October 8, 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. Full reviews of recent pop and jazz performances: nytimes.com/music.

* ADEM, Mercury Lounge, 217 East Houston Street, at Ludlow Street, Lower East Side, (212) 260-4700. This British singer-songwriter plays in the band Fridge, alongside Kieran Hebden, and he recently released an American version of his bewitching solo debut, "Homesongs" (Domino). His voices often cracks and sometimes soars (imagine Coldplay's Chris Martin, only rumpled and assuming), and he uses a roomful of instruments and toys to turn the album into a homemade pop symphony: he sounds like a man leading a wind-up band. Tonight at 8:30 with Explosions in the Sky (the headliner), We Ragazzi and the Winter Pageant; tickets are $12.

  KELEFA SANNEH

DAN BERN, Bowery Ballroom, 6 Delancey Street, near the Bowery, Lower East Side, (212) 533-2111. 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. With elections looming, his political side is likely to emerge. Tomorrow night at 8, with the Navigators opening; admission is $20.  JON PARELES

COUNT BASIE CENTENNIAL BALL, Roone Arledge Auditorium, Columbia University, Broadway, between 114th and 115th Streets, Morningside Heights; basie100.com. An international cohort of Lindy Hoppers will descend on upper Manhattan this weekend to dance at a centennial celebration for Count Basie. The music includes Frank Foster's 12-piece big band, with the Basie-alumni Frank Wess, Benny Powell, Clark Terry, Irene Reid, Joe Wilder and Junior Mance. Tomorrow night, from 8 to 2; tickets are $49, $30 for students and 65+.  BEN RATLIFF

ART BLAKEY BIRTHDAY WEEK, Iridium, 1650 Broadway at 51st Street, Midtown Manhattan, (212) 582-2121. Celebrating one of the greatest jazz drummers and cultivator of talents in postwar jazz, a group of Blakeyites share the stage. The band includes the trumpeter Valery Ponomarev, the saxophonists Bobby Watson and Javon Jackson and the pianist John Hicks. Sets through Sunday night are at 8 and 10, with an 11:30 set tonight and tomorrow; cover charge is $32.50 and a $10 minimum.  RATLIFF

JIMMY BOSCH, S.O.B.'s (Sounds of Brazil), 204 Varick Street, at Houston, South Village, (212) 243-4940. Jimmy Bosch is a trombonist who savors the Latin jazz tradition of the descarga, a jam session everyone can dance to. Tonight at 8 and 10, with a dance class at 7; admission is free with dinner reservations; $5 from 6 to 7:30 and $10 from 7:30 to 9.

  PARELES

* DON BYRON'S IVEY-DIVEY TRIO, Symphony Space, 2537 Broadway at 95th Street, (212) 864-5400. The clarinetist Don Byron has made his best record in "Ivey Divey" (Blue Note), a forceful and loose trio session with mostly just the trio of Mr. Byron, the pianist Jason Moran and the drummer Jack DeJohnette. Onstage, the drummer Billy Hart will replace Mr. DeJohnette. Tonight at 7:30 and 9:30; tickets are $21, $16 for members, $18 for students.  RATLIFF

CAKE/NORTHERN STATE, Hammerstein Ballroom, 311 West 34th Street, Manhattan; cc.com. Cake's songs are a seeming off-handed mixture of droll storytelling, light funk, country twang and an occasional trumpet line, all delivered with sly timing. Northern State is a three-woman rap group from Long Island, touting their own skills and female self-esteem — "I got a peaceful easy feeling crashing through the glass ceiling" — with a delivery that harks back to the early Beastie Boys; its new album, "All City" (Columbia), has beats produced by members of Cypress Hill and the Roots. Tonight at 8; tickets are $32.

  PARELES

CYRUS CHESTNUT QUARTET, Miller Theater, Broadway at 116th Street, Morningside Heights, (212) 854-7799. The pianist Cyrus Chestnut swings the way the old guard used to; that's why he was so dazzling when he came on the scene in the early 1990's. But he's also a sentimentalist. Small groups are his best setting, discouraging his excesses and pushing him to his rhythmic limits. He plays this weekend with the trombonist Wycliffe Gordon, the bassist Kengo Nakamura and the drummer Neal Smith. Tomorrow at 8; tickets are $25   RATLIFF

ELIANE ELIAS, Le Jazz Au Bar, 41 East 58th Street, Manhattan, (212) 308-9455. Eliane Elias, a Brazilian pianist who fuses the main line of postwar jazz with Latin American rhythms and song form, has been one of the more interesting crosscultural musicians on the New York scene; she leads a hard-hitting instrumental group but also has been singing more and more. On "Dreamer" (Bluebird), her new album, Ms. Elias's voice is set against a small group and orchestra, for a program of bossa nova and some more sophisticated 60's English-language pop. Sets through Sunday are at 8 p.m., with a 10 p.m. set tonight and tomorrow; cover charge is $40 and $30 on Sunday   RATLIFF

FAIRPORT CONVENTION, Joe's Pub, 425 Lafayette Street, East Village, (212) 539-8778 or (212) 239-6200. Fairport Convention is a 27-year-old British folk-rock institution that specializes in rock and reel. Its alumni include Richard Thompson and the founders of leading traditional-rock bands, and its current lineup includes one of Fairport's founders, the guitarist Simon Nicol and the drummer Gerry Conway, who was a member of the Fairport spinoff Fotheringay. They're likely to have a jovial way with songs of ancient and recent vintage. Tonight at 7 and 9:30; tickets are $30.   PARELES

BELA FLECK AND THE FLECKTONES, Patchogue Theater for the Performing Arts, 71 East Main Street, Patchogue, N.Y. (631) 207-1300. Bela Fleck, a banjoist, has moved far beyond bluegrass technique. His own tunes feature odd meters and tricky structures, though his band can make them sound briskly mechanical. Lately, he has been applying his technique to the classical repertory for one more kind of crossover. Tonight at 8; tickets are $35 and $37.  PARELES

FU MANCHU, the Knitting Factory, 74 Leonard Street, TriBeCa (212) 219-3006. Cranking up their fuzz-tone guitars, Fu Manchu brings back the heavy, dazed sound of early-1970's hard rock in songs about getting wasted, hitting the road, and sometimes both at once. Tomorrow night at 9, with the Cougars and Rolling Blackouts opening; tickets are $12 in advance, $14 tomorrow.   PARELES

JUAN GABRIEL, Theater at Madison Square Garden, 33rd Street and Seventh Avenue, Manhattan, (212) 465-6741. Juan Gabriel, one of Mexico's most flamboyant and crowdpleasing singers, writes extravagantly romantic ballads along with trenchant thoughts on immigration and globalization. He works with slick pop bands, mariachi groups and brass bands, sometimes all in the same marathon concert. Tonight at 8; tickets are $59.50 to $149.50.   PARELES

ROY HARGROVE QUINTET, Village Vanguard, 178 Seventh Avenue South, West Village, (212) 255-4037. The trumpeter Roy Hargrove has been playing around New York for about 15 years, since he was fresh out of music school; he's one of the more indefatigable jam-session players on the scene. His investigations in ballads and bop and expressive melodic improvisation keep sounding better. Sets through Sunday night are at 9 and 11, with a 12:30 set tomorrow; cover charge is $30.  RATLIFF

* ROY HAYNES QUINTET, Blue Note, 131 West Third Street, West Village, (212) 475-8592. An hour spent with Roy Haynes is an hour spent learning about drum sounds. Mr. Haynes was one of the first bebop drummers, having recorded with Bud Powell in 1949, and he plays bop patterns superbly when he wants, charging along with the music to support the frontline players. But more often he guts his playing of bebop clichés, changing his phrasing with every measure, exploring tone and texture. This week he presents his "Birds of a Feather" project, an ongoing exploration of Charlie Parker's music; the band includes the trumpeter Nicholas Payton, the saxophonist Kenny Garrett, the pianist Dave Kikoski and the bassist John Patitucci. Sets through Sunday night are at 8 and 10:30; cover charge is $37.50   RATLIFF

HEIRUSPECS, Pianos, 158 Ludlow Street below Stanton Street, (212) 505-3733. A hip-hop group from Minneapolis, Heiruspecs backs its rapper, MC Felix, with a live band as he boasts and free-associates: "Purpose, to make kids nervous / Absurd curvature know to come free with any purchase," he declaims in the title track of the band's latest album, "A Tiger Dancing" (Razor & Tie). Tomorrow night at 9:30, with P.O.S. at 7:30, D'Atlee at 8:30, Team Facelift at 10:30 and Elapse at 11:30; admission is $8.  PARELES

JULIO IGLESIAS, Radio City Music Hall, 1260 Avenue of the Americas, at 50th Street, (212) 247-4777. Pop's suave, multilingual Latin lover wouldn't dream of being pushy. His kind of romance is a soft sell, all humble promises and beseeching tone, and it teases his loyal followers to an adoring frenzy. Tonight at 8; tickets are $39.50 to $79.50.  PARELES

* NEIL INNES/THE TRACHTENBURG FAMILY SLIDESHOW PLAYERS, B.B. King Blues Club and Grill, 243 West 42nd Street, Manhattan, (212) 997-4144. An English musical jokester whose career dates back to the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band in the 1960's, the wry Beatles parodies of the Rutles, and freqent contributions to Monty Python, Neil Innes has always made sure his melodies are the equal of his punchlines. The Trachtenburg Family picks up collections of slides from garage sales and thrift stores and invents stories and songs around them. Sunday night at 8; tickets are $22 in advance, $25 at the door.  PARELES

* AMJAD ALI KHAN AND ZAKIR HUSSAIN, Town Hall, 123 West 43d Street, Manhattan, (212) 840-2824 or (212) 545-7536. Amjad Ali Khan, who plays the lute called the sarod, has had a career more than 50 years long in Indian classical improvisation and is one of India's most respected musicians. He will be accompanied by the the tabla player Zakir Hussain, who sparks every ensemble he's in. Tomorrow night at 8; tickets are $25 to $45.   PARELES

LOSER'S LOUNGE TRIBUTE TO DAVID BOWIE, Fez (downstairs at the Time Cafe), 380 Lafayette Street, at Great Jones Street, East Village, (212) 533-2680. David Bowie's huge catalog, from ballads to rock anthems to funk, and his multiple guises will provide plenty of fodder for the knowing pop archivists of the Loser's Lounge. Tonight at 8 and tomorrow night at 7, admission is $25; tomorrow night at 10:30, admission is $20.

  PARELES

RUDRESH MAHANTHAPPA QUARTET, Jazz Gallery, 290 Hudson Street, South Village, (212) 242-1063. Rudresh Mahanthappa, an alto saxophonist with a tone like iron, has recently been making his name playing tough, challenging music that sometimes has cultural or political implications. For his coming album, "Mother Tongue," he asked Indian Americans, originally from both North and South India, the deliberately vague question "do you speak Indian?" He transcribed their answers into musical tones, and turned them into compositions. Sets are tonight at 9 and 10:30; admission is $15 per set, $10 for members.

  RATLIFF

MASTERS OF GROOVE, Smoke, 2751 Broadway at 106th Street, Manhattan, (212) 864-6662. The organist Reuben Wilson, who put out several soul-jazz records on Blue Note in the heyday of that style, came back into fashion via the 1990's recycling of organ-and-tenor on European dance floors. He put together this band, which includes the guitarist Grant Green Jr. and the drummer Bernard Purdie, to play steady-grooving genre stuff. Sets are tonight and tomorrow at 9, 11 and 12:30; cover charge is $20.  RATLIFF

THE MIGHTY SPARROW, Satalla, 37 West 26th Street, Manhattan, (212) 576-1155. The songwriter and singer who revolutionized calypso after World War II still has sly rhymes and ebullient dance moves, and he's still coming up with up-to-the-minute topical songs. Tomorrow night at 10 and midnight; admission is $25.  PARELES

* MORRISSEY, Radio City Music Hall, (212) 247-4777. He's a hero to an underground nation of obsessives: ÒcultÓ barely begins to describe what he's got. And no one can sing a swooning ballad over a straightlaced punk-inspired riff the way Morrissey can — in fact, few other singers would be brave (or foolish) enough to try. His new album, "You Are the Quarry" (Attack/Sanctuary/BMG), has too many songs that meander forward without tunes strong enough to match the conceits, but the best one, "First of the Gang to Die," is classic Morrissey: coy and elusive and unexpectedly macho, with joy shining through the bitternes. Tomorrow and Sunday at 8; tickets are $34.50 to $69.50.

  SANNEH

* THE MOUNTAIN GOATS, the Knitting Factory, 74 Leonard Street, TriBeCa, (212) 219-3006. The singer-songwriter John Darnielle leads the Mountain Goats, and sometimes he's the only member. In 2002, Mr. Darnielle released "Tallahassee" (4AD), one of his best albums so far, which tells the story of a young couple trying to figure out whether it's time to give up hope; the tale unfolds in a furious series of clipped, agitated phrases. The follow-up "We Shall All Be Healed," sounds casual, by his standards, but furious by anyone else's. Tonight at 9, with John Vanderslice and Erik Friedlander; tickets are $13.   SANNEH

PUFFY AMIYUMI, Webster Hall, 125 East 11th Street, East Village, (212) 353-1600. Ami and Yumi, the two young women in Puffy AmiYumi, are a merchandising phenomenon in Japan for their bubbly pop songs and associated clothes, toys, video game, children's TV show, and more. But they front their commercial juggernaut with ingenuous charm, singing ultra-catchy songs that dip into new wave, disco, surf-rock and other blithe styles. It's hard to resist songs with titles like "Destruction Pancake," "Wild Girls on Circuit" or "Shut Your Mouth, Honey." Tonight at 8; tickets are $20.  PARELES

RATDOG/NEVILLE BROTHERS, Hammerstein Ballroom, 311 West 34th Street, Manhattan, (212) 564-4882. Bob Weir, the Grateful Dead's rhythm guitarist, leads his six-piece band Ratdog through rock standards and his own Dead songs. The Neville Brothers have been at the center of New Orleans funk since the 1950's and apply all their experience in syncopation to their own songs and, lately, cover songs like "Ball of Confusion." Tonight at tomorrow at 8 p.m.; tickets are $35 and $45.  PARELES

* RILO KILEY, Bowery Ballroom, 6 Delancey Street, near the Bowery, Lower East Side, (212) 533-2111. This great band, led by the singer-songwriter Jenny Lewis, has an arsenal full of precise, sometimes playful love songs ranging from country weepers to folky experiments to buzzy alt-rock singalongs. The band's new album, "More Adventurous" (Brute/Beaute), isn't quite the classic that Rilo Kiley seems capable of, but it's still a sharp, sugary delight, full of love songs that sound like eulogies (and vice versa). Expect an exhilarating night: few indie-rock bands in the country put on a more exciting show; last time this band played Bowery Ballroom, the fans seemed stunned by how good the band was, and the band seemed stunned by how loud the fans were. Tonight at 9, with Now It's Overhead and Tilly & the Wall; tickets are sold out but returns may be available.   SANNEH

* JASON RINGENBERG/CC ADCOCK, Rodeo Bar, 375 Third Avenue, at 27th Street, Manhattan, (212) 683-6500. Jason Ringenberg used to lead Jason and the Scorchers, jacking up the rock in country rock while his lyrics examined American myths; lately, he has taken a political turn. CC Adcock is a Louisiana swamp-rocker who founded Lil Band of Gold; he mixes blues, zydeco and some New Orleans gris-gris. Sunday night at 10; admission is free.  PARELES

SKY SAXON AND THE SEEDS, Maxwell's, 1039 Washington Street, Hoboken, N.J., (201) 653-1703 and Southpaw, 125 Fifth Avenue, at Sterling Place, Park Slope, Brooklyn, (718) 230-0236. Garage-rock doesn't pump any harder than the Seeds' indelible 1966 single "Pushin' Too Hard." As the 1960's progressed, the Seeds moved toward psychedelia and blues-rock before breaking up as the decade ended. Since then, the band's leader, Sky Saxon, has reappeared at unpredictable intervals. At Maxwell's tonight at 10, with Muck and the Mires and the Dark Marbles opening; admission is $10. At Southpaw tomorrow night at 8, with Bob Log II, the Town Bikes and the Stalkers; admission is $8.  PARELES

* SIDI GOMA, Symphony Space, 2537 Broadway, at 95th Street, Manhattan, (212) 864-5400 or (212) 545-7536. The Sidis of Gujurat are Sufi Muslims with roots in East Africa, and their music is an ecstatic Indo-African fusion. The Sidi Goma ensmeble is touring the United States for the first time with music and acrobatic dances. Tonight at 8; tickets are $30.  PARELES

* MINDY SMITH, B.B. King Blues Club and Grill, 243 West 42nd Street, Manhattan, (212) 997-4144. Mindy Smith was born in Long Island, but her songs are rooted in old-timey Appalachia. In a gentle soprano with quiet reserves of strength, she sings reflections on love and vows of faith, in folky arrangements that could place her alongside Emmylou Harris and Gillian Welch. Tomorrow night at 8, with the songwriters Charlie Mars and Garrison Starr sharing the bill; tickets are $20.  PARELES

LERON THOMAS QUINTET, Fat Cat, 75 Christopher Street, West Village, (212) 675-6056. Leron Thomas is a young jazz trumpeter from Houston, with chops and power. He has rethought his music lately, changing his band and adding rhythmic and harmonic complexities. Sets are tonight and tomorrow at 10:30, midnight, 1:30 and 2:30; cover charge is $10.  RATLIFF

CHARLES TOLLIVER QUARTET, Sistas' Place, 456 Nostrand Avenue, entrance at Jefferson Avenue, Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, (718) 398-1766. Mr. Tolliver, the trumpeter, left behind a worthwhile trail of music in the 1970's, writing and playing post-bop with a new complexity, recording for the independent label Strata-East; he's reappeared on New York stages only in the last few years. Sets are tomorrow night at 9 and 10:30; cover charge is $25.  RATLIFF

MALACHI THOMPSON'S FREEBOP, Sweet Rhythm, 88 Seventh Avenue South, West Village, (212) 255-3626. The jazz trumpeter Malachi Thompson has been influenced by trumpet history from Louis Armstrong to Lester Bowie; making sense of the music's historical riches is his big project, and he does it with a band that includes the saxophonists Oliver Lake and Billy Harper. Tonight and tomorrow at 8, 10 and midnight; cover charge is $20 and there is a $10 minimum.  RATLIFF

ZOE, S.O.B.'s (Sounds of Brazil), 204 Varick Street, South Village, (212) 243-4940. Zoe, a rock band from Mexico, is as polymorphous as most Latin alternative bands. It can sound like the Beatles, or like a steady-pulsing new wave band complete with analog synthesizers. Either way, it keeps its melodies catchy. Sunday night at 8; tickets are $10 in advance, $12 Sunday.   PARELES