and tomorrow night at 9 and 11; cover charge is $30 (Ratliff).

* JACOB FRED JAZZ ODYSSEY, Tonic, 107 Norfolk Street, near Delancey Street, Lower East Side, (212) 358-7503. There's no Jacob Fred in this keyboards-bass-drums trio, which has been working the jam band circuit with sets that roam from funk to modal jazz to electronic abstractions. Tonight at 8; tickets are $12 (Pareles).

NILS LOFGREN, Stone Pony, 913 Ocean Avenue, Asbury Park, N.J., (732) 502-0600. Niles Lofgren has been best known as a sideman, first for Neil Young and, since 1984, in Bruce Springsteen's E Street Band. But he is also a songwriter, and his own band gives him more room for his sinuous, modal guitar solos. He's performing with a former E Street band member, the drummer Vini Lopez. Tomorrow at 5 p.m.; tickets are $25 (Pareles).

* LUCIANO, Irving Plaza, 17 Irving Place, at 15th Street, Manhattan, (212) 777-6800. The songwriter Luciano, who bills himself as the Messenger, still believes in the kind of reggae that Bob Marley made, with messages of survival, struggle and positive thinking. Tonight at 10, with Dean Fraser and Mikey General opening; tickets are $23 in advance, $28 on the day of the show (Pareles).

TONY MALABY QUARTET, Cornelia Street Cafe, 29 Cornelia Street, Greenwich Village, (212) 989-9319. 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, the bassist John Hebert and the drummer John Hollenbeck. Tonight at 8:30; cover charge is $10 (Ratliff).

* EMELINE MICHEL, BOUKMAN EKSPERYANS, Damrosch Park, Lincoln Center, (212) 875-5456. Festival Haiti presents a double bill of Haitian musicians whose songs have deep traditional roots. Emeline Michel's voice can be husky and sensual or almost operatic, and her sets are like a tour of Haiti's rural and urban rhythms. Boukman Eksperyans shook up Haitian pop by basing their politically tinged rock songs on the sacred Afro-Haitian rhythms of voodoo. Tonight at 7:30; free (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: the severely self-edited rhythmic gamesmanship of the drummer Paul Motian; the warm, generous spieling of the saxophonist Joe Lovano; and Mr.. Frisell, the guitarist, with his electronic devices and beautiful, delicate touch. It's the first of two consecutive weeks for the band. Tonight through Sunday night at 9 and 11; cover charge is $30 (Ratliff).

* SLICK RICK, the Knitting Factory, 74 Leonard Street, TriBeCa, (212) 219-3006. Late last year, the pioneering hip-hop storyteller Slick Rick was freed after being locked up for 17 months. (He had been convicted of attempted murder in the second degree in 1991 and served five years, only to be detained again by the Immigration and Naturalization Service in 2002; immigration officials tried — and failed — to deport him to his native England, which he left in 1976.) He seems to have recovered, though, and his comeback concerts have showed off his exuberant mood (free at last!), his charming style, his eye-popping gold necklaces and his political critiques — this concert is sponsored by the progressive political alliance Involver. Tomorrow night at 10, with C-Rayz Walz; tickets are $18 in advance, $20 at the door (Sanneh).

DR. LONNIE SMITH TRIO, Jazz Gallery, 290 Hudson Street, at Spring Street, South Village, (212) 242-1063. Mr. Smith — who always appears wearing a turban, to confuse you a little — is a master of slow, eerie ideas on the Hammond organ; working in a setting of good-time, saloon-style music, he can turn it into a sance. Tonight and tomorrow at 9 and 10:30; admission is $15 a set (Ratliff).

STEPHAN SMITH, Joe's Pub, at the Public Theater, 425 Lafayette Street, at Astor Place, East Village, (212) 539-8778. Stephan Smith, who happens to be an Iraqi-American, has set out to revive the 1960's ideal of the itinerant protest singer. As part of the Imagine Festival, he will be joined onstage by Iraqi Veterans Against the War, who will be speaking about their experiences. Sunday night at 9:30; free; call for reservations (Pareles).

SOULIVE, the Downtown, 190 Main Street, Farmingdale, N.Y., (516) 293-7700. Soulive is an organ-guitar-drums trio that harks back to the 1950's and 60's, playing meaty, blues-centered jazz for dancers who like straightforward funk; lately, it has been adding touches of hip-hop. Tomorrow night at 8, with South Shore Movement and the Project opening; tickets are $18 (Pareles).

YES, DREAM THEATER, PNC Bank Arts Center, Holmdel, N.J., Garden State Parkway Exit 116, (732) 335-0400; Jones Beach Theater, Wantagh, N.Y., (516) 221-1000. In the heyday of progressive rock, the cherubic voice of Jon Anderson and the pummeling odd-meter riffs of Yes could fill even a song about a traffic circle with cosmic import, and the band was ambitious enough to write 20-minute songs and album-length suites. The current band includes Mr. Anderson along with Chris Squire on bass, Steve Howe on guitar, Rick Wakeman on keyboards and Alan White on drums. Dream Theater, sharing the bill, writes its own progressive-rock suites. At the PNC Bank Arts Center tonight at 7; tickets are $20 to $57.50. At Jones Beach Theater tomorrow night at 7; tickets are $29.50 to $55 (Pareles).