Live Music in New York City in May and June 2013

Daily updates; you might want to bookmark this page and check back periodically to see what’s new. Brand new calendar for  June and July coming this week. There’s a comprehensive list of places where these shows are happening at NY Music Daily’s sister blog Lucid Culture.

Showtimes listed here are set times, not the time doors open – if a listing says something like “9ish,” that means it’ll probably start later than advertised. Always best to check with the venue for the latest information on set times and door charges, since that information is often posted here weeks in advance. Weekly events first followed by the daily calendar.

6/10, 6/17 and 6/24, 8 PM Tammy Faye Starlite as Nico in Chelsea Mädchen at the Cutting Room, $20 adv tix rec. This sardonic homage to the ultimate femme fatale is a must-see show, TFS manages to be both haunting and savage in the role. She’s got the accent, she’s got the character, she radiates Teutonic iciness and she’s working on the bangs.

Mondays in May, 7 PM the Grand Street Stompers play hot oldtimey swing and dixieland at Arthur’s Tavern on Grove St. just west of 7th Ave. South

Mondays starting a little after 7 PM Howard Williams leads his Jazz Orchestra from the piano at the Garage, 99 7th Ave. S at Grove St. There are also big bands here most every Tuesday at 7.

Mondays at the Jazz Standard it’s all Mingus, whether with the Mingus Orchestra, Big Band or Mingus Dynasty: as jazz goes, it’s arguably the most exhilarating show of the week, every week. The first-rate players always rise to the level of the material. Sets 7:30/9:30 PM, $25 and worth it.

Also Monday nights Vince Giordano’s Nighthawks, a boisterous horn-driven 11-piece 1920s/early 30’s band play Sofia’s Restaurant, downstairs at the Edison Hotel, 221 West 46th Street between Broadway & 8th Ave., 3 sets from 8 to 11, surprisingly cheap $15 cover plus $15 minimum considering what you’re getting. Even before the Flying Neutrinos or the Moonlighters, multi-instrumentalist Giordano was pioneering the oldtimey sound in New York; his long-running residency at the old Cajun on lower 8th Ave. is legendary. He also gets a ton of film work (Giordano wrote the satirical number that Willie Nelson famously sang in Wag the Dog).

Mondays in May, 8 PM pianist Noah Haidu at Cleopatra’s Needle. His latest cd, just out from Posi-Tone is a gorgeously lyrical third-stream trio effort

Mondays at Tea Lounge in Park Slope at 9:15 PM trombonist/composer JC Sanford books big band jazz, an exciting, global mix of some of the edgiest large-ensemble sounds around. If you’re anybody in the world of big band jazz and you make it to New York, you end up playing here: what CBGB was to punk, this unlikely spot promises to be to the jazz world. No cover.

Mondays at the Vanguard the Vanguard Jazz Orchestra – composer Jim McNeely’s reliably good big band vehicle – plays 9/11 PM, $30 per set plus drink minimum.

Mondays in May (check the Barbes website for updates), 9:30ish Chicha Libre plays their home turf at Barbes. The world’s most vital, entertaining oldschool chicha band, they blend twangy, often noir Peruvian surf sounds with cumbia and other south-of-the-border styles along with swirling psychedelic jams and deep dub interludes. Show up early because they are insanely popular.

Three Mondays in May 5/6, 5/13 and 5/20, 10:30 PMish an Afrobeat party with Zongo Junction at Bowery Electric, $8

Also Mondays in May Rev. Vince Anderson and his band play Union Pool in Williamsburg, two sets starting around 11:30 PM. The Rev. is one of the great keyboardists around, equally thrilling on organ or electric piano, an expert at Billy Preston style funk, honkytonk, gospel and blues. He writes very funny, very politically astute, sexy original songs and is one of the most charismatic, intense live performers of our time. It’s a crazy dance party til past three in the morning. Paula Henderson from Burnt Sugar is the lead soloist on baritone sax, with Dave Smith from Smoota on trombone, with frequent special guests.

The second and fourth Tuesday of the month there are free organ concerts featuring a global mix of first-rate talent at Central Synagogue, Lexington Ave. at 55th St., free.

Tuesdays in May clever, fiery, eclectic Balkan/hip-hop/funk brass maniacs Slavic Soul Party play Barbes at 9. Get there as soon as you can as they’re very popular. $10 cover.

Tuesdays in May noir torch songs with Evanescent feat. Bliss Blood and Al Street at at Pete’s, 10 PM

Tuesdays at around 10 Julia Haltigan and her band play 11th St. Bar. A torchy, charismatic force of nature, equally at home with fiery southwestern gothic rock, oldschool soul and steamy retro jazz ballads, and her band is just as good as she is.

Tuesdays in May, 11 PM an Allison Tartalia residency at Spike Hill. Astonishingly eclectic: noir cabaret, piano chamber pop, acoustic guitar rock. Rich, nuanced, often sultry vocals, a sense of humor, interesting narratives, a flair for the mot juste.

Wednesdays at 1 PM there are free organ concerts at St. Paul’s Chapel downtown, a mix of NYC-area and international talent.

Wednesdays in May 8:30 PM guitarist Jonathan Kreisberg (of Dr. Lonnie Smith’s band) leads a trio at the Bar Next Door, $12

Wednesdays at 9 PM Feral Foster’s Roots & Ruckus takes over the Jalopy, a reliably excellent weekly mix of oldtimey acts: blues, bluegrass, country and swing.

Wednesdays at 10 it’s Sheriff Bob’s bluegrass jam at Zirzamin, an A-list of NYC talent, always a good time, quality players always welcome.

Thursdays in May up-and-coming avant/indie classical Ensemble ACJW at Trinity Church, 1 PM, free, programs tba

Thursdays and Fridays in May Bulgarian alto sax star Yuri Yunakov and band play Mehanata starting around 10. One of the most intense and gripping improvisers in gypsy music.

Thursdays in May this era’s greatest and funnest Peruvian style psychedelic cumbia/surf band, Chicha Libre plays Nublu, probably late, midnight-ish

Fridays at 5 PM in May, adventurous indie classical string quartet Ethel (Ralph Farris, viola; Dorothy Lawson, cello; Kip Jones, violin; and Tema Watstein, violin) plays the balcony bar at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, free w/museum adm. When they’re not there, they’ll have someone from from their wide circle of like-minded avant ensembles. Although the sound wafts across the balcony, you actually have to be in the bar itself in order to really appreciate what they’re doing.

Friday evenings at various times (check the site for the weekly schedule) fearless avant cellist/impresario Valerie Kuehne’s Super Coda – a global mix of strange and sometimes amazing sounds, from the way-out to the way-in, drawing on a vast, global talent base – happens at Spectrum, 121 Ludlow St., 2nd floor.

Three Fridays in May, 5/10, 5/24 and 5/31 lyrical jazz pianist Laila Biali at Subculture on Bleecker St. east of Lafayette – audience members are invited to request material from her catalog or suggest other songs via email

Fridays in May at 9 Naomi Shelton and the Gospel Queens play oldschool 1960s style gospel at the Fat Cat.

Saturdays in Mayl at 3 PM at Bargemusic there are impromptu free classical concerts, usually solo piano or small chamber ensembles: if you get lucky, you’ll catch pyrotechnic violinist/music director Mark Peskanov and/or the many members of his circle. Early arrival advised.

Saturdays eclectic compelling Brazilian jazz chanteuse Marianni and her excellent band at Zinc Bar, three sets starting at 10 PM.

Sundays there’s a klezmer brunch at City Winery, show starts around 11:30 AM – 2 PM, $10 cover, no minimum, lots of good bands.

Sundays 1 PM-ish, bluegrass cats Freshly Baked (f.k.a. Graveyard Shift), featuring excellent, incisive fiddle player Diane Stockwell and an A-list of players play a brunch show at Southern Hospitality 645, 9th Ave at 45th St.

Weekly Sunday organ concerts continue (with holidays excepted) at St. Thomas Church, 53rd/5th Ave. at 5:15 PM, an international parade of A-list organists looking to give the mighty 1913 Skinner organ here a sendoff before it’s replaced.

Every Sunday at 5 PM, New York Music Daily present the Sunday Salon at Zirzamin (in the old Zinc Bar space on Houston at LaGuardia, downstairs).  An A-list of New York songwriters and instrumentalists work up new material and cross-pollinate in a comfortable, musician-friendly space. There’s no cover, and at the end of the salon, there’s a 45-minute set by a rotating cast of topnotch New York and international songwriters and composers. 5/5 darkly menacing Canadian gothic chanteuse Lorraine Leckie;  5/12 kick-ass Americana/gypsy guitarist/songwriter Chris Fuller; 5/19 powerpop/psychedelic guitar god Pete Galub; 5/26 dark rockers Phil Shoenfelt and Pavel Cingl from the Czech Republic; and more TBA .

Every Sunday the Ear-Regulars, led by trumpeter Jon Kellso and (frequently) guitarist Matt Munisteri play NYC’s only weekly hot jazz session starting around 8 PM at the Ear Inn on Spring St. Hard to believe, in the city that springboarded the careers of thousands of jazz legends, but true. This is by far the best value in town for marquee-caliber jazz: for the price of a drink and a tip for the band, you can see world-famous players (and brilliant obscure ones) you’d usually have to drop $100 for at some big-ticket room. The material is mostly old-time stuff from the 30s and 40s, but the players (especially Kellso and Munisteri, who have a chemistry that goes back several years) push it into some deliciously unexpected places.

Sundays in May, 8 PM the Dictators’ Andy Shernoff works up his own wry, clever solo material at Zirzamin

Sundays in May , 8/11 PM the ferocious, intense Arturo O’Farrill Latin Jazz Orchestra plays Birdland, $30 seats avail. They’re also at Symphony Space on 5/3 and 5/4 at 8, guest artists include gaita (bagpipe player) Cristina Pato, vocalist/saxophonist Antonio Lizana, guitarist Xemo Tebar and the O’Farrill Brothers Band.

Sundays in May at 9 gypsy guitar genius Stephane Wrembel plays Barbes. He’s holding on to the edgy, danceable spirit of Django Reinhardt while taking the style to new and unexpected places. He’s also very popular: get there early.

5/1, 7:30 PM good, seriously rocking purist powerpop doublebill: Pem Roach & the  Trouble Club followed by the snidely hilarious Haley Bowery & the Manimals at the National Underground. The Baghdaddios play later at abour half past eleven.

5/1-3, 8 PM trumpeter/ composer/musical innovator Wadada Leo Smith presents the NYC premiere of his epic 4-cd civil rights opus Ten Freedom Summers in its entirety (rated best album of 2013 at NYMD’s sister blog Lucid Culture) at Roulette.

5/1, 8ish a benefit for Sunny’s in Red Hook with Simon Chardiet, L’il Mo & the Monicats, John Pinamonti, the Red Hook Ramblers and others at the Bell House, $30

5/1, 8 PM avant string band and string quartet intensity: Ljova & the Kontraband followed by Brooklyn Rider at Littlefield, $15.

5/1, 8 PM pianist Richard Goode plays an all-Beethoven program at Carnegie Hall, $17.50 and up tix avail.

5/1, 10 PM the Bernie Worrell Orchestra at Subculture, $18.

5/1, 10ish wild intense art-rock instrumentalists You Bred Raptors – who get more noise out of eight-string bass, cello and drums than you could possibly imagine – at Glasslands

5/2, 7 PM at Weill Hall at Carnegie Hall, a global cast of winners in the Ibla piano competition play music by Bach, Verdi, Puccini, Liszt, Chopin, Ginastera, Prokofiev, Bartok, Oskar Merikanto plus originals and improvisations. Pianists include Ben Schoeman,Tomasz Ostaszewski, Patryk Sztabinski, Gabriele Gallo, Liisa Pimiä, Jason Chiang., Ian Miller, Audrey Ann Southard Rumsey, David Cieri, Jim Erickson, Laehyung Woo and the duo of Yuka Munehisa and Samuel Fried

5/2, 7 PM pianist Julia Den Boer plays works by Janacek, Boulez, and moreat Bohemian National Hall, free

5/2, 7:30 PM Rasputina – the original cello rockers, featuring cellist Julia Kent and guitarist Sara Landeau this time out – plays FaLaLa: The Bastardy of Shakespeare’s Madrigals, imagining an alternate authorship for Shakespeare’s work at Joe’s Pub, $15.

5/2,. 8 PM dark, charismatic, deviously witty literate keyboardist/chanteuse Rachelle Garniez at followed by the self-explanatory, jaunty Blue Vipers of Brooklyn at 10 at Barbes

5/2, 8 PM Ensemble Mise-En play works by Bent Sørensen, Louis Karchin, Graham Flet, Erik Lund Moon Young Ha including several world premieres at the Cell Theatre in Chelsea, 338 W 23rd St,, $15/$10 stud.

5/2, 8 PM Leon Botstein conducts the American Symphony Orchestra in a program of new and relatively new works by of Hungarian composers Partos, Weiner, Nador, Gyopar and Dohnanyi at Carnegie Hall, $12.50 tix and up avail.

5/2, 8:30 PM trombonist Jacob Garchik’s tuneful 40Twenty with Jacob Sacks, piano; Dave Ambrosio, bass; Vinnie Sperrazza, drums at Cornelia St. Cafe, $25 incl. a drink.

5/2 indie classical songwriter Christina Courtin does her chamber pop thing at the big room at the Rockwood.

5/2, 8:30 PM conductor Karl Berger’s luminous, otherworldly, majestic Improvisers Orchestra at El Taller Latinoamericano on the upper west.

5/2, 9ish ferocoius Radio Birdman style chromatic garage punk with the Mess Around followed eventually by satirical French rock cover band Los Jamones at Grand Victory in Williamsburg, $6

5/2, 10 PM Anna & Elizabeth sing classic Appalachian songs and scroll crankies (hand-drawn hand-cranked oldtime scrolled illustrations) at the Jalopy, a seriously fun time trip waiting for you, $10 .

5/2, 10 PM MK Groove Orchestra followed by Funkface at Spike Hill

5/2, 10 PM the Microscopic Septet play their devious originals as well as Monk tunes from their excellent new all-Monk cd Friday the 13th at Spectrum. 5/30 they’re at Joe’s Pub

5/3, 5:30 PM haunting intense Balkan chanteuse Eva Salina Primack, who has a killer new solo album out, plays solo at the American Folk Art Museum.

5/3 the Rebel Factory with Certain General’s Phil Gammage at Zirzamin.

5/3-5, 7:30/9:30 PM ex-Miles Davis tenor sideman George Coleman at the Jazz Standard, $25 ($30 on the weekend): “the the sagacious tenor man explores his rare groove side in the company of hard hitting organist Mike LeDonne and fleet fingered guitarist Peter Bernstein.”

5/3, 8 PM Tunisian chanteuse Sonia M’Barek at the Alliance Francaise, 55 E 59th St, $35 but worth it.

5/3 ,8 PM eclectic accordion genius Guy Klucevsek at Barbes with his band followed by cumbia party rockers Chia’s Dance Party

5/3-4, 8 PM visionary pianist/bandleader Arturo O’Farrill‘s spectacular, intense Afro-Latin Jazz Orchestra beefs up Mexican banda music and other lesser-known latin subgenres along with newly commissioned works at Symphony Space, $20/$15 stud/srs.

5/3, 8 PM a solid Americana triplebill: Canadian singer Charlotte Cornfield, the rocking Alex Mallett Band and the more trad Whistling Wolves at Union Hall, $10

5/3, 8 PM bizarre segue, good show: roots reggae with Tribal Legacy followed by Flamenco Latino at Flushing Town Hall, $15

5/3, 8 PM guitarist Jason Vieaux plays music by Mauro Giuliani, J.S. Bach, Benjamin Britten, John Dowland, Dan Visconti, Antônio Carlos Jobim, Pat Metheny, and José Luis Merlín at Baruch College Auditorium, 55 Lexington Ave,  $25/$20 stud/srs. 5/5 at 3 PM he’s at  Ingalls Recital Hall, 2039 Kennedy Blvd in Jersey City for free.

5/3, 8 PM hypnotic percussion, string minimalism and avant garde drama: Iktus Ensemble, Yarn/Wire and thingNY at the Firehouse Space, $10.

5/3, 9 PM Baby Soda Jazz Band followed by Brian Carpenter’s increasingly intense, noir Ghost Train Orchestra at the Jalopy, $10

5/3, 9ish legendary rocksteady/reggae crooner Ken Boothe (the Man with the Gold Tooth!) at Littlefield $20 adv tix rec.

5/3, 9 PM dark female-fronted acoustic art-rockers the Sometime Boys at Branded Saloon in Ft. Greene.

5/3 9 PM up-and-coming indie chamber ensemble Face the Music at BAM Cafe, free

5/3, 10ish smart, terse, funny Americana rock duo Kill Henry Sugar followed by Steve Ulrich’s legendary film noir guitar band Big Lazy at the Gutter in Williamsburg.

5/4, 6 PM the Sirius String Quartet at Shrine, program TBA,  free.

5/4, 6 PM torchy sultry literate historically-informed chanteuse/songwriter Robin Aigner & Parlour Game at Barbes feat. Pulitzer Prize finalist and violinist Caroline Shaw.

5/4, 7 PM the hilarious, historically brilliant king of retro ragtime banjo songwriting, Al Duvall at Pete’s

5/4, 7:30 PM gypsy rockers Caravan of Thieves at Subculture, $15.

5/4, 8 PM charmingly sultry French chanson revivalists Les Chauds Lapins at the beaux arts court at the Brooklyn Museum, free

5/4, 8  PM satirical Mexican-American retro rock agitator El Vez at Drom, $16 adv tix rec, this will probably sell out

5/4, 8 PM oldtimey swing and country soungs: Seth Kessel & the Two Cent Band , the Red Hook Ramblers, Barnyard Brothers and North of Nashville at Union Hall, $10.

5/4, 8 PM hypnotic Indian-flavored music for strings with Karavika at Alwan for the Arts

5/4, 8 PM smartly lyrical radical acoustic songwriter Ben Grosscup, charismatically torchy, deviously witty songwriter/siren Elaine Romanelli and jazz chanteuse Pam Parker at the People’s Voice Cafe, $18 sugg don.

5/4, 8 PM the Delorean Sisters – who do funny satirical oldtimey covers of 80s cheeseball radio hits -at Hank’s

5/4, 8 PM, repeating on 5/5 at 3 PM the world-class Park Avenue Chamber Symphony plays Leo Kraft – Variations for Orchestra (New York Premiere); Mozart – Piano Concerto No. 23 in A with Kariné Poghosyan, piano; Tchaikovsky Symphony No. 5 at All Saints Church, 230 E 60th St between 2nd and 3rd Aves.

5/4 this year’s Undead Jazz Festival is a pale imitation of what it was the past few years. First interesting show is 5/4 at Shapeshifter Lab starting at 8 with  Shane Endsley / Todd Sickafoose / Ben Perowsky followed at 9 by Martin Dosh + Andrew Bird, Jeremy Ylvisaker, Todd Sickafoose

5/4, 8 PM ageless torchy accordionist/chanteuse/personality Phoebe Legere at the Cutting Room, $25.

5/4, 8:30 PM purist oldtime Americana/bluegrass songwriter Vincent Cross at Espresso 77, 35-57 77th Street (just off of 37th Avenue) Jackson Heights

5/4, 8:30 PM Mimesis Ensemble are at Merkin Concert Hall playing a Lynchian elegy by Caleb Burhans, a cruelly sarcastic take on eco-disaster by David T. Little, powerful and historically aware chamber pieces by Fairouz as well as other works, adv tix $10 (students $5).

5/4, 9 PM stars of third-wave garage rock:  the Swinging Neckbreakers and Muck & the Mires at Don Pedro’s, $8

5/4, 9 PM amazing ten-piece country/gypsy/acoustic rock behemoth M Shanghai String Band at the Jalopy, $10.

5/4 Unsteady Freddie’s monthly surf rock extravaganza at Otto’s features some new names and a familiar eclectic 11 PM act: 9 PM the Fin-Dicators, 10PM the Derangers, 11PM the TarantinosNYC and a band called Flesh at midnight.

5/4, 9ish the Buddy Hollers, jamband American String Conspiracy and oldtimey country folks Uncle Walt’s Whiskey Review at Brooklyn Rod & Gun Club, free

5/4, 10ish psychedelic Middle Eastern/Central Asian/Caribbean jamband Tribecastan at Nublu

5/4-5, 9 PM Arabic disco music from San Francisco with Beats Antique at Brooklyn Bowl, $15.

5/4, 10 PM hypnotic Americana nocturnes with Hem at Bowery Ballroom, $20 gen adm.

5/4, 10 PM fiery psychedelic paisley underground rock with the Newton Gang at 68 Jay St. Bar.

5/4 Turkish qanun virtuoso Hasan Isakkut and Ensemble at Drom, 11:30 PM, $15 adv tix very highly rec.

5/4, 11:30 PM explosive two-sax-and-drums funk/trip-hop instrumental band Moon Hooch return to the Knitting Factory, $10

5/5, noonish the Hoboken Arts & Music Festival has a bunch of good acts spread out down Washington St. 3 blocks from the Path station. No idea who’s playing the main stage but take your chances; reliably good artists include veteran Americana rocker John Eddie, wickedly tuneful female-fronted reggae-rock band Bern & the Brights, Swingadelic – who have an excellent new Allen Toussaint tribute album out – edgy latin rockers Del Exilio and thunderous Japanese drum troupe Taiko Zuko.

5/5, 3 PM pianist Maurizio Pollini plays an all-Beethoven program at Carnegie Hall, $21 tix avail.

5/5, 3 PM the American String Quartet play Beethoven – String Quartet in F Major, op. 18, no. 1; Bright Sheng – Concertino for Clarinet and String Quartet; Ravel – String Quartet in F Major at Merkin Concert Hall. $15

5/5, 3 PM adventurous string quartet Brooklyn Rider at the Abrons Arts Ctr, 466 Grand Street (at Pitt St), free, early arrival advised.

5/5, 3 PM powerhouse pianist Beth Levin plays a world premiere by Andrew Rudin, a New York premiere by David Del Tredici and works by Scott Wheeler, Yehudi Wyner, Johannes Brahms, Franz Schubert and Michael Rose.at Spectrum, $25

5/5, 4 PM Canta Libre – Sally Shorrock, flute, Francisca Mendoza, violin, Veronica Salas, viola, Bernard Tamosaitis, cello and Karen Lindquist, harp – play the Handel-Halvorsen duo for violin and cello, a harp quintet transcription of Scarlatti sonatas by Jean Francaix, plus Beatles tunes at Church of the Epiphany, 1393 York Ave at E 74th St, free

5/5, 4 PM cellist Sebastian Bäverstam and pianist Yannick Rafalimanana play works by Franz Schubert, Claude Debussy and Samuel Barber at the Dreck Center at the Brooklyn Public Library Grand Army Plaza branch, no kids under 6 admitted.

5/5, 5 PM haunting, lyrically potent southwestern gothic rocker Tom Shaner – who put out one of the best albums of 2012 – at the small room at the Rockwood

5/5, 5 PM the Mara Rosenbloom Quartet plays the album release show for their excellent, pensively tuneful new melodic piano jazz cd at Smalls

5/5 ,7 PM Gamelan Dharma Swara play classic and modern Javanese gamelan pieces at the Fat Cat of all places.

5/5, 7 PM after the Sunday Salon at Zirzamin: Lorraine Leckie & Her Demons play a creepy mix of careening Canadian gothic rock and brooding chamber pop.

5/5, 7 PM International Street Cannibals play “several Beethoven Bagatelles with piano, belly dance and electro/acoustic ensemble; a malformed chamber version of Captain Beetheart’s “When I See Mommy I Feel Like A Mummy” with go-go dancer; a schizo-affective rendering of Sam the Sham and The Pharaohs’ “Wooly Bully”; a recitation, in the original Ionic dialect, accompanied by tribalistic sonorities, of Homer’s Hymn to Demeter; and some solo bijoux by pianist Taka Kigawa” at Drom, $10 adv tix rec

5/5, 7 PM sitar virtuoso Krishna Bhatt with tabla player Anindo Chatterjee at Symphony Space, $30/$20 stud/srs.

5/5, 7:30 PM the Down Hill Strugglers – f.k.a. the Dust Busters, self-appointed heirs to the New Lost City Ramblers’ wild oldtime folk legacy -at the Jalopy, $10

5/5 Marc Ribot’s Ceramic Dog and Hubble at Le Poisson Rouge

5/5, 8 PM the original oldtimey crooner, Dan Hicks & His Hot Licks at City Winery, $28 standing room avail.

5/5, 8:30 PM purist guitar jazz maven Peter Mazza leads a trio at the Bar Next Door. He’s also here on 5/26.

5/5, 9ish the increasingly more menacing, psychedelic Jack Grace Band with the Broken Mariachi Horns at Rodeo Bar. 5/13 he’s at the Ear Inn at midnight; 5/16 he’s at Barbes at 10

5/5 double drum madness with theVinnie Sperrazza/Jeff Davis Duo, plus the Jesse Stacken Group, Brian Drye Duo and Big Eyed Rabbit at IBeam.

5/5 St. Helena, Surface to Air and Option Copter III at 35 Claver Place

5/5, 9 PM fiery, lyrically-driven dreampop/punk/powerpop rockers the Brixton Riot rollowed around 11:30 by intense, lyrically brilliant , quirky two-keyboard 80s-style art-rock/new wave revivalists Changing Modes at the National Underground.

5/5, 11 PM wickedly oldschool Brazilian-flavored dub reggae with Kiwi at Sullivan Hall, $10

5/6, 5:30 PM cellist David Finckel makes his final performance with the Emerson String Quartet with music of Schubert, Schoenberg plus an excerpt from Tchaikovsky’s Souvenir de Florence featuring guests Paul Neubauer on viola and Colin Carr on cello at the Greene Space, $25.

5/6, 7:30 PM Marin Alsop conducts the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra playing John Adams: Shaker Loops; Jennifer Higdon: Concerto 4-3 (NY premiere); Prokofiev:  Symphony No. 4 in C Major, Op. 112 (1947 version) at Carnegie Hall, tix $12.50 and up

5/6, 7:30 PM trumpeter Sean Jones and quartet at Subculture, $18 .

5/6, 9 PM pensive, smartly lyrical Americana roots band Field Report at the Music Hall of Williamsburg, $14 gen adm

5/6, 9 PM eclectic jazz guitarist Tom Csatari’s Bigger Band at Tea Lounge in Park Slope.

5/6, 9ish Adam Rudolph’s Go Organic Orchestra at Shapeshifter Lab. They’r also here on 5/20

5/7, 5:30 PM the Tobias Picker Ensemble plays a program of the composers’s new works at the Miller Theatre, free.

5/7-12, 7:30/9:30 PM state-of-the-art lyrical jazz pianist Fred Hersch at the Jazz Standard: 5/7 with Anat Cohen; 5/8 with Greg Osby; 5/10-11 with Esperanza Spalding and Richie Barshay; 5/12 with Lionel Loueke

5/7-8, 7:30 PM violin virtuoso/musicologist Gil Morgenstern’s Reflections Series reflects on the past five seasons with pianist Jonathan Feldman, program TBA at WMP Concert Hall, $35.

5/7-11, 8:30/11 PM Jamaican jazz legend/personality Monty Alexander’s Harlem-Kingston Express at Birdland, $30 seats avail

5/7, 8 PM intense, tuneful psychedelic female-fronted power trio/jamband Devi upstairs at Bowery Electric.

5/7, 8ish the Nat Osborn Band – who play smart, tuneful, funky, high-spirited keyboard-and-horn-driven New Orleans rock – at the Mercury.

5/7, 8ish one of the godfathers of goth, Peter Murphy plays an all-Bauhaus set at Webster Hall, $30.50 adv tix avail. at the Irving Plaza box ofc

5/7-12, 8:30/10:30 PM Bill Friselll’s Beautiful Dreamer with Eyvind Kang on violin and Rudy Royston on drums at the Village Vanguard, $25 plus 1 drink min.

5/7, 10 PM bassist Linda Oh leads a trio with Troy Roberts on tenor sax and Ted Poor on drums at the Fat Cat.

5/7, 10 PM electroacoustic indie chamber ensemble Noveller followed eventually by ambient lutenist Jozef Van Wissem with Jim Jarmusch at the Mercury, $15, get your tix now, this will sell out fast

5/8, 5 PM Brandon Terzic (oud) + Skye Steele (violin) improvise at the foot of the spiral staircase at the Rubin Museum of Art, 150 W 17th St., free

5/8. 7:30 PM cellist Jodi Redhage’s Rose & the Nightingales’ gorgeous, sweepingly tuneful indie classical/jazz project at Subculture, $15 .

5/8, 7:30 PM JoAnn Falletta leads the Buffalo Philharmonic playing Kanchell: “Morning Prayers” from Life Without Christmas; Gliere: Symphony No. 3, Op. 42, “Ilya Muromets” at Carnegie Hall, tix $12.50 and up

5/8, 8 PM dark intense tuneful/lyrical janglerock/postpunk chanteuse Baby Streuth (f.k.a. Naomi Hates Humans) at Pete’s.

5/8, 8 PM dark smart jazz twinbill: drummer Allison Miller’s Boom Tic Boom and Sexmob who have a reputedly amazing Nino Rota album just out – at the 92YTribeca, $12 adv tix very highly rec.

5/8, 8 PM violinist Sarah Neufeld  and guitarist Rafiq Bhatia open for Colin Stetson – who blew the doors off the Bitter End, solo on bass saxophone when he played there at Winter Jazzfest – at le Poisson Rouge, $13 adv tix rec.

5/8, 9ish NYC’s funnest, most savagely satirical jazz band, Mostly Other People Do the Killing at Shapeshifter Lab

5/8, 9:30 PM Ed Cherry leads a trio followed at midnight by intense, edgy saxophonist Benjamin Drazen leading his trio with deviously eclectic B3 organist Brian Charette

5/8, 10 PM eclectic violinist Skye Steele’s fantastic Glorious Sunshine with Dayna Lynn on violin, Ilusha Tsinadze on guitar and Liam Robinson on accordion play the album release show for their new one, “a new EP of folk art songs fracking the substrata of regret, loss, and betrayal” at the Manhattan Inn in Greenpoint, free

5/8 ,10 PM dark piano-based chamber pop wiht Elizabeth & the Catapult at the small room at the Rockwood.

5/8, 10 PM trombonist Natalie Cressman and band play their lush, sweepingly melodic tunes  followed by Cressman’s mentor, saxophone powerhouse Peter Apfelbaum’s Sparkler at the big room at the Rockwood

5/9, 6 PM luminous Spanish flamenco-jazz pianist Ariadna Castellanos at Birdland, $25

5/9, 7 PM charismatic Americana songwriter/chanteuse Julia Haltigan and band at Joe’s Pub, $14, followed at 9:30 PM (separate $22 admission) by gypsy guitar paradigm-shifter Stephane Wrembel.

5/9, 7 PM violinist Jake Shulman-Ment and his band play gypsy and klezmer music at the Manhattan JCC, 76th/Amsterdam, $20.

5/9, 7:30 PM Leonard Slatkin leads the Detroit Symphony Orchestra with Pink Martini’s Storm Large on vocals in a surreal and stagey bill: Rachmaninoff’s Caprice Bohémien, Op. 12, and the haunting, austere Isle of the Dead, plus Kurt Weill’s Seven Deadly Sins and Ravel’s La Valse, at Carnegie Hall, tix $12.50 and up

5/9, 7:30 PM psychedelic art-rock, worldbeat and reggae: Deoro’s Manila Project with special guests Nyko Maca, Waway Saway, Daniel Darwin, and Jonan Aguilar at the Lincoln Center Atrium, free, early arrival advised.

5/9, 7:30 PM Leonard Slatkin leads the Detroit Symphony Orchestra playing the first four (!) Ives symphonies at Carnegie Hall, tix $12.50 and up

5/9, 7:30 PM pianist Noreen Polera and cellist Clancy Newman play works by Beethoven, Clancy Newman and Brahms at WMP Concert Hall, $20/$10 stud.

5/9, 8 PM an evening of short solo works performed by their writers from the Antisocial Music crew: solo works written by Beeferman, Dunphy, Durst, Duykers, Hudgins, Muchmore, Rosenberg, Seroff, Sinton, Waters & Zagaykevych performed by the composers and/or Curtis Stewart, Jean Cook, Britton Matthews & Jonathan Vincent at Douglass St. Music Collective, $10

5/9, 8 PM Annie Gosfield on keys with Sexmob’s Kenny Wollesen on drums and Roger Kleier on guitar playing a couple of her best-loved electroacoustic pieces, followed by Ebe Oke on synths at the Kitchen, $15.

5/9, 8 PM Margaret Lancaster, flute; Zach Brock, violin; Michael Lowenstern, bass clarinet; Richard Sussman, piano & synthesizer play new works by Lowenstern, Sussman, Preston Stahly and Jacob TV at the Cell Theatre in Chelsea, $20/$15 stud.

5/9, 9 PM briliant oud player/composer Mavrothi Kontanis’ intense, edgy new Middle Eastern rock band Mild Mannered Rebel followed by equally intense ten-piece Balkan brass jammers Veveritse Brass Band at the Jalopy, $10

5/9, 9 PM edgy oldtimey swing and C&W with Miss Tess & the Talkbacks followed by Lake Street Dive at Maxwell’s, $12 adv tix rec. 5/10 they’re at the Bell House for the same price.

5/9, 10 PM excellent, dark acoustic-electric Americana band A Brief View of the Hudson, putting an edgy, lyrical new spin on antique sounds, at Bowery Electric, $10

5/9, 10 PM the Bakersfield Breakers play surf music and twang instrumentals at Otto’s.

5/9, 10 PM Toubab Crewe play Afrobeat at Brooklyn Bowl, $13. They’re here the following night 5/10 at 9.

5/9, 11:30oish swirly, hypnotic, totally 80s 4AD dreampop/shoegazers Dead Leaf Echo at Shea Stadium, $8. They’re at Union Pool at 8 on 5/9 for the same deal.

5/10-11 cellist Jeffrey Ziegler’s last performances with the Kronos Quartet features Laurie Anderson joining them for their collaboration Landfall,  at the Kasser Theatre at Montclair State University in New Jersey. Tix $TBA; $10 roundtrip transportation from NYC is available via charter bus which leaves at 6 PM from 41st St. betw. 8th/9th Aves., res. highly suggested to 973-655-5112 or http://www.peakperfs.org.

5/10, 7:30 PM the Queens Symphony Orchestra plays Tchaikovsky’s Fifth Symphony and Manuel de Falla’s El Amo Brujo at Flushing Town Hall, free, early arrival a must.

5/10, 7:30/9:30 PM the East Meets West Guitar Trio with guitarists John Stowell, Gene Bertoncini and Paul Meyers at the Bar Next Door, $12

5/10, 8 PM sly alt-country songwriters Warren Hood & the Goods and Hayes Carll at City Winery, $20 standing room avail.

5/10, 8 PM dark intense minimalist occasionally Middle Eastern-inflected indie rockers the Mast (Persian for “high on life”) at the Knitting Factory.

5/10, 8 PM the Mivos Quartet play new works by Chris Fisher-Lochhead, David Grant and Thomas Ades at the 2nd floor loft space at 138 South Oxford St., Ft. Greene, any train to Jay St/ or Borough Hall and a ten-minute walk, $15/$10 stud/srs/artist/under 30.

5/10 8:30ish the Sharp Lads, fearlessly political soul/reggae/latin rockers Outernational and a reunion show by the Violators at Bowery Electric, $10

5/10, 8:30 ish iconic modern melodid jazz sax powerhouse Peter Apfelbaum & Sparkler at Shapeshifter Lab

5/10, 8:30 PM Jennifer Choi (violin) teams up with Pala Garcia (violin) and Michael Nicolas (cello) to mix and match their way through works by Gubaidulina, Nono, Lachenman and Sciarinno at Roulette, $15/$10 stud/srs

5/10 ,8 PM electronic keyboard new music frenzy: Yuka Honda on keys with Nels Cline on guitar followed by Brian Marsella on keys, then Ebe Oke at the Kitchen, $15

5/10, 9 PM mysterious, entertaining surf rockers the Tiki Brothers at Otto’s, free. They’re also at Rock Shop on 5/18 at 11ish for $5

5/10, 9 PM noir cabaret/gypsy punk band Not Waving but Drowning at Freddy’s

5/10, 9 PM absurdly funny Merle Haggard cover band Bryan & the Haggards – who put out two instrumental albums of Hag tunes, one a hilarious free-jazz interpretation and the other surprisingly straight-up, at Red Hook Bait & Tackle.

5/10, 9ish fiery surf trio Octomen at the Gutter in Williamsburg.

5/10-11, 9/10:30 PM arguably the most consistently interesting New York pianist in jazz right now, Kris Davis leads a trio with John Hebert on bass and Tom Rainey on drums at the Jazz Gallery, $0

5/10, 9/10:30 PM pianist Jacob Sacks leads a quartet with Ellery Eskelin, tenor sax;  Michael Formanek, bass;  Dan Weiss, drums at Cornelia St. Cafe, $20 includes a drink.

5/10, 10 PM badass oldtime blues/country resonator guitarist/chanteuse Mamie Minch– the ultimate Friday night headliner – at Barbes. Even her name implies bliss and lurid bluesiness.

5/10, 10 PM dynamic, dark, dramatic mythologically-inspired composer/songwriter Anais Mitchell at the big room at the Rockwood.

5/10, midnight oldschool latin soul band Spanglish Fly at Nublu

5/11, 11 AM the latest “wall to wall” free all-day extravaganza at Symphony Space explores the Harlem Renaissance, lineup TBA.

5/11, 3 and 8 PM S. Epatha Merkerson presents a salute to the women of jazz featuring an all-star cast of pianist Geri Allen, chanteuse Dianne Reeves, the Timeline Tap Quartet, Lizz Wright, Terri Lyne Carrington, pyrotechnic alto sax player Tia Fuller, guitarist Marvin Sewell and the vocal ensemble Afro Blue at the Apollo Theatre, $10 tix avail.

5/11  the house concert doublebill with bewitching Balkan chanteuse Eva Salina Primack and badass resonator guitarist/blues chanteuse Mamie Minch is sold out.

5/11, 6 PM Zeke Healy and Karen Waltuch play resonator guitar and viola to support vocal duets at Barbes followed eventually at probably around 10 by savage but subtly improvisational noir guitar jazz/soundtrack trio Big Lazy– New York’s best band of the last 10 years – recently resurrecrted and better than ever.

5/11, 7 PM brilliantly iconoclastic pianist/musicologist Nancy Garniez plays Haydn at an intimate house concert on the Upper West, email for info/address.

5/11, 7ish the One and Nines – NJ’s answer to Sharon Jones – at the JC & Harsimus Cemetery, 435 Newark Ave, Jersey City, $10, the highlight of a daylong festival that starts at 1-ish.

5/11, 7 PM a sophisticated south-of-the-border chanteuse doublebill with Argentina’s Sofia Rei and Mexico’s Magos Herrera at Joe’s Pub, $20.

5/11, 7 PM the acoustic oldtimey Big Road Blues Band, gypsy guitar jazzz with Buck Meek & Shine, ladino/Yiddish songwriter Robin Greenstein and Afro-Dominican folk-dance choir Legacy Women at Big Road in Chelsea, $15 sugg don .

5/11, 7 PM Khorikos performs the world premiere of King Lavra, the “micro-opera” by Jan Jirasek plus works by Jirasek, Britten, Whitacre, Grieg and Kodaly at Bohemian National Hall, 321 E. 73rd St., $15

5/11, 7:30 PM the torchy oldtime Jessy Carolina & the Hot Mess at Terra Blues.

5/11, 7:30 PM the reliably comedic Erin & Her Celloat the big room at the Rockwood

5/11, 7:30 PM Christoph Eschenbach leads the National Symphony Orchestra playing Shchedrin: Slava, Slava; Schnittke: Viola Concerto; Shostakovich: Symphony No. 5 at Carnegie Hall, tix $12.50 and up

5/11, 8 PM Mississippi hill country blues guitar genius Will Scott followed at 10 by the Duhks’ Tania Elizabeth and Andy Stack at 68 Jay St. Bar.

5/11, 8 PM Cuban salsa crooner Gerardo Contino Y Los Habaneros with special guests Xiomara Laugart and Luisito Quintero at Roulette, $25 .

5/11, 8 PM pianist Geoffrey Burleson and violinist Mary Rowell play new works by Armando Bayolo, Richard Cionco, Annie Gosfield, Erkki-Sven Tüür, Randall Woolf and  William Duckworth at the Cell Theatre in Chelsea, $20/$15 stud.

5/11, 9 PM the Likkle Big Band fronted by reggae chanteuse Charmaine John at the Way Station in Ft. Greene

5/11, 9 PM creepy keyboard-driven art-rock/goth band the Devil’s Broadcast at Hank’s.

5/11, 9/10:30 PM bassist Ben Allison leads a trio with saxophonist Ted Nash playing the music of Jim Hall. Steve Cardenas gets the juicy parts on guitar, at Cornelia St. Cafe, $20 includes a drink

5/11, 9:30ish ecstatically fun, intense gypsy punk/metal cumbia/rock en Espanol band Escarioka at Mehanata.

5/11, 10 PM dark Americana/noir jangleband Balthrop Alabama at Littlefield, $5.

5/11, 10 PM a one-off reunion of Evil Jake – sarcastic early zeros powerpop/punk-pop band with a bit of Social Distortion resonance who were too smart for the corporate machine that eventually tossed them aside – at Arlene’s, $10.

5/11, 10 PM dark eclectic Americana guitar genius Will Scott at 68 Jay St. Bar.

5/11 tongue-in-cheek, period-perfect early 50s style country from Susquehanna Industrial Tool & Die Co. at Rodeo Bar 11ish.

5/12, 3 PM pianist Anthony de Mare plays new works by Mason Bates, Eve Beglarian, Annie Gosfield, Ethan Iverson, Phil Kline, James Mobberley, David Rakowski, Frederick Rzewski, Steve Reich and Geoff Sheil at the Cell Theatre in Chelsea, $25/$15 stud.

5/12, 4 PM Benjamin Hochman, piano, Lily Francis, violin and Efe Baltacigil, cello, perform Beethoven’s Trio in E flat Op. 70 No. 2, Ravel’s Trio in A and Brahms’s Trio No. 1 in B op. 8 at the Dreck Center at the Brooklyn Public Library Grand Army Plaza branch, no kids under 6 admitted.

5/12, 5 PM Lee Feldman & His Problems play his subtly enigmatic, moody piano-based chamber pop on a brilliant doublebill with the incomparable, deviously lyrical alt-country legend Amy Allison at Something Jazz Club – dunno who’s playing first but who cares.

5/12, 7 PM after the Sunday Salon at Zirzamin: Chris Fuller playing biting, lyrical Americana, blues and gypsy-flavored songs.

5/12, 7:30 PM oldschool blues/ragtime powerhouse Blind Boy Paxton at Terra Blues.

5/12, 8ish Jozef Van Wissem – who puts an ambient modern spin on Renaissance lute music- followed eventually at around 10 by haunting, atmospheric gothic Americana chanteuse Marissa Nadler at St. Vitus, $12

5/12, 8 PM Canadian Americana chanteuse Charlotte Cornfield followed eventually by explosive North Carolina original bluegrass band Lindsay Lou & the Flatbellys at the small room at the Rockwood.

5/12, 8 PM obscenely hilarious, ferocious, surprisingly eclectic punk/powerpop band Custard Wally at Otto’s.

5/12, 9 PM the Bakersfield Breakers play surf music and twang instrumentals at Rodeo Bar

5/12, 7 PM Ensemble 212 play Beethoven’s Egmont Overture plus a New York premiere by Mohammed Fairouz and works by Saint-Saens, Mendelssohn and Daniel Felsenfeld at Merkin Concert Hall, $25/$10 stud.

5/12, 8:30 PM Uruguayan-American pianist Polly Ferman and Moroccan-born guitarist/singer Gerard Edery blend Sephardic and tango styles at Cornelia St. Cafe, $20 incl. a drink

5/13, 7 PM Jerome O’Brien of the late, great Dog Show plays his ferociously literate, vintage R&B/punk influenced songs at Zirzamin followed by intense, lyrically haunting Americana soul rocker Matt Keating.

5/13, 7 PM tsimbl (klezmer dulcimer) player Pete Rushefsky and violinist Jake Shulman-Ment play rare folk tunes from across the Jewish diaspora at the Center for Jewish History, 15 W 16th St, $15.

5/13, 7/9 PM pianist Orrin Evans’ wildly popular, ferociously intense Captain Black Big Band at Smoke, free w/$30 prix-fixe menu. They’re also here on 5/27.

5/13, 8 PM the Gil Evans Orchestra, led by Miles Evans at Highline Ballroom, $20 adv tix rec.

5/13 8 PM oldschool torchy soul band Empire Beats feat. Camille Atkinson at the Parkside, $10.

5/13, 8:30 PM avant violin star Ana Milosavljevic and irrepressible piano improviser Jed Distler team up at Cornelia St. Cafe, $20 includes a drink. Followed at 10 (separate admission) by string trio Speed Bump playing Miles Davis.

5/13, 9ish eclectic, lush sounds with the Ida Santhaus Big Band at Tea Lounge in Park Slope.

5/14, 7 PM wickedly catchy retro 80s janglerockers the Rotaries, free at the House of Bumble, 415 W 13th St. (Greenwich/Washington), free beer/wine, early arrival advised

5/14, 7 PM the Ben Holmes Quartet at Barbes playing tuneful Balkan jazz with guest Marcus Rojas on tuba for some extra low end at Barbes.

5/14, 7 PM edgy tenor saxophonist Stan Killian leads a quartet at 55 Bar, free

5/14-19, 7:30/9:30 PM one of the major jazz events of 2013 in NYC: Ryan Truesdell’s Gil Evans Project big band at the Jazz Standard, $25/$30 on the weekend. 5/14-15 features rare early-career music from Evans’ period writing for the Claude Thornhill Orchestra; 5/16 music from Out of the Cool, New Bottle of Wine and Great Jazz Standards; 5/17-18 from the immortal Individualism of Gil Evans (that’s the one we’re going to); 5/19 from Porgy & Bess and Miles Ahead

5/14, 7:30 PM eclectic, often gorgeously cinematic jazz with Bryan & the Aardvarks feat. Chris Dingman on vibraphone at Subculture, 45 Bleecker St

5/14, 7:30 PM Talea Ensemble performs chamber music by Austrian composer Beat Furrer at the Austrian Cultural Center, 11 E 52nd St., free.

5/14-19, 8/10 PM intense Middle Eastern/jazz saxophonist Uri Gurvitch leads a series of ensembles at the Stone. Opening night is the wildest, the album release show for his kick-ass new one Babel with special guest Dave Douglas on trumpet, Leo Genovese (piano, keys) Peter Slavov (bass) Francisco Mela (drums). 5/16-18 feature ensembles with brilliant oudist Brahim Fribgane; 5/19 with George Garzone on tenor sax!

5/14, 8 PM dark female-fronted Americana/psychedelic rockers Mesiko at Rock Shop in Gowanus, $8

5/14-19, 8:30/10:30 PM alto saxophonist Miguel Zenon – whose new Live in Puerto Rico quartet album absolutely kicks ass – leads a quartet with Luis Perdomo on piano at the Village Vanguard, $25 plus 1 drink min.

5/14, 8:30 PM devious saxophonist Jon Irabagon leads a trio with Sean Wayland on organ and Shawn Baltazor on drums at the Bar Next Door, $12

5/14, 9 PM intense blues/gospel/Indian/trance-jazz band Jaimeo Brown’s Transcendence play the album release show for their haunting debut cd at Drom.

5/14 Matt Siffert upstairs at Bowery Electric: songwriter with string quartet. Don’t let the gentle voice fool you, he’s got bite and the arrangements are gorgeous.followed by brilliant, bluesy cellist Calum Ingram, free

5/14, 10 :30 PM third-stream trumpeter Dominick Farinacci leads a small combo at the big room at the Rockwood, $10.

5/14, 11 PM chanteuse Abby Payne – whose new western-themed album is due out soon – at Pete’s. Bliss Blood and Al Street’s lurid, torchy noir Evanescentt project plays before at 10.

5/15, 7:30 PM members of the Composers Concordance composer/performer collective perform new works by Sandeep Bhagwati, John Clark, Dan Cooper, Hudson Harriman-Smith, Peter Jarvis, Earl Maneein, Milica Paranosic, Gene Pritsker, David Saperstein, and Randall Woolf at the auditorium at Goddard Riverside, 647 Columbus Ave (between 91st and 92nd Sts., free

5/15 evil noir Austin psychedelic bluesrockers the Sideshow Tragedy play upstairs at Bowery Electric; 5/17 they’re at Zirzamin at 11.

5/15, 8 PM Tunisian Middle Eastern jazz chanteuse Ghalia Benali and her phenomenal band: Stomu Takeishi (bass), Ned Rothenberg (reeds), John Hadfield (drums), Alex Waterman (cello), Tanya Kalmanovitch (violin) at at the Alliance Francaise, 55 E 59th St, $25. The Alliance is offering a tempting twofer package: tix for this show and Emel Mathlouthi’s concert on 5/22 for $35.

5/15, 8 PM a Henry Miller celebration with violinist Zach Brock, the Bushwick Gospel Singers, and the Holy Modal Rounders’ ageless Peter Stampfel at Spike Hill, note $10 cover charge.

5/15, 9ish dark psychedelic indie rock legend (and Herbie Hancock/Sonic Youth/Dresden Dolls collaborator/producer) Martin Bisi at the Delancey.

5/15, 10 PM noir guitar legend Jim Campilongo leads a trio at Union Pool.

5/15, 10:30ish casually catchy tuneful retro 60s soul/pop songwriter Janet LaBelle at Bowery Electric, $10. She’s also at Spike Hill on 5/25 at 8 PM for free

5/15, 10 PM pensive Americana songwriter Donna Susan at Otto’s. Raised on punk, inspired by country, more honest and haunting than any of the newbies recently relocated to Bushwick.

5/15, 11 PM torchy, dynamic retro chanteuse Julia Haltigan with her phenomenal band at the small room at the Rockwood.

5/16, 7 PM lush, exhilarating 11-piece bellydance orchestra the Jerry Bezdikian Ensemble at the Sullivan Room, 218 Sullivan St, $15 incl. a drink

5/16, 7:30/9:30 PM guitarist/conductor Greg Tate and pianist Marc Cary’s The Upper Anacostia–Lower Gold Coast Symphonic plays a tribute to DC go-go music at the Lincoln Center Atrium, free, early arrival advised.

5/16, 8 PM International Contemporary Ensemble and Third Coast Percussion perform works by Mexican composer Julio Estrada at the Miller Theatre, $25 adv tix avail.

5/16-18, 8 PM Chick Corea with the JALC Orchestra playing a career retrospective at the Rose Theatre at Jazz at Lincoln Center, $30 seats avail. but going fast, reserve now.

5/16, 8 PM duo improvisations: Kris Davis (piano) and Andrew Drury (drums); Ingrid Laubrock (saxophones) and Han-earl Park (guitar); and Catherine Sikora (saxophones) and Stanley Jason Zappa (saxophones) at Douglass St. Music Collective, $10.

5/16, 8:30 PM the lush, haunting Karl Berger’s Improvisers Orchestra at Shapeshifter Lab.

5/16, 8:30 PM wild, cleverly funny avant garde chanteuse/composer Amy X Neuburg plus Sideband (f.k.a. the Princeton Laptop Orchestra) playing electroacoustic works by Anne Hege, Konrad Kaczmarek, Jascha Narveson, Lainie Fefferman, and Dan Trueman through their custom-made sound system at Roulette, $15/$10 studf/srs. Fun factoid: both Neuburg and Sideband’s Lainie Fefferman hail from the same block in Princeton, NJ. They say don’t drink the water….

5/16, 8:30 PM Jon Irabagon, alto sax; Mark Helias, bass; Barry Altschul, drums at Cornelia St. Cafe, $20 includes a drink. Irabagon has a snarky yet unselfconsciously fun trio album out with Altschul and bassist Joe Fonda – this crew may amp it up a notch.

5/16, 8:30 PM edgy guitar jazz with the Assaf Kehati Trio feat. Ehud Ettun & Colin Stranahan at Bar Next Door.

5/16, 9ish the Brooklyn What – powerful, anthemic, fearless and funny punk/soul rockers who represent smart native-born Brooklyn better than any other band – open for oldtimey jugband legend Peter Stampfel’s album release show at Shea Stadium.

5/16, 9 PM fearlessly political soul/reggae/latin rockers Outernational at Matchless – get there early.

5/16, 10:30ish punk-inspired electric bluegrass and country with Demolition String Band at Rodeo Bar

5/16, 10 PM skin-peeling noiserock with the Sediment Club at Public Assembly, $12

5/17, 5 PM Cadillac Moon Ensemble play new works from composer collective Circles and Lines – Eric Lemmon, Dylan Glatthorn, Angélica Negrón, Conrad Winslow, Noam Faingold- at Tenri Cultural Center, 43A W 13th St., $15/$10 stud, performer/composer Q&A to follow concert. The next day 5/18 at 3 PM they dodge the tourists and play a program of works by Alex Weiser, Travis Weller, and Eric Stokes. for a very captive audience on the Highline at the seating steps at 22nd St.

5/17, 7 PM ambient, haunting electroacoustic jazz ensemble Mercury Falls plays the album release show for their latest one at Spike Hill, free; later at 10 PM there’s a ska/jamband bill with Tauk, the Flowdown and then wild Afrobeatban the  Brighton Beat for $5 .

5/17,  7 PM chanteuse Lucia Pulido on cuatro and vocals plus Ruben Samama on upright bass at 287 Spring Street, $20

5/17, 7:30 PM the mighty six-piece Pick Six Bluegrass Band at Dixon Place Theatre, free.

5/17, 8ish Pan-American rockers Los Rakas (say it slowly), Nahko & Medicine for the People (legalize it) and state-of-the-art roots reggae beast SOJA at Webster Hall, $25.50 adv tix avail. at the Irving Plaza box ofc.

5/17, 8 PM opening night of this year’s Look & Listen new music festival featuring the Jack Quartet performing new work by Lewis Nielsen plus a New York-centric multimedia  piece for piano, cello and video by Michael Brown and Nick Canellakis and a-cappella group M6 performing early Meredith Monk compositions at the Pratt Manhattan Gallery, 144 W 14th St., 2nd Fl., $15 or 3-day festival pass available for $35.

5/17 at 8 PM, repeating on 5/19, 3 PM glass music virtuoso Miguel Frasconi in concert at the Old Stone House, Washington Park, 336 3rd Street (bet. 4th & 5th Avenues) in Park Slope, $20. Bring additional family members, first adult gets in for $15, $5 for each addl ticket.

5/17, 8 PM “Sway Machinery’s Jeremiah Lockwood – troubadour with guitar singing delta blues and nigunim” followed at 9 by Haverrerchuck – Adam Hopkins (bass, compositions), Nathaniel Morgan (alto sax), Josh Sinton (baritone sax, bass clarinet), Eric Trudel (tenor sax), Jonathan Goldberger (guitar), Devin Gray (drums) and at 10 by the Jake Henry Quartet – Jake Henry, Owen Stewart-Robertson, Chris Tordini & Cody Brow” at Douglass St. Music Collective, $10 .

5/17, 8 PM Simon Rattle conducts the Philadelphia Orchestra in a program including Webern – Passacaglia, Op. 1; Berg -Three Fragments from Wozzeck; Ligeti – Mysteries of the Macabre; Beethoven – Symphony No. 6, “Pastoral” at Carnegie Hall, tix $20 and up .

5/17, 8:30 PM four flavors of NYC country: high-powered oldtimey band the Woes , the more honkytonk-inclined Third Wheel Band , the Future Laureates and then the original blend of country, glamrock and 90s Oasis sounds with the Hollows at Littlefield, $10

5/17, 8:30 PM Rudresh Mahanthappa leads a quartet with Matt Mitchell – piano; François Moutin – bass; Rudy Royston – drums playing Charlie Parker compositions at the Tribeca Performing Arts Center (the BMCC auditorium) on Chambers west of West Broadway, $25/$15

5/17-18. 9/10:30 PM clever, tuneful, witty new jazz with Hush Point feat.  John McNeil, trumpet;  Jeremy Udden, alto, c melody sax;  Aryeh Kobrinski, bass;  Vinnie Sperrazza, drums at Cornelia St. Cafe, $20 includes a drink .

5/17, 9/10:30 PM guitarist Lage Lund leads a quartet with Glenn Zaleski on piano, Orlando LeFleming on bass and Jonathan Blake on drums at the Jazz Gallery, $20

5/17 dark intense Americana chanteuse Shannon McNally plays from her new album of songs by the late New Orleans blues legend Bobby Charles at Joe’s Pub.

5/17, 9:30 PM wild crazy female-fronted gypsy band Fishtank Ensemble at Drom, $12 adv tix rec

5/17, 10ish the ultimate noir crime jazz/monster surf band Beninghove’s Hangmen play the album release show for their new one at Nublu.

5/17, 10 PM chanteuse Erica Ramos and her intense jam-oriented Brooklyn boogaloo revivalist band at Camaradas El Barrio, 2241 1st Ave, $7

5/17, 10 PM Nashville expat/retro country chanteuse Michaela Anne and band at Bar 4 in Park Slope

5/17, 10ish catchy, darkly jangly LA rockers Yellow Red Sparks at Union Hall, $12 .

5/17, 11 PM hypnotic, psychedelic dulcimber/bass/drums instrumentalists House of Waters at the small room at the Rockwood

5/17, 11 PM sly, lyrical bluegrass/alt-country bandleader Luther Wright and the Wrongs  at Rodeo Bar

5/17 S t. Croix roots reggae stars Midnite play at midnight at B.B. King’s, $30 adv tix rec.

5/18, 3 PM clarinetist Thomas Piercy, pianist Mika Tanaka and shakuhachi player Elizabeth Brown perform new works by Japanese composers inspired by NYC, and by NYC composers inspired by Japan, at the Secret Theatre, 44-02 23rd St, Long Island City, $20. The program repeats on 6/2 at 3 PM at Spectrum

5/18, 3 PM indie classical group Cadillac Moon Ensemble outdoors on the High Line between 10th/11th Aves.

5/18 Tempus Continuum Ensemble plays new works by up-and-coming composers Alex Burtzos, Anne Goldberg and Kevin Baldwin at the Cell Theatre in Chelsea.

5/18, 8 PM the majestic, eclectic NY Repertory Orchestra plays Peri Mauer – Illuminations of the Night (world premiere); Sibelius – Violin Concerto; Debussy Nocturnes, at Church of St. Mary the Virgin, 145 W 46th St. (between 6th & 7th Ave), $10 sugg don

5/18, 8 PM charmingly sultry French chanson revivalists Les Chauds Lapins at Barbes

5/18, 8 PM the second night of this year’s Look & Listen new music festival explores the Orpheus myth with music by Monteverdi and Birtwistle’s Orpheus Elegies for harp, oboe and voice. The lineup includes harpist Bridget Kibbey, oboist James Austin Smith and other performers TBA at the Pratt Manhattan Gallery, 144 W 14th St., 2nd Fl., $15 or 3-day festival pass available for $35.

5/18, 8 PM Desmond Knight and ensemble play works from his new album of soundscapes, Sentimental Parlour Music at 295 Douglass St. in Gowanus. Blistering  fast fingers but no wasted notes – amazing to watch her play.

5/18, 9ish Mississippi gothic songwriter (and Faulkner relative) John Murry at Union Hall in Park Slope, $8

5/18, 9ish electric and acoustic blues guitar goddess Ann Klein at Branded Saloon in Ft. Greene.

5/18, 9 PM country fiddler Melody Allegra leads her trio followed by the Jack Grace Band at 68 Jay St. Bar.

5/18, 9:30ish Klezwoods – who use klezmer as a stepping-off point for ska and Balkan music and all kinds of psychedelic, danceable craziness – at Mehanata

5/18, 9:30 PM pianist/chanteuse Mary Lorson & the Soubrettes play edgy, witty oldtime-flavored songs from their excellent new album Burn Baby Burn at Zirzamin.

5/18, 10ish Dimestore Dance Ensemble’s noir guitarist/bandleader Jack Martin’s savage Bob Dylan Deathwatch at the Gutter bowling alley in Williamsburg.

5/18, 10ish excellent noir surf rockers Dark City at Bowery Electric

5/18-19, 11ish Anti-Flag celebrate 20 years of playing politically informative punk-pop – which means that they’re in their mid-30s now – at the downstairs studio space at Webster Hall, $18 gen adm.

5/19, 1:30 PM classical chamber ensemble the Washington Square Winds at LIC Bar, program TBA.

5/19, 2:30 PM up-and-coming indie chamber ensemble Face the Music rocks out new works by Andy Didorenko, Daniel Bernard Roumain and their own Ethan Cohn’s Lionfish for jazz combo plus avant faves by Michael Gordon and Julia Wolfe at PS 142, 100 Attorney St. on the LES, $15, all proceeds to benefit the school

5/19, 3 PM intense, haunting Balkan band Litvakus at Eldridge St. Synagogue, $20/$15 stud/srs

5/19, 4 PM the final installment of this year’s Look & Listen new music festival features flutist Claire Chase and percussionist Svet Stoyanov playing works by Balter and Xenakis; composer/toy pianist Phyllis Chen teaming with chamber-pop group Cuddle Magic for pieces from their new collaboration, plus new works premiered by string quintet Sybarite5 and the Momenta Quartet at the Pratt Manhattan Gallery, 144 W 14th St., 2nd Fl., $15 or 3-day festival pass available for $35.

5/19, 7 PM after the Sunday Salon at Zirzamin: brilliant powerpop/psychedelic guitarist Pete Galub (of the Universal Thump and Amy Allison’s band) playing songs from his excellent new album Candy Tears.

5/19, 7 PM fiery Balkan rockers (and Raya Brass Band spinoff) Sherita at Superfine on Front St. in Dumbo.

5/19, 7 PM iconoclastic pianist/musicologist Nancy Garniez plays insightful, seemingly casual but stunningly intuitive interpretations of Haydn sonatas and Bartok miniatures at an intimate Upper Westside house concert, email for info

5/19, 8 PM blues/country/jamband American String Conspiracy followed by oldtime blues/country guitar purist Ernie Vega at Hank’s

5/19, 8:30 PM eclectic, funky, edgy lyrical rocker Avi Fox-Rosen – who keeps putting out amazing albums EVERY MONTH as name-your-price (.i.e. free) downloads

5/19, 8:30 PM clarinetist Steve Lugerner plays the album release show for his new one with  Stephanie Richards, trumpet;  Glenn Zaleski , piano;  Matt Wilson, drums at Cornelia St. Cafe, $20 includes a drink. On the moody improvisational Tzadik third-stream tip – good stuff.

5/20 explosive North Carolina original bluegrass band Lindsay Lou & the Flatbellys at St. Mazie’s (f.k.a. Rose Bar) in Williamsburg

5/20, 7 PM intense purist soul/rock songwriter Jo Williamson at LIC Bar

5/20, 7:30 PM horn & piano duo Radovan Vlatkovic & Ieva Jokubaviciute play rare repertoire for the two instruments at the Austrian Cultural Forum, 11 E 52nd St., free, res. req.

5/20, 7:30 PM the Concertante Chamber Players play Dohnányi works at Merkin Concert Hall, $26.

5/20, 9ish the Nathan Parker Smith Large Ensemble play intriguing third-stream big band sounds at Tea Lounge in Park Slope.

5/21, 7:30 PM eclectic, jam-oriented worldbeat/klezmer band Metropolitan Klezmer at Steven Wise Free Synagogue, $15 incl. beverages and snacks and klezmer jam afterward at 9.

5/21, 7:30 PM Canta Libre Chamber Ensemble continue their ongoing exploration of the work of women composers with Nancy Gustavson’s Nocturne, Barbara Harbach’s Carondelet Caprice, Beth Anderson’s February Swale (commissioned by Canta Libre), Adrienne Albert’s Lullaby and music of Victoria Bond at the Players Theatre, 115 MacDougal St, $20/$10 stud/srs

5/21-22, 7:30/9:30 PM daredevil tenor saxophonist Noah Preminger plays the album release show for his new one Haymaker at the Jazz Standard with guitarist Ben Monder, bassist Matt Pavolka, and drummer Colin Stranahan, plus special guest vocalist Alison Wedding.

5/21, 8 PM eclectic accordionist Alex Meixner and band at Barbes followed at 9 by Slavic Soul Party.

5/21, 8 PM an evening of experimental guitar with Tor Snyder solo, the Joel Harrison – Cristian Amigo – Andrew Drury trio and Seabrook Power Plant at the Intar Theater, 500 W. 52nd Street, 4th Floor, $10 sugg don.

5/21, 8:30 PM composer Sara Serpa’s monthly vocal jazz showcase features Jo Lawry in a rare duo performance with bassist Matt Aronoff followed by Yoon Sun Choi on the mic with Jacob Sacks on piano at Cornelia St. Cafe, $20 includes a drink.

5/21, 9 PM Brazda plays new arrangements of otherworldly Balkan vocal music at Korzo.

5/21-25, 9/11 PM ageless bop-era piano sage Barry Harris and his trio at the Vanguard, $25.

5/21, 10ish dark moody female-fronted noir/gypsy acoustic rockers Mad Juana at Bowery Electric, $10.

5/22, 7:30 PM the current 17-year cicada cycle ends this year: bugs on the loose! Pauline Oliveros, David Rothenberg, Timothy Hill, and Garth Stevenson improvise cicada-like sonics, preceded by a presentation on cicada sounds and behavior and then the world premiere of Richard Robinson’s Song of the Cicada, a 30-minute experimental documentary inspired by Rothenberg’s new cd Bug Music at Judson Church, 55 Washington Square South $15 sugg don

5/22, 7:30 PM briliant, darkly lyrical jazz pianist Shoko Nagai and percussionist Satoshi Taikeshi’s Abysm followed by Skye Steele’s Railroad Rodia at Shapeshifter Lab.

5/22, 7:30 PM acclaimed organist Gail Archer plays works by female composers Karen Thomas, Jennifer Higdon, Eleanor Daley and Nancy Van de Vate at the St. Paul the Apostle Church, 405 W. 59th St., free

5/22, 8 PM 5/15, 8 PM Tunisian art-rock singer/provocatrice/freedom fighter Emel Mathlouthi at at the Alliance Francaise, 55 E 59th St, $25. Tix are also available as a twofer package with the Ghalia Benali show on 5/15 for $35.

5/22, 8 PM the Israeli Chamber Project plays works by Mozart, Schumann, Gideon Klein, and Yinam Leef at Merkin Concert Hall, $30

5/22 indie classical ensemble yMusic at the big room at the Rockwood, program tba

5/22, 8 PM the debut performance of Cantata Profana playing Peter Maxwell Davies’ Eight Songs for a Mad King at Roulette, $20/$10 stud.

5/22, 9:30 PM smart, funny, female-fronted, indelibly NYC art-pop band Delusions of Grand Street at Sullivan Hall, $10.

5/22, 9:30 PM the Hot Sardines play upbeat 20s swing at Joe’s Pub, $15.

5/22, 10ish eclectic western swing baritone crooner Sean Kershaw & the New Jack Ramblers at Rodeo Bar

5/22, 10 PM the Bebe Buell Band  at the Cutting Room is cancelled.

5/23, 7:30 PM powerhouse lyricist, subtle acoustic rock singer Linda Draper plays the album release show for her long-awaited new one at the Bitter End

5/23, 7:30 PM intense gypsy band A Hawk & a Hacksaw (ex-Neutral Milk Hotel) play their new album You Have Already Gone to Another World all the way through to accompany Russian filmmaker Sergey Paradjanov’s 1964 film Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors at the Lincoln Center Atrium, free, early arrival a must, this will sell out fast.

5/23, 7:30 PM indie classical troublemakers Lunatics at Large play a program TBA at WMP Concert Hall, $20/$10 stud.

5/23, 8 PM at St. Marks Church, 2nd Ave/10th St.: Aaron Meicht presents a new extended composition: “[The] servant (cleaning up in the next room) cannot make music.” Followed by bass monster James Ilgenfritz’ Stress Addict . “The group’s guitar/bass/two percussion lineup suggests both a new music ensemble and a loud rock band, with the band’s brutalist aesthetic tempered by pages upon pages of dense notation. With Shayna Dunkelman and Mike McCurdy (percussion), Taylor Levine (electric guitar), and James Ilgenfritz (electric bass, compositions), the band revels in a blend of harsh noise, frenetic melodies, and compounded rhythms, ” $15.

5/23, 8:30 PM ludicrously bad, Arlene’s-style segues, incongruously good triplebill at the Way Station in Ft. Greene: cowpunks I’ll Be John Brown , the unexpectedly psychedelic Toys & Tiny Instruments and edgy, spectacularly eclectic Avi Fox-Rosen – whose 2013 album-a-month project just won’t stop.

5/23, 8:30 PM politically aware oldtimey/bluegrass band 2/3 Goat at Hill Country, free

5/23, 8:30 PM Patrick Cornelius tenor sax with Jared Gold on B3 organ and Ulysses Owens on drums at the Bar Next Door, $12.

5/23, 9 PM Geoge Jones tribute night with a parade of A-list NYC Americana types: Elena and Boo from Demolition String Band plus Drina Seay, Liz Tormes, many others at Rodeo Bar

5/23, 10 PM up-and-coming Americana/torchy jazz star Sarah Jarosz at the big room at the Rockwood, $15 adv tix req.

5/24, 6 PM Kip Rosser plays solo theremin at Cornelia St. Cafe, $15 includes a drink

5/24, 7 PM phenomenal 30–member all-male choir A Conspiracy of Beards walks up to their 8 PM gig at Drom singing from their vast repertoire of Leonard Cohen songs, starting at the Jack Hanley Gallery, 327 Broome St. 5/25, 9 PM they’re at Cloud City, 85 1st St. (Berry/Wythe) in Williamsburg;, $tba; 5/26 they’re at the Highline Ballroom at 1 for an extra five bucks.

5/24, 8 PM fiery noir gothic Americana/Canadiana rocker Lorraine Leckie & Her Demons followed by Czech gothic rockers Phil Schoenfelt & Pavel Cingl at Pete’s. 5/26 Schoentfelt and Cingl are at Zirzamin at 7, then they run up to Otto’s for a 10 PM show there.

5/24, 8 PM at St. Marks Church, 2nd Ave/10th St.: On Structure’s “Twistisch” – “A formal narrative of childish rituals gets pulled apart and reassembled rendering confused emotional states, rhythmic schizophrenia, and near tantrums while a specially designed “magical table top” illuminates and augments the minutia of a glitchy and sometimes dangerous game ‘ followed by Sexual Energies School: Rome, “the latest iteration of Nick Hallett and Zach Layton’s electro-acoustic improvisation project, featuring special guest Megan Schubert (vocals) and live projections by Brock Monroe.  Oscillating between the pulse of percussion-less disco and angelic synthesizer drone, Hallett’s and Layton’s textures are held together with live voices and guitar,” $15

5/24, 8:30 PM eclectic, paradigm-shifting B3 jazz organist Brian Charette leads a trio with Will Bernard on guitar and Jordan Young on drums at Shapeshifter Lab, $10.

5/24 9ish exhilarating, assaultive, monster surf/psychedelic/noir garage band Wooden Indian Burial Ground at Grand Victory in Williamsburg

5/24, 9:30 PM diverse female-fronted gypsy rockers Banda Magda at Joe’s Pub, $18.

5/24, 11 PM fiery tuneful powerpop rockers New Atlantic Youth at Rock Shop, $10.

5/24, midnight the eclectic Balkan/latin/hip-hop Underground Horns and at Nublu.

5/24, midnight-ish ferocious monster surf/noir garage/punk band Twin Guns at the Mercury, $10.

5/25, 6 PM edgy surreal jazz-Americana chanteuse Cal Folger Day at at Pete’s.

5/25, 7:30 PM brilliant pianist Alexandra Joan’s Kaleidoscope series continues with a program TBA at WMP Concert Hall, $20/$10 stud.

5/25, 7:30 PM gypsy jazz guitar band Gaucho at Joe’s Pub, $20.

5/25, 8 PM Harpsichordist Kenneth Weiss plays JS Bach, The Well-Tempered Clavier, Book I at Abigail Adams Smith Auditorium, 417 E 61st St b/w 1st and York, $35/$25 stud/srs.

5/25, 8:30 PM a wild/good intimate cutting-edge jazz doublebill at an intimate house party space in Bed-Stuy: BYOB, food at 7:30, Duo KChris (pianist Kris Davis and bassist Chris Tordini) at 8:30, Duet 27 Licks (drummers Devin Gray and Gerald Cleaver with guests Jean Carla-Rodea on vocals and Brandon Seabrook shredding the banjo) at 9:30, email for info.

5/25, 9 PM wry, catchy alt-country songwriter Alex Battles at Hank’s. He’s also at Brooklyn Rod & Gun Club on 5/31 at 9ish.

5/25, 9/10:30 PM drummer Dan Weiss leads a trio with Jacob Sacks on piano and Eivind Opsvik on bass at Cornelia St. Cafe, $20 includes a drink

5/25, midnight one of NYC’s most original melodic jazz composers, trumpeter Leif Arntzen plays the album release show for his richly tuneful new one at Nublu.

5/26, 6 PM Matthew Aucoin, piano; Keir GoGwilt, violin play works by Messiaen, Bach, and Schoenberg at Cornelia St. Cafe, $20 includes a drink

5/26, 7 PM Phil Shoenfelt and Pavel Cingl from popular Czech gothic rockers Phil Shoenfelt & Southern Cross, making their NYC debut at Zirzamin.

5/26, 8 PM a killer oldtime Americana triplebill at the big room at the Rockwood with oldschool blues/ragtime virtuoso Blind Boy Paxton, bluegrass hellraisers Lindsay Lou and the Flatbellys and raucous, kick-ass oldtime string band Spuyten Duyvil, $10.

5/27, 8ish fiery southwestern gothic/paisley underground psychedelic band Girl to Gorilla at Grand Victory in Williamsburg.

5/27, 8 PM John Rutter conducts his own Requiem plus Brahms’ German Requiem with full orchestra and choir at Stern Auditorium at Carnegie Hall, $35 tix avail.

5/27, 8:30 PM pianist Olga Vinokur plays works by Brahms, Dvorak, Piazzolla, Wild, Rihm, Wheeler, and Chesky at Cornelia St. Cafe, $20 includes a drink. Followed at 10 (separate admission) by the irrepressible, tuneful Steve Hudson Chamber Ensemble.

5/27, 10 PM Peter Bernstein – guitar , Donald Vega – piano , Dezron Douglas – bass , Billy Drummond – drums at Smalls.

5/27, 11ish irresistibly assaultive noiserockers the Sediment Club at at Death by Audio.

5/28 7 PM haunting four-octave Coney Island noir chanteuse Carol Lipnik & Spookarama at Barbes with Dred Scott – piano, Tim Luntzel – upright bass, Dan Rieser – drums and percussion, and special guest Lim Yang – upright bass

5/28, 7:30 PM Philly klezmer jam legends the Elaine Watts & Susan Watts Band at the Stephen Wise Free Synagaogue, 30 W 68th St (Columbus/Central Park West), $15.

5/28, 7:30 PM edgy, subtle, shapeshifting new melodic guitar jazz with the Dave Juarez Group at Shapeshifter Lab.

5/28, 8:30 PM fiddler/songwriter Kristin Andreassen and her Jalopy-bred Americana band at Cornelia St. Cafe, $20 includes a drink.

5/28, 11 PM hypnotic, fun, psychedelic-as-hell art-rock/prog instrumentalists You Bred Raptors – Epileptic Peat on 8-string bass, Zach Schmidlein on drums and Bryan Wilson on cello – at the Mercury.

Beginning at midnight 5/28 and continuing all day 5/29, Q2 broadcasts a daylong Rite of Spring marathon including a simulcast of pianist Vicky Chow’s live performance of her own solo arrangement at the Greene Space at 7; $15 tix are still available. Phil Kline hosts.

5/29, 7ish you want eclectic? Lush, slinky Middle Eastern film music ensemble Zikrayat, Balkan brass behemoth (and Ellington reinterpreters) Slavic Soul Party and the Toomai String Quintet at Highline Ballroom

5/29, 7:30 PM wickedly tuneful, edgy alt-country and purist acoustic pop with Kendall Meade and Anders Parker playing songs from their excellent recent duo album at the Mercury.

5/29 torchy bossa chanteuse Sasha Dobson at the big room at the Rockwood.

5/29, 8 PM a rare, inimitable and entertaining pair of sax groups: bari maven Charlie Kohlhase and the Saxophone Support Group performing the music of Kohlhase, Sinton, Lacy, and Hemphill with an expanded wall of saxophones followed by the Hofmann-Rofalski duo This Duo “outlining a delicate wave of sound” at Douglass St. Music Collective, $10.

5/29, 9 PM intense minor-key klzmer/groove/classical instrumentalists Barbez followed by the Butchershop Quartet playing Stravinsky’s Rites of Spring on its 100th anniversary at Littlefield, $10.

5/29, 9 PM the Whistling Wolves bring their Jalopy-style oldtime Americana to LIC Bar .

5/30, 7 PMK Winston “Jeggae” Hoppie, Bob Wright, Ken Schatz, the Johnson Girls, Wrickford “Rick” Dalgetty, Keith Johnston, Nuria Quinones, Gloria Wilson, Alberto Gonzalez, Mwata Nubian, Frankie Barria and others sing English sea shanties, Scottish ballads, spiritual Baptist hymns, Jamaican banana boat folksongs at the Jalopy, free

5/30, 7:30 hilarious alt-country and garage rock with Jesse Bates & Los Dudes, early postpunk legends Certain General, and perennially vital CBGB-era psychedelic punks Band of Outsiders at the Parkside, free.

5/30, 7:30 PM 80s punk swing legends the Microscopic Septet play their devious originals as well as Monk tunes at Joe’s Pub, $20.

5/30, 8 PM the Delorean Sisters – who do funny satirical oldtimey covers of 80s cheeseball radio hits -at the Way Station in Ft. Greene.

5/30, 8 PM the New Amsterdam Symphony Orchestra plays Brahms’ Academic Festival Overture, Tschaikovsky’s Romeo & Juliet and Vladigerov’s Varder at Symphony Space, $20.

5/30, 8:30 PM state-of-the-art melodic trumpet jazz with the Dave Douglas Quintet at Shapeshifter Lab

5/30, 9 PM Doctor Krapula – sort of a smartly lyrical, anthemic, politically aware Colombian ska-punk update on Midnight Oil – at Drom, $28 gen adm, adv tix very highly rec., this will sell out.

5/30, 9 PM Lee Scratch Perry, the Congos and a bunch of dub acts, more or less live at le Poisson Rouge, $20 adv tix a must, this will sell out.

5/30, 9 PM pensive, rustic original Americana songwriter Andrew Vladeck at the small room at the Rockwood.

5/30, 9:30 PM Mary C & the Stellars play high-voltage retro 60s soul at the big room at the Rockwood – if you like Adele’s voice but find her songs trite and cliched, Mary C will hook you up, $10.

5/30, 9:30 PM lyrical third-stream piano jazz with Vadim Neselovskyi at Caffe Vivaldi

5/30, 10ish: second-wave garage rock letends the Fleshtones, paradigm-shifting guitarist Deniz Tek of Radio Birdman and the Dictators’ irrepressible  Handsome Dick Manitoba at Bowery Electric.

5/31, 7ish Tracy Island – the catchy, smart, literate new wave/psychedelic rock project from Ian and Liza of the WonderWheels and the Larch – at Bowery Electric, $8

5/31, 7:30 PM a sizzling downtown NYC lineup reinventing Charlie Parker compositions: Marty Ehrlich – woodwinds; James Zollar – trumpet; Marc Ribot – guitar; Michael Formanek – bass; Nasheet Waits – drums at the Tribeca Performing Arts Center (the BMCC auditorium) on Chambers west of West Broadway, $25/$15 stud/srs.

5/31, 8 PM stoner punk-metal ferocity: Infernal Overdrive, Black Thai and Mighty High at Grand Victory in Williamsburg, $8.

5/31 8 PM Ajda the Turkish Queen (frontwoman of ferocious dark psychedelic dreampop rockers Black Fortress of Opium) at Zirzamin

5/31, 8 PM pianist Frank Kimbrough & saxophonist Scott Robinson play a rare duo show at Greenwich House Music School, 46 Barrow St half a block west of 7h Avenue South  $15/$12 stud/srs

5/31, 8 PM psychedelic keyboard funk/soul/groove maven Jesse Fischer & Soul Cycle with special guest trumpeter Takuya Kuroda at Drom, $10 gen adm.

5/31, 8 PM French indie classical crew Ensemble Linea play works by Bruno Montovani,  Tristan Murail, Georges Aperghis, Philippe Hurel and Raphaël Cendo at Elebash Hall, 365 5th Ave. north of 34th St., free.

5/31 ferocious, dark garage-punks the Brimstones and edgy garage rock guitarist (and Friggs bandleader) Palmyra Delran at the Cutting Room

5/31, 8 PM merengue band Kompalsa followed by St. Vincent’s Afri-Garifuna Jazz Ensemble playing garifuna tunes from the West Indies at Flushing Town Hall, $15.

5/31, 9ish dusky southwestern gothic and lively Americana soundtrack guitarscapes with Rev. Screaming Fingers at Sidewalk of all places

5/31, 9 PM the Dandy Warhols at Terminal 5, $30 adv tix avail.

5/31, 9/10:30 PM trumpeter Jonathan Finlayson & Sicilian Defense at the Jazz Gallerry, $20

5/31, 9/10:30 PM alto saxophonist Dave Liebman leads a new quintet with powerhouse Bobby Avey on piano at Cornelia St. Cafe, $25 includes a drink.

5/31, 9:30 PM charming female-fronted oldtimey swing combo Lake Street Dive at the big room at the Rockwood, $15.

5/31, 10 PM wry, tuneful, eclectic Nashville gothic band Maynard & the Musties at Hank’s

6/1, 7 PM an enticing free indie classical twinbill: Ensemble Perpetuo Moto and Ensemble Linea playing Gerard Grisey’s Talea plus works by Raphael Cendo, Philippe Leroux, Brice Pauset and Franck Bedrossian at Baruch Performing Arts Center, 17 Lexington Ave at 23rd St.

6/1, 7 PM edgy new string music: violinist Cornelius Dufallo joins forces with fellow violinist Todd Reynolds and clarinetist Kinan Azmeh playing works by Dufallo, Azmeh amd Guy Barash. Followed at 8 by a set by Azmeh and Syrian cellist Kinan Abou-Afach plus live painting by Kevork Mourad, at Roulette.

6/1, 7:30 PM haunting mystical and modern Ukrainian bandura lute sounds with bandura virtuoso Julian Kytasty and Alla Zagaykevich on vocals and electronics at the Ukrainian Museum, 222 E 6th St, (btw 2nd & 3rd Aves), $15/$10 srs/$5 stud

6/1, 8 PM composer Nate Festinger’s dark neoromantic stage play A Concert Drama (with piano, clarinet and string quintet) at West End Presbyterian Church, 165 W 105th St, $15.

6/1 8 PMJ Andalucian bandleader Javier Ruibal at Alwan for the Arts, $20 adv tix rec.

6/1 , 8 PM the Dan Band at B.B. King’s, $25 adv tix rec.

6/1, 9/1-0:30 PM ex-Lounge Lizards saxophonist Michael Blake leads a tribute to his old bandleader John Lurie with an excellent quintet including Ryan Blotnick , guitar; Landon Knoblock, piano; Michael Bates, bass; Greg Ritchie, drums at Cornelia St. Cafe, $20 includes a drink.

6/1, 10 PM art-rock piano maven Greta Gertler and her trio preview material from her forthcoming musical theatre collaboration with playwright Ally Collier, Willow’s One Night Stand’ at the bar at the Signature Theatre on 42nd St.

6/1, 10 PM wickedly catchy retro 80s janglerockers the Rotaries at Bowery Electric, $8

6/1, 11 PM Single Red Cent– who mix sharp, socially aware punk with a more atonal Gang of Four/Neighborhoods vibe – at Matchless.

6/1, midnight exhilarating retro 60s latin soul revivalists Spanglish Fly – who should have won the WNYC Battle of the Bands contest – at Lucille’s, free

6/2, 9 PM the Refugee All-Stars of Sierra Leone at Brooklyn Bowl, $12.

6/2, 9:30 PM sharply lyrical, theatrical, intense, hilariously literate acoustic rocker Walter Ego.unplugged at Sidewalk

6/2, 10 PM rustic, original oldtime-style Appalachian/Britfolk songwriter Jan Bell’s at 68 Jay St. Bar

6/3 dark British chamber-pop songwriter Mike Marlin at the Highline opening for what’s left of the Stranglers 6/4, 8ish Sean Noonan‘s Brewed by Noon (drums/vocals) featuring Malcolm Mooney (founding member of Can) (vocals), Jamaaladeen Tacuma (bass), Aram Bajakian of Lou Reed’s band (guitar), and Alex Marcelo (keyboards) at Bowery Electric, $10

6/4, 7:30 PM a high-voltage doublebill with the Levitt Legacy Tango Project plus Matt Temkin’s Yiddish Jam Band at the Stephen Wise Free Synagaogue, 30 W 68th St (Columbus/Central Park West), $15.

6/4, 7:30 PM the Jazz Composers Orchestra Institute runs through new material by Jennifer Bellor, José Beviá, Courtney Bryan, Ingrid Laubrock, Andy Milne, Richard Sussman, and Sumi Tonooka at the Miller Theatre, free but res. highly suggested to http://acojcoifinal.eventbrite.com/

6/4, 8 PM flutist/impresario Amelia Lukas’ reliably entertaining, cutting-edge Ear Heart Music series continues with Transit, violist Nadia Sirota and keyboardist Missy Mazzoli playing the album release show for electroacoustic composer Daniel Wohl’s new Corps Exquis at Roulette

6/4-10, 8/10 PM a Sylvie Courvoisier residency at the Stone

6/5, 6:30 PM retro jazz guitar god Matt Munisteri and His Syncopated Detonators outdoors on the plaza at the Brooklyn Public Library Central Branch at Grand Army Plaza.

6/5, 7 PM brilliant, pyrotechnic pianist Karine Poghosyan plays a celebration of Aram Kachaturian’s 110th birthday with pieces including his ballet transcriptions from Gayaneh and Spartacus, as well as the tour-de-force Piano Sonata from 1961 at Saint Vartan Armenian Cathedral, 34th St and 2nd Ave.

6/5, 7:30 PM pensive rainswept jazzy acoustic band Avidya & the Kleshas (feat. the intense Xander Naylor on guitar)  at the small room at the Rockwood

6/5, 8 PM Mexican folk-punk band Radio Jarocho, eclectic chanteuse Susana Baca and southwestern gothic geniuses Calexico at Prospect Park Bandshell, free

6/5, 8:30 PM arguably this generation’s  best art-rock band,  the Universal Thump at the Bell House, $10

6/5, 8:30 PM singer Mary LaRose leads a chamber jazz outfit with Jesse Mills, violin; Felicia Wilson, violin; Nicole Federici, viola; Chris Lightcap, bass and sings her own arrangements of material by Dolphy, Mingus and Ornette at Cornelia St. Cafe, $20 includes a drink.

6/5, 10ish chamber pop band the Secret History play the album release show for their new one at Glasslands.

6/5 10 PM Debra and Wayne from psychedelic power trio Devi at Legion Bar in Williamsburg

6/6, 7:30 PM the Azure Ensemble plays works by contemporary women composers Augusta Read Thomas, Wang Jie, Melinda Wagner, and Anna Weesner at Symphony Space, $10/$5 stud/srs.

6/6. 8 PM the DaCapo Chamber Players celebrate the 100th anniversary of Schoenberg’s immortal, creepy Pierrot Lunaire with a performance of the original plus a world premiere Mohammed Fairouz work by the same name at Merkin Concert Hall, $20/$10 stud/srs

6/6, 8 PM high-voltage, eclectic Halifax gypsy guitar jazz band Gypsophilia at Rock Shop in Gowanus, $10. They’re at Drom the following night, 6/7 at 11 PM, same price

6/6, 8ish lavish New Orleans funk/soul band Brother Joscephus & the Love Revival Revolution Orchestra play material from their brand new album at the Gramercy Theatre, $26

6/6, 8 PM the Eddie Palmieri Salsa Orquesta at B.B. King’s, $30 adv tix rec.

6/6, 8 PM the North/South Consonance Ensemble play NY premieres of works by Canadian composers Zosha Di Castri, Daniel Kessner, Mei-Fang Lin, Jonathan Russell at Christ & St Stephen’s Church, 120 W 69th St (bet Bway & Columbus), free

6/6, 8 PM trumpetwe Nate Wooley plays his new song cycle Seven Storey Mountain IV with an auspicious cast: Chris Corsano, C. Spencer Yeh, Matt Moran, Chris Dingman, TILT Brass sextet, and others at Issue Project Room, 22 Boerum Pl. in downtown Brooklyn, $10.

6/6, 8:30 PM a rare show outside their Barbes home turf by haunting/rousing vintage Belgian accordion jazz trio Musette Explosion at Cornelia St. Cafe, $20 includes a drink.

6/7, 7 PM pianist Lucian Ban and violist Mat Maneri improvise at the Rubin Museum of Art auditorium, $20.

6/7, 7:30 PM  the Transfiguration Camerata withthe Transfiguration Choir of Men and Boys and a virtuosic period instrument ensemble perform Bach’s Cantata 147 (“Hertz und Mund und tat und Leben”) and Brandenburg Concerto No.5,at the Church of the Transfiguration on 29th east of 5th Ave.

6/7-16, 7:30 PM plus selected matinee dates: When Trees Move and Women Burn: a world music theatre performance of spring and midsummer night songs from Polesia and the Ukraine played by Alla Zagaykevych & Lemon Bucket Orkestra with Brazda’s intense, haunting Shelley Thomas on vocals at LaMaMa, 74A E 4th St (Bowery/2nd Ave.), $10 tix avail.

6/7-8, 8 PM Chicago’s Sounds of Silent Film Festival makes its NYC debut at Anthology Film Archives. Performers include Alicia Poot Kelley, flute, Christie Miller, clarinet, Alyson Berger, cello, and Hulya Alpakin and Seth Boustead, pianos. Francesco Milioto conducts; NY premiere films include Martin Scorsese’s early and rarely-screened The Big Shave, a commentary on the Vietnam War  in which a clean-cut young man keeps shaving after cutting himself (with music to match) Native New Yorker by Steve Bilich, shot with an old hand-cranked Kodak, The Mermaid by Osamu Tezuka, the “godfather of anime” and others

6/7, 8 PM Kiwi play original dub reggae grooves outdoors at the Grove St. Path station in Jersey City, free.

6/7, 8ish oldschool garage punk with the Oblivians at South St. Seaport, free

6/7, 8 PM high-energy grasscore/Americana jams with Spirit Family Reunion at Brooklyn Bowl, $15

6/7, 8 PM tuneful, pensive alt-country duets with Bruce Robison & Kelly Willis at City Winery, $22 standing room avail.

6/7, 9/10:30 PM powerhouse tenor saxophonist Jason RIgby leads a quartet driven by the equally powerhouse Billy Hart on drums at Cornelia St. Cafe, $20 includes a drink.

6/8 mystical, enchanting Pakistani ghazal singer Kiran Ahluwalia – whose new collaboration with Tinariwen is as amazing as you would think -at Joe’s Pub, $20 adv tix rec

6/8 John Zorn, Bill Laswell and Milford Graves reprise a trio show at le Poisson Rouge that they played when the club first opened, $30 adv tix a must.

6/8, 7:30 PM Dmitri Slepovitch’s haunting, intense Balkan band Litvakus at the Stephen Wise Free Synagaogue, 30 W 68th St (Columbus/Central Park West), $15.

6/8, 8 PM high-energy oldtime-style string band the Down Hill Strugglers at 68 Jay St. Bar.

6/8, 8/10 PM indie classical ensemble Sybarite 5 at Subculture, $25.

6/8, 9 PM noir guitar god Jack Martin’s Bob Dylan Deathwatch at Zirzamin.

6/8 9 PM theatrical, darkly funny noir folk band Thee Shambels and suave baritone western swing crooner Sean Kershaw & the New Jack City Ramblers at Red Hook Bait & Tackle, dunno who’s playing first but they’re both good

6/8, 9:30ish ecstatically fun, intense gypsy punk/metal cumbia/rock en Espanol band Escarioka at Mehanata.

6/8, 11 PM intense gypsy punk band Kagero at the Bitter End, $10. If you’ve been priced out of Gogol Bordello tickets, this band is just as fun.

6/8, midnight psychedelic funk band Turkuaz at the Mercury, $10 adv tix rec

6/9, noon the global, eclectic free outdoor Mafrika Festival at Marcus Garvey Park, lineup tba.

6/9, 3 PM Tibetan chanteuse Yungchen Lhamo and Russian pianist Anton Batagov perform selections from their upcoming post-minimalist improvisatory album at the Noguchi Museum, 9-01 33rd Rd. at Vernon Blvd. in Long Island City, free w/museum adm ($10/$5 stud). N/Q to Broadway or F to Queensbridge/21st St..

6/9 ,6 PM retro bluegrass/C&W and soul songwriters: Vincent Cross and band at the small room at the Rockwood

6/9, 7:30 PM pianist Simone Dinnerstein plays Bach’s Goldberg Variations at le Poisson Rouge, $25 adv tix rec.

6/9, 8 PM check out this killer improvisers lineup: Thomas Heberer – trumpet; John Ehlis – guitar & mandolin; Mikko Innanen – saxes; Max Johnson – bass at I- Beam, $10

6/9, 11 PM Sister Sparrow & the Dirty Birds at Brooklyn Bowl, $12

6/10, 8:30 PM exhilarating Polish mountain string music and fiery new Middle Eastern/Mediteranean jazz by Ensemble Elektra at Cornelia St. Cafe, $20 includes a drink

6/10 Amanda Palmer solo at El Museum Del Barrio.

6/11, 6:30/9:30 PM Bill Frisell, Marc Ribot, Nels Cline and Shahzad Ismaily in the round at le Poisson Rouge. WOW. $25 gen adm.

6/11, 6:30 Dave Douglas collaborator Aoife O’Donovan at the Mercury, $12 adv tix rec.

6/11-15, 8 /10 PM a Frank London residency at the Stone.

6/11, 8:30 PM a rare duo show by mesmerizing jazz chanteuse (and Ran Blake collaborator) Dominique Eade with Bruce Barth on piano at Cornelia St. Cafe, $20 includes a drink. Followed at 10 (separate admission) by trombonist/singer Natalie Cressman and her tuneful, atmospheric third-stream band.

6/11, 9ish Versus at the Bell House, $25

6/11, 6-9 PM the Museum Mile Festival – 5th Ave. closed off to traffic, free admission at El Museo del Barrio; the Museum of the City of New York; the Jewish Museum; the Smithsonian’s Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum; National Academy Museum & School; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum; Neue Galerie New York; New York/German Cultural Center; and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

6/11, 6 PM lyrical, luminous pianist Katie Reimer plays a solo program of Bach preludes and fugues, Brahms’ Klavierstucke, plus works by Daniel Bernard Roumain and Mohammed Fairouz at Steinway Hall, 109 W 57th St., $10/$5 stud.

6/12, 7 PM wild mostly remale klezmer jamband Isle of Klezbos at El Sol Brillante Garden, 522 E 12th St btw Ave’s A/B (rain location JCC Manhattan); They’re also on the plaza at the Brooklyn Public Library at Grand Army Plaza at half past noon on 6/28 and then at Spectrum that night at 8.

6/12, 7 PM oldschool 8os hip-hop with Big Daddy Kane at Von King Park in Brooklyn.

6/12, 7:30 PM arguably the big band jazz night of the year with the three massive, musically interconnected orchestras of Asuka Kakitani , Nathan Parker Smith, and JC Sanford at Shapeshifter Lab

6/12, 8 PM dark, politically aware, Indian-influenced garage rockers Yankee Bang Bang at Grand Victory in Williamsburg $8

6/12, 9ish a British dancefloor spin on oldschool American soul grooves with the Heavy at Webster Hall $25.30 adv tix avail. at the Irving Plaza box ofc.

6/12, 9:30ish tongue-in-cheek, period-perfect early 50s style country from Susquehanna Industrial Tool & Die Co. at Rodeo Bar

6/13-15 7/9 PM indie-classical ensemble Newspeak play a soundtrack incorporating Rzewski’s intense, assaultive, iconic protest piece Attica;  David T. Little of Newspeak conducts, with Mellissa Hughes as the vocal soloist, at the Invisible Dog space, 51 Bergen St. (between Smith and Court Sts.), Cobble Hill, Brooklyn, $20

6/13, 7 PM golden age hiphop with  Rob Base and Chubb Rock at Von King Park in Brooklyn.

6/13 7 PM Americana rock chanteuse Karen Hudson plays the album release show for her new one Sonic Bloom – produced by the Del-Lords’ Eric “Roscoe” Ambel – at Rodeo Bar

6/14, 7:30 PM a pickup orchestra featuring violinist Jennifer Koh play John Zorn’s Passagen for Solo Violin (2011), Charles Wuorinen’s Spin 5 for Violin and 18 Players and Beethoven’s 7th Symphony at le Poisson Rouge, $20 adv tix rec.

6/14, 8 PM jaunty female-fronted holdtimey swing with the Hot Sardines at Lucille’s, free.

6/14, 8:30 PM P-Funk keyb legend Bernie Worrell and his band.at Littlefield, $15

6/14, 9 PM alt-country legends Son Volt at Bowery Ballrom, $22.50 adv tix rec. They’re at the Music Hall Williamsburg for $2 off  (advance tix req) on 6/15 at 9.

6/15, 5ish what’s left of the Zombies – Rod Argent and Colin Blunstone – at Central Park Summerstage. Avoid the putrid opening act at all costs.

6/15, 7:30 PM Erin Hill & Her Psychedelic Harp at Joe’s Pub, $15

6/15, 8 PM Blanks 77, Strike Anywhere and the Subhumans at Bowery Ballroom, $15. The Subhumans are also at the Music Hall of Williamsburg at 10 on 6/16 for the same price.

6/15, 9ish first-class third-wave ska triplebill: Los Skarroneros, the Void Union and the Toasters at Grand Victory in Williamsburg, $15.

6/16, 1 PM the Bang on a Can Marathon moves to Pace University’s Schimmel Auditorium on Spruce St. downtown, early arrival a must since it’s a lot smaller than the World Financial Center.

6/16, 7:30 PM legendary avant crooner John Kelly sings material by Kurt Weill, Charles Aznavour, the Incredible String Band, Mister Bungle, Jacques Brel, Holcombe Waller and the Shins, $20. He’s also here on 6/30, same time.

6/16-23 a Ned Rothenberg residency at the Stone, 8/10 PM.

6/16, 8ish Dead Prez at Von King Park in Brooklyn.

6/17, 7:30 PM bandoneonist/bandledeader Hector Del Curto and his quintet play the album release show for his new one Eternal Piazzolla with special guest pianist Pablo Ziegler at le Poisson Rouge, $12 adv tix very highly rec.

6/17, 8 PM the ISCM Ensemble plays an eclectic bill including a couple of world premieres by Wang Jie and Bruce Fitch plus works by Eve Beglarian, Bruce Adolphe and Leon Kirchner at the Miller Theater, $20 gen adm

6/18, 5:30 PM the Dana Leong Trio at 220 Vesey St. downtown.

6/18-19 Laurie Anderson at Rockefeller Park in Battery Park City.

6/19. 6:30 PM Paul Shapiro’s Ribs and Brisket Revue outdoors on the plaza at the Brooklyn Public Library central branch at Grand Army Plaza.

6/19, 7 PM perennially popular prototypical singer-songwriter Suzanne Vega – who’s far edgier than she gets credit for – at Madison Square Park

6/19, 7 PM gospel with Rev. Hezekiah Walker and choir at Von King Park in Brooklyn

6/19, 10 PM Low at the Music Hall of Williamsburg, $25. Avoid the nauseating 9 PM opening act at all costs.

6/20 half past noon eclectic jamband Metropolitan Klezmer outdoors at St. Mark’s Church, 10th St/2nd Ave.

6/20, 7 PM an intriguing night of eclectic new composer-performers’ compositions from toy pianist Margaret Leng Tan, cellist Marika Hughes, percussionist Damien Bassman, violinist Lynn Bechtold, 7-string bass guitarist Dan Cooper, guitarist Gene Pritsker, oboist Keve Wilson, and cellist Anja Wood. plus works by Milica Paranosic, Robert Aldridge, Svjetlana Bukvich, Herschel Garfein, Ge Gan-Ru, Scott Gendel, and Veronika Krausas at Bohemian National Hall, 321 E 73rd St, $25/$15 stud/srs , reception to follow

6/20, 9 PM the Quavers and Ymusic play live film scores at East River Esplanade, Pier 15.

6/21, 6 PM laconic, thoughtful, tuneful oldschool C&W with Scott Dennis at the American Folk Art Museum

6/21, 7 PM eclectic third-stream chamber jazz with the Christian Wallumrod Ensemble at the Rubin Museum of Art auditorioum, $20.

6/21, 7:30 PM desert blues guitar hero Bombino and fiery Malian psychedelic rockers Amadou & Mariam at Prospect Park Bandshell, free

6/21, 9ish O’Death at the Bell House, $12 adv tix rec.

6/21, 9 PM a ferocious rock en Espanol triplebill with Barbarossa, Helado Negro and M.A.K.U. Soundsystem at Littlefield, $15

6/21, 9 PM surreal, lo-fi 90s surf/space rockers Man or Astroman at Brooklyn Bowl, $15.

6/22, 7:30 PM retro soul with JC Brooks & the Uptown Sound at the Mercury, $12.

6/22, midnight noir glam/rockabilly with Tav Falco & Panther Burns at the Knitting Factory, $15

6/23 high-energy Austin acoustic rock and Americana triplebill at the Mercury:
Wild Child, Shakey Graves and the Marmalakes

6/23, 7:30 PM Susie Ibarra & Roberto Rodriguez followed by Pauline Oliveros on the V-Accordion at the Schimmel Center at Pace University downtown on Spruce St., free tix avail. day of show at 5:30 PM .

6/23, 8:30 PM Nektar at B.B. King’s, $32 adv tix rec.

6/24, 7 PM (doors at 6; early arrival advised) Yasiin Bey (the former Mos Def), who’s reinvented himself as a Gil Scott-Heron art-soul composer/songwriter – at Central Park Summerstage

6/25 5:30 PM James Maddock at 220 Vesey St; outdoors; 6/27 at half past noon he’s at One New York Plaza downtown.

6/25, 7 PM the Knights play Boccherini: Symphony in D Minor, “House of the Devil”; Glass (arr. The Knights): Suite from Orphée (premiere); Karlheinz Stockhausen: Tierkreis; Mozart: Symphony No. 41 in C Major K. 551, “Jupiter” at the Naumburg Bandshell in Central Park.

6/25-30 the Young Lions of Gysy Jazz Festival at Birdland, sets 8:30/11 PM, special guets include June 25 & 26: Peter Beets/jazz pianist from Holland, 27: David Langlois /washboards, 28:  Anat Cohen /sax&clarinet, 29 & 30: Edmar Castaneda/Jazz harp.

6/25-30 a Zeena Parkins residency at the Stone 8/10 PM.

6/26, 7 PM pyrotechnic clarinetist/saxophonist Anat Cohen leads her quartet at Madison Square Park.

6/26, 8 PM the perennially intense, tuneful godfather of edgy, lyrical, anthemic downtown NYC rock, Willie Nile plays the album release show for his latest one American Ride at the Highline, $25

6/26, 8ish Yaasin Bey at Central Park Summerstage.

6/26, 9:30 PM Argentinian bandoneon powerhouse JP Jofre plays the album release show for his explosive new one at Joe’s Pub, $15 adv tix a must.

6/27 folk noir cult favorites the Handsome Family at the Slipper Room (the strip club at Ludlow and Orchard) .

6/27 bluegrass sensations Claire Lynch and band at Hill Country.

6/27 guitarist Eyal Maoz’ assaultive surf-metal band Pitom at Littlefield

6/27, 7 PM eclectic third-stream jazz chanteuse Youn Sun Nah in a rare duo performance with guitarist Ulf Wakenius at the big room at the Rockwood.

6/27, 7:30 wild minor-key New Orleans/blues/reggae/klezmer jamband Hazmat Modine plus open bar with beer and wine at the Jewish Museum. 5th Ave. at 92nd St., $15/$12 stud/srs

6/27, 7:30 PM ferocious Italian gypsy band Canzoniere Grecanico Salentino at Joe’s Pub, $20.

6/27, 9 PM a rare one-off NYC reunion show by high-voltage 80s roots-rock legends the Del-Lords playing the album releaase party for their new one (first in 20 years!), Elvis Club, at Bowery Electric, $15 adv tix rec

6/27-29, 9/10:30 PM Henry Threadgill with a yet-unnamed supporting cast at the Jazz Gallery, $25.

6/27, 10 PM edgy psychedelic rockersLight Heat at the Mercury, $10.

6/28, 8 PM Japanese traditional music trio the East Winds Ensemble play Symphony Space, $25/$20 stud/srs

6/28, 9 PM Thalia Zedek’s recently reunited, iconic dark 90s indie band Come at Bowery Ballroom, $15.

6/29, 7 PM murderous punk jazz band Iconoclast at the Music with a View festival at the Flea Theatre, 41 White St. in Tribeca.

6/29, 9 PM whatever’s left of Os Mutantes at Prospect Park Bandshell, free

6/29, 10 PM catchy, quirky anthemic Australian sensations the Cat Empire at the Nokia Theatre, $27.50.

7/1, 9ish 80s new wave legends Bow Wow Wow at Grand Victory in Williamsburg, $25. Now in her mid-40s, Annabella Lwin is still reputedly going strong.

7/1, 10 PM Detroit African-American punk legends Death at le Poisson Rouge, $20 adv tix rec.

7/2, 6 PM Felix Hernandez’ Rhythm Review and Joe Bataan at Soundview Park in the Bronx.

7/2, 8 PM Ivoirien roots reggae legend Alpha Blondy at B.B. King’s, $30 adv tix rec.

7/2 Cuban percussionist Pedrito Martinez and his blazing salsa jazz group at Rockefeller Park.

7/3, 6 PM Boston string band Joy Kills Sorrow followed by bluegrass legends the Grascals at Madison Square Park

7/6 the Byzan-tones play wild psychedelic Greek surf music at Otto’s.

7/9 Israeli Middle Eastern dance/jamband Yemen Blues at City Winery, $20 standing room avail.

7/9, 7 PM salsa dura band La Excelencia at Rockefeller Park.

7/10 7 PM jazz chanteuse Rene Marie and her band at Madison Square Park

7/11, half past noon Hungry March Band at One New York Plaza downtown.

7/11, 7:30 PM innuendo-driven French chanson revivalists les Chauds Lapins at the Lincoln Center Atrium

7/11, 8ish Lila Downs at Central Park Summerstage, early arrival advised, this will undoubtedly sell out.

7/11, 8ish dark retro Link Wray-influenced surf/soul rockers Sallie Ford & the Sound Outside at Pier 84 on the river in Chelsea.

7/12, 7 PM NYC’s only all-female mariachi band, Mariachi Flor de Toloache at Prospect Park Bandshell, free

7/13, 1 and 3 PM the Bang on a Can All-Stars “play Steve Reich’s Electric Counterpoint for electric guitar, Michael Gordon’s harrowing Industry for solo cello and electronics, David Lang’s kaleidoscopic Sunray, Julia Wolfe’s edgy and dense Lick from 1994, Thurston Moore’s noise meditation Stroking Piece #1, and Louis Andriessen’s iconic Workers Union for any loud-sounding group of instruments” on Governor’s Island, free ferries leave from the old Staten Island ferrry terminal on the half-hour.

7/13, 6:30 PM a titanic Balkan brass quadruplebill with Zlatne Uste, Slavic Soul Party, Inspector Gadje and Raya Brass Band outdoors at 220 Vesey St. downtown.

7/13, 8ish latin soul legends the Ghetto Brothers at Crotona Park in the Bronx.

7/14, 3 PM bhangra funk orchestra Red Baraat and Romanian gypsy brass band Fanfare Ciocarlia at Central Park Summerstage. FC are playing Drom afterward at around 11, get there early if you’re going because it will sell out fast.

7/14, 3 PM Burmese traditional vibraphone virtuoso Kyaw Kyaw Naing at the Noguchi Museum, 9-01 33rd Rd. at Vernon Blvd. in Long Island City, free w/museum adm ($10/$5 stud). N/Q to Broadway or F to Queensbridge/21st St..

7/16 8 PM Wire at Bowery Ballroom, $20 adv tix rec.

7/18, 9 PM the Jon Spencer Blues Explosoion at the Music Hall of Williamsburg, $18 adv tix very highly rec. – they’re as good or better than they were 20 years ago.

7/24, 6 PM saxophonist Yosvany Terry leads his quintet; percussionist Dafnis Prieto adds an additional member to his in a first-rate Afro-Cuban jazz doublebill at Madison Square Park

7/25 7:30 PM the Kronos Quartet with Mariana Sadovska playing Chernobyl: The Harvest, plus Emily Wells and then My Brightest Diamond at Damrosch Park, early arrival advised.

7/26, 7 PM Magda Giannikou plays vintage Greek lanterna music on the plaza at Lincoln Center; out back in Damrosch Park Diannikou later collaborates with headliners the Kronos Quartet, who also have another invited special guest, Vân-Ánh Vo. Irish traditional act the Gloaming opens that show at 7:30.

7/26-27, 8 PM Dick Dale at Brooklyn Bowl, $30.

7/26, 8 PM wild, funny grasscore band the Devil Makes Three at Prospect Park Bandshell, free

7/27, 7:30 PM wild mostly-female klezmer jamband Isle of Klezbos plus open bar with beer and wine at the Jewish Museum. 5th Ave. at 92nd St., $15/$12 stud/srs

7/28, 6 PM Asphalt Orchestra playing the Pixies’ Surfer Rosa and Jacob Garchik’s “atheist trombone shout choir” the Heavens on the plaza at Lincoln Center, marching to Damrosch Park where they open the show at 7:30. Kronos Quartet follow with new works by gay composers.

7/28, 8:30 PM hilarious grasscore/gypsy punk band Larry & His Flaskat the Knitting Factory $10

7/30, 8 PM desert blues guitar star Bombino at Brooklyn Bowl, $12.

7/31, 6 PM state-of-the-art, wildly popular oldtime torchy swing combo Lake Street Dive followed by snart, eclectic acoustic songwriter Erin McKeown at Madison Square Park

7/31, 6:30 PM Moroccan and desert blues sounds with Mamadou Kelly, Imharhan and Aziz Sahmaoui & University of Gnawa at Damrosch Park.

8/2, 7 PM Mardi Gras Indians Big Chief Monk Boudreaux & the Golden Eagles followed by Brazilian and American maracatu projects: Maracatu Nação Estrela Brilhante and Nation Beat.

8/3, 7:30 PM awful segue, great doublebill: cosmopolitan gypsy band Banda Magda and the ageless, pyrotechnic Eddie Palmeiri Salsa Orchestra at Prospect Park Bandshell, free

8/3, 8:30 PM El Gusto play cross-pollinational Algerian and Sephardic music at Damrosch Park.

8/4,  1 PM New York Korean Traditional Marching Band and Ensemble Sinawi on the plaza at Lincoln Center.

8/7, 7 PM Ivan Neville’s Dumpstaphunk at Madison Square Park

8/7, 7:30 PM Ruben Blades at Damrosch Park.

8/8, 6:30 PM the No BS Brass Band on the plaza at Lincoln Center.

8/8, 8 PM Slavic Soul Party followed by live animal film scores by Dan Romer, Benh Zeitlin, & the Wordless Music Orchestra  at Prospect Park Bandshell, free

8/9, 6:30 PM Hungry March Band and Vau de Vivre Society on the plaza at Lincoln Center.

8/9, 7:30 PM “Edwardian pagan lounge ensemble” Rosin Coven and Amanda Palmer & the Grand Theft Orchestra at Damrosch Park, this will be a madhouse, kids will be camping out, get there early.

8/9, 8:30 PM Shaggy – yeah, him, Mr. Lova Lova – at Prospect Park Bandshell, free

8/9-18 the Bard Summerscape Music Festival spotlights Stravinsky and his world upstate in Annandale: roundtrip shuttle bus available from NYC. Too many shows to list, the entire calendar is here.

8/9, 10 PM powerpop guitar genius Chuck Prophet at the Bell House, $12 adv tix rec.

8/10, 1 and 3 PM indie classical and wild intense minor-key Russian/tango stringband songs: Fireworks Ensemble and Ljova & the Kontraband on Governor’s Island, free ferries leave from the old Staten Island ferrry terminal on the half-hour.

8/10, 7:30 PM Moon Hooch at Prospect Park Bandshell, free

8/10, 8 PM Nick Lowe at Damrosch Park.

8/11, 3 PM pianist Vicky Chow plays a program TBA at at the Noguchi Museum 9-01 33rd Rd. at Vernon Blvd. in Long Island City, free w/museum adm ($10/$5 stud). N/Q to Broadway or F to Queensbridge/21st St

8/11, 5 PM the Como Mamas – whose latest a-cappella gospel album is off the hook – followed by Motown’s Brian & Eddie Holland, Allen Toussaint and then Bobby Rush – at Damrosch Park.

8/15, 7 PM Bachata Heightz at Highbridge Park in Manhattan.

8/23-24 the Charlie Parker Festival. 8/23, 7 PM the world premiere of “Bird is the Word,” Jimmy Heath’s new Charlie Parker-themed suite played by Heath’s big band at Marcus Garvey Park; 8/24 at 3 has vibraphonist Warren Wolf & the Wolf Gang, trumpeter Christian Scott, drummer Sheila Jordan and octogenarian reedman Lee Konitz leadingtheir quartets at Tompkins Square Park while back at Marcus Garvey Park it’s alto sax powerhouse Jaleel Shaw, drummer Kim Thompson, chanteuse Cécile McLorin Salvant and the perennially intense Kenny Garrett.

9/1, noon-5 PM a free avant garde afternoon on Governors Island with pianists Blair McMillen and Pam Goldberg, Tigue Percussion, crooner Theo Bleckmann and indie chamber ensemble Classical Jam, free ferries leave from the old Staten Island ferrry terminal on the half-hour.

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Haunting, Otherworldly Ancient Georgian Songs from Zedashe

If you’re a fledgling Brooklyn record label, you want to establish yourself with a big-name indie rock band, right? Maybe if you’re lucky, some famous remixer [fill in the blank with the name of one if you know any – dozens of emails pitching indie rock remixes come over the transom here every day, and every single one of them goes in the trash] will remix one of the tracks ,and then you’ll suddenly be rich and famous, no? Insurgent Brooklyn label Electric Cowbell Records does things a little differently. Aside from putting out the excellent, more Afrobeat-inclined second release by CSC Funk Band (more about that one here soon), they went to Georgia in the former Soviet Union for Zedashe. In an era when nobody buys music anymore, they are going to sell a lot of copies of this album. It’s actually worth owning as a cd – you heard it here first.

Zedashe are a multi-generational ten-piece-plus choir from the village of Sighnaghi who specialize in centuries-old folk songs. They sing in their native Georgian language, accompanied by spare panduri lute, gardoni (wooden accordion) and chiboni (bagpipes) and occasional drums. Their music is literally otherworldly: it comes from another time and place. Throughout history, Georgia has been torn by war and invasions: it’s a miracle that any culture there existed at all, let alone one that could be passed down through the generations. The album was recorded at the local winery. It’s hardy, feral stuff.

Low, hypnotic, sometimes menacing drones anchor many of the choral pieces. A work song for artisans carving a wine trough sounds like a sea chantey – and lends credence to the argument that WHOOOOAH means exactly the same thing in Georgian as it does in English, i.e. “stop right now and go back in the direction you just came from.” There’s a catchy anthem that with English lyrics could be an East Anglian folk song and a matter-of-fact number with the garmoni delivering an echoey effect like a 1960s guitar repeaterbox. The close harmonies of the choir, composed of men, women and children in the old tradition, are sometimes surreal, often trance-inducing: this is the creepiest childrens’ choir you will ever hear, bar none. There are places where the counterpoint is as sophisticated as the most elaborate western classical music. There are horror film soundtracks in process waiting for some of these songs. There’s also a psychedelic aspect to many of the 23 tracks here. Zedashe take what they do very seriously: the opening track, for example, is described as being “derived from G. Svanidze’s 1924 recording of Petre Petriashili.” After hearing this, one can only hope to hear the original. For the English-speaking world, Electric Cowbell has a useful listening guide with translations of the lyrics here.

This blog was launched in August of 2011. The very first album chosen for review here – out of a universe of millions – was a 2004 collection of choral works by Ukrainian composer Roman Hurko, in memory of the victims of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster. At the time, given the global extinction event that happened the previous March 11, it made sense. With this album, it looks like this blog has come full circle.

How Many Times Can You Hear the Same Reggae Song Before You Go Insane?

When Romanian gypsy band Mahala Rai Banda recorded their hit Balkan Reggae a few years back, it was an appreciative shout-out from one hot ghetto band to the thousands of others in another time zone who may have inspired it. Now the song’s come full circle with the Balkan Reggae Remixed compilation, a bunch of Jamaicans (and Jamaican soundalikes) doing their own  thing with the song. From a 2013 perspective, the original seems a lot less surreal: a brooding roots reggae groove with a cimbalom? Why the hell not?

By that standard, the new mixes are even trippier – a New Yorker would call this “Mehanata music.” What’s coolest is that most of them are so different that you forget that underneath, they’re all the same song. La Cherga’s version has a vocal cameo from Adisa Zvekic that starts out pretty cliched but then gets reprocessed with a weird, ghostly tone-bending effect. Nick Manasseh’s version has Gregory Fabulous’ skibbitty-doo skanking and constant call to “soundboy” for no real reason at all. Jstar does a fabulously trippy job of stripping the song to its accordion roots and then back, adding silly stoner synth bass and video game-style EFX along the way. Mad Professor starts very subtly and then gets very unsubtle with the echo and the sequencer. G-Vibes gives newschool crooner Errol Linton a bit of funky wah guitar but otherwise pretty much leaves the song alone.

The Vibronics pretty much phone in their take; Koby Israelite add singer Annique’s jaunty, jazz-tinged vocal track. Kanka go for a wickedly echoey oldschool Scratch Perry vibe. By the time the last track, which doesn’t add anything, comes around, it’s time for the original, which ironically isn’t on this mix. Who is the audience for this, other than the limited number of people who plug their phones into a sound system and call themselves DJ’s? Probably anyone who’s in the house listening to those playlists.

A Subtle, Knockout Solo Album from Eva Salina Primack

All the greatest singers have a distinctive style: Aretha’s take-charge, centerstage fearlessness; Piaf’s blend of streetwise sass and brittle vulnerability; the Wolf’s mix of clenched-teeth angst and gleeful menace. Eva Salina Primack is more eclectic: while she has the power to belt over a blaring brass band, ultimately, nuance is her forte. Where Neko Case’s wounded wail will avenge you in song and Johnny Cash shoulders your burden with a grim grin, Primack delivers solace. She’s there for you in your most desolate moments. It makes sense that she would  understand that, because travelers know solitude well. Niche as her audience may be at this point in time, it’s global, as are her collaborators: contemporary accordionist Merima Kljuco, klezmer jazz maven Frank London and chanteuse Milena Kartowski among them. Considering how highly sought after Primack is, it’s not an overstatement to say that she’s one of this era’s most captivating and distinctive voices.

Much as she’s a band person at heart, her new album Eva Salina Solo is just vocals and accordion. While her game plan with this was to challenge herself, she makes it sound easy, which of course it wasn’t. What’s particularly impressive is that most of the takes are live. She reinvents the Macedonian Romani E Davujla (The Drums), about a girl who loves to dance, as a simmering, hypnotically seductive ballad. She goes light on the vocal ornamentation on that one as well as on the opening song, Stani Mi Majcu (Bulgarian for “get up, mother and bring me my baglama”), letting her notes linger with a distant longing, waiting until almost the end to come in with a simple accordion line. The haunting, chromatically-charged Sar Cirikli – a Macedonian Romani song about a mother’s pain after losing her two sons – makes a showcase for Primack at her most subtle, gentle but guarded, raising her voice with a melismatic unease as it goes on: these songs transcend the limitations of language. And her elegant, darkly swaying accordion matches the vibrato-fueled nocturnal suspense of Jano Janke.

By contrast, another Bulgarian song, Tudoro Ljube Tudorke gets a tender, low-key treatment, completely solo without any instrumentation. Primack brings a high-powered, Appalachian-tinged blue-sky tone to Bela Sum, Bela Junace, a connection she’s made before with equally eye-opening results with her Æ duo vocal project with Aurelia Shrenker. Beno Mes T’abeli, a Greek track that Primack originally recorded on that group’s album, has a coy, lighthearted charm, while Kemano Basal, another Macedonian Romani number, gets a dramatic urgency underscored by tersely potent minor-key accordion. And another Bulgarian tune, Avliga Pee V Gradinka (“the oriole sings”) might be the most gripping song on the album, resolute yet fragile and sung completely a-cappella. Not bad for a native English speaker from Santa Cruz, California. Primack plays a rare solo show at the American Folk Art Museum on the upper west at 5:30 on May 3. And WNYC just today aired a feature on her which you can hear here.

High-Voltage Israeli-Americana Cross-Pollination from Lily Henley

In her own individualistic way, violinist/singer Lily Henley encapsulizes the two most happening sounds coming out of New York right now: Americana and gypsy music. But what she writes isn’t either straight-up country or gypsy music. Her Americana songs often reflect her New England Conservatory training. Her darker, more Middle Eastern tinged material draws on her immersion in Sephardic music – she credits a three-year stay in Tel Aviv as being transformative. She’s playing the final show of her Tuesday night residency at Pete’s Candy Store on April 30 at 10 PM. As is the case with pretty much any good musician who bridges two musical worlds, she has a deep address book to draw from and varies her supporting cast from week to week. Her new album Words Like Yours has purist production from Omer Avital, another eclectic player, who made a name for himself as a jazz bassist before embracing his Middle Eastern roots and taking up the oud.

The lineup on Henley’s album is characteristically diverse: Haggai Cohen-Milo on bass, the Deadly Gentlemen’s Dominick Leslie on mandolin and mandola, Duncan Wickel on five-string fiddle and Tony Trischka collaborator Jordan Tice on acoustic guitar. The opening track, Two Birds immediately sets the tone, the doomed foreshadowing of its flight metaphors set to tricky metrics and spiky mandolin, Henley’s powerful voice soaring as the absolutely gorgeous, anthemic chorus kicks in. She adds extra intensity to the traditional Sephardic song Dark Girl via biting Celtic violin riffage. Hummingbird builds matter-of-factly toward a bittersweet, blues-tinged Appalachian vibe, while the Sephardically-toned Her Song, like the opening track, rises energetically but uneasily to a singalong chorus and then a nimble, chromatically-fueled guitar solo from Tice.

Pink Rose, with its moody layers of violin and meticulously melismatic vocals, is the most otherworldy, Balkan-sounding song here – yet when Henley raises her voice on the second chorus, she evokes a young Dolly Parton. Only Once is a “R&B” song in disguise: trade the acoustic instruments for cheesy computerization and it would be pretty indistinguishable for something you’d hear in a shopping mall. The album ends with Bluz Kna’ani, a bitter, crescendoing anthem by Israeli songwriter Ehud Banai that winds up as an Irish dirge. Folks, this is the future of music: are we living in a golden age or what?

Eclectic, Smart, High-Energy Keyboard Rock from Nat Osborn

There’s a subspecies of songwriter that wants to be Levon Helm. Possibly finding the inspiration after uncrating their dads’ Leon Russell and Joe Cocker records, they’ve set their sights on a modest and easily attainable goal: unthreatening, midtempo major-key Americana rock with a simple singalong vibe and not much else. What they hope to achieve from it isn’t clear: the era of big record labels keeping C-list sidemen like Helm and Russell in the fold, hoping to oneday see a second coming of Fleetwood Mac, ended decades ago. In the meantime, many of this new crop take up residency at open mics, hoping to gain some kind of foothold with their fellow dreamers.

While Nat Osborn plays catchy, warmly major-key, funky Americana rock, it would be a pity if he was to get pigeonholed as part of that crew, because while his music is just as retro, it’s vastly more exciting and edgy than theirs. Think Brother Joscephus on a smaller scale, or a younger East Coast version of Dr. John. The New Orleans influence is all over Osborn’s new album The King & the Clown, but it’s not cliches: his songwriting has bite. He’s playing the Mercury on May 7 at around 8; tix are $10 and still available as of today.

The album opens with Fire in the Wind, a blustery, catchy minor-key shuffle featuring Osborn’s horn section of Thomas Barber on trumpet, Adison Evans on baritone sax and Jake Handelman on trombone. “How does she hold so much anger in that little frame?” Osborn ponders.  Dreaming Her Love Away slinks along, drummer Zach Nicita giving it a bit of a disco pulse in tandem with the London Souls’ Stu Mahan’s fat, undulating bassline. Little to the Left is an irresistibly hilarious portrait of a trustafarian girl:

She’s got teardrops tattooed to her eyes
But I’ve known her for awhile now and I’ve never seen her cry
She loves to wear leather but she hates when I eat meat
She’s a hardcore hippie vegan with snakeskin on her feet

And it only gets more savagely sarcastic from there.

No Reason builds a catchy retro 70s disco tune out of a latin groove, with tinges of hip-hop. By contrast, Yours Alone is an explosive, minor-key antiwar reggae tune driven by Adam Agati’s furious, distorted guitar. Siren works a creepy 60s noir cabaret pulse with Osborn’s tiptoeing piano up against Agati’s twangy Henry Mancini surf licks and a lurid horn chart. Subterfuge develops variations on a hypnotic, classically-tinged, impressionistic piano vamp, while So Wrong It’s Right bounces along with a jaunty roaring 20s vibe: it wouldn’t be out of place in the Matt Munisteri catalog.

One Chance plays off a seductive retro soul groove lit up by Osborn’s twinkling, nocturnal Rhodes piano. Ritalin picks up the pace (doesn’t it always – after all, it’s chemically identical to crystal meth) with tumbling salsa piano and the sobering mantra “we leave every child behind.” The title track makes an unexpectedly macabre and extremely successful detour into circus rock. The only dud here, Leave All This to Me shamelessly pilfers a familiar Radiohead riff and works it to death. The album ends with the Sinatra-influenced solo ballad Where Morning Used to Be. Osborn gets his fingers into a whole bunch of different pies here and comes up with good stuff pretty much every time; he sounds like he’s a lot of fun live.

An Excellent New Album and a Bowery Ballroom Show by Hem

What do you make of the fact that excerpts from some of the songs on Hem’s new album Departure and Farewell first appeared in tv ads? On one hand, for an artist with any cred at all to debut new material in commercials usually amounts to career suicide – John Mellencamp could tell you something about that. On the other, it’s tempting to give Hem a pass. If there’s any band that deserves a little trickle-down money so they can afford the big-studio production that their lushly orchestrated, sweepingly melancholic songs require, Hem fits the bill. Yet from an artistic standpoint, would you want your audience to associate your music with, say, a credit card company whose ad they (or their lazy flatmates, or siblings, or parents) forgot to mute? As a listener, would you want to hear a song that reminds you of a  commercial? Obviously not. Those are just a couple of the dilemmas faced by artists these days. Robert Johnson had to go down to the crossroads to make his deal; 75 years later, Hem simply handed over the files and took the cash.

Whatever you think of that transaction, there’s no denying how beautiful the new album is. Seriously: do you know anyone who doesn’t like Hem? Sally Ellyson’s sad, poignant vocals and the band’s slow, Indian summer ballads have won them a rabid following that acts who play such quiet, often delicate music seldom achieve. They’re playing Bowery Ballroom on May 4 at 9; general admission tix are $20 and still available as of this writing.

The theme of the album is endings, no great suprise considering the band’s previous output, a topic to which they’re especially well suited. Several of these tracks are available as free downloads (and for more delicious live stuff, check out the Hem channel at archive.org including their show earlier this month at the Bell House).

The opening, title cut sets Dan Messe’s terse piano against stately harp and bassoon, building to one of the band’s signature swells. The first of the free downloads, Walking Past The Graveyard, Not Breathing is an ominously blithe oldtimey waltz at its roots. “They are there inside, though we can’t see them,” Ellyson intones nonchalantly. Things Are Not Perfect in Our Yard is short and hypnotic, playing off a catchy, fingerpicked Steve Curtis riff.

The Seed has an oldtime country gospel feel lit up by Heather Zimmerman’s rustic violin. Bob Hoffnar’s blue-sky pedal steel washes through The Jack Pine. “My blood runs into the Gowanus Canal where it sinks to the bottom , it hurts like hell,” Ellyson laments in Tourniquet (another free download), a tale of Civil War era Brooklyn.

Seven Angels spices an oldtimey waltz with gospel piano and lively, twangy Gary Maurer guitar. Gently Down the Stream builds a pretty majestic rolling-on-a-river sweep, while Bird Song (an original, not a Dead cover) works a gentle 60s folk-pop vein.

Traveler’s Song – still available on a No Depression free sampler (via Limewire) – is over in less than two minutes, a rewrite of an old Irish ballad. The Tides at the Narrows builds to an unexpected majesty out of a spiky bluegrass-tinged tune on the wings of Maurer’s dobro. Last Call, with its sly Buffalo Springfield reference and a dreamy Ellyson vocal, is the album’s longest song; it winds up with the surprisingly upbeat, somewhat honkytonk-flavored So Long. Call this chamber pop, art-rock or even country music – it’s all three and it’s uniquely and instantly recognizable as Hem. May they thrive long past the point of needing corporate cash to pay for studio time.

Raw, Smoldering Middle Eastern Rock from Mild Mannered Rebel

In the summer of 2008, oud virtuoso Mavrothi Kontanis released two brilliant debut albums. The first was a mix of stark classics from the Greek rembetiko underground of the the 1920s and 30s. The second, Wooden Heart, was originals influenced by the music of that era, with a similar restlessness and unease. Kontanis’ new album Ear to the Sky, with his band Mild Mannered Rebel, includes more of those plaintive, intense acoustic songs, but also psychedelic rock featuring Kontanis on – take a deep breath – guitars, bouzouki, baglama and tambouro lute. The band is playing the album release show at Drom on April 26 at 9:30; tix are only $10 and still available as of today. It’s a prime opportunity to get to know some of the songs from what might be the best album of 2013 in any style of music.

As in much of Greek music (Kontanis being second-generation Greek-American), the tempos on this album tend to be very tricky. Kontanis’ English lyrics are as serpentine as the music. While many have a smoldering, vengeful anger, Kontanis’ vocals have a low-key confidence and understatement: he lets the lyrics speak for themselves. Most of the acoustic songs set Kontanis’ oud and Megan Gould’s violin out in front of Brian Holtz’s bass and Shane Shanahan’s percussion; the rock stuff gives Kontanis a chance to be a one-man army of stringed instruments. Either way, the interplay between the instruments is luscious, whether it’s genuine teamwork or simply Kontanis’ intricately intertwining multitracks.

The album opens with a lithe, dancing acoustic intro titled Flight of Ikaros and ends with Fall of Ikaros, a metaphorically bristling lament with a long, hypnotic but biting violin solo as its centerpiece. The best song on the album is a brooding string quartet of sorts (a requiem for Kontanis’ father), sung in a richly low, suspenseful, elegaic alto by the ubiquitously brilliant Eva Salina Primack (who has a fantastic solo album of her own just out). The most psychedelic track is Dancing in My Dreams, Kontanis playing swooping, sitar-like lines over droning, dirty Velvets-style guitar distortion and a funereal bass pulse.

The menacingly nocturnal title track is a galloping, syncopated feast of chromatic minor-key guitar. Feel the Night and See You Through to the End both juxtapose carefree verses against edgy, anxious choruses, while the kiss-off anthem Don’t Need You Here works a bittersweet bucolic vibe. Mercy reaches toward a darkly seductive rembetiko ambience, while the viciously sarcastic Heart of Gold mines a psychedelic Greek folk vibe much in the same vein as Magges or Annabouboula. Rage finally reaches fever pitch in the revenge anthem The Climb, lit up by edgy oud/violin harmonies and Kontanis’ murderous lyrics. As stylistically diverse as this album is, Kontanis’  wicked chops on all those instruments connect them with a simmering, wounded angst. It’s one of the most hard-hitting, featlessly intense albums of the year.

Another Haunting Album from Niyaz and a New York Show on April 25

Caadian Middle Eastern band Niyaz put out one of last year’s most gorgeous albums, Sumud, a shout-out to the heroes of the Arab Spring. setting classical poetry  to the band’s signature swirling, enveloping, haunting soundscapes. They’ve got a new ep out that’s just as enticing (and somewhat mischaracterized as “acoustic” since the majority of it, at the very least, features electronic keyboardist Carmen Rizzo at his most opaque and hypnotic). They’re playing the Cutting Room on 32nd St. east of Park Ave. on April 25 at 8; standing room tix are $22 and still available as of this writing. This is a good band to get a standing room ticket to since most of their music has a lusciously undulating dance gorove.

The first song on the ep is Sahar, a characteristically enveloping Arabic theme that layers an elegantly galloping blend of lutes and frontwoman Azam Ali’s vocalese over echoey ambience. Nalona, an otherworodly, droning tone poem features long, sustained atmospherics from co-leader/multi-instrumentalist genius Loga Ramin Torkian’s processed guitar lute behind Ali’s hauntingly melismatic, carefully ornamented vocalese.

Three of the tracks here were first released on Sumud. Mazaar, an update on an old Afghan folk song, precisely and plaintively calls for an end to suffering, Ali singing in the Afghani Dara dialect. Parishaan illuminates the lyrics’ lovelorn angst via a slowly crescendoing vamp juxtaposing stark fiddle and spiky lute melodies. The most anthemic, and genuinely acoustic track here, Vafa, has Ali singing low and suspensefully against echoey percussion and layers of richly ringing lutes. The final track, Naseem, a free download, features incisive, intense  flute cadenzas from Habib Meftah Boushehri . Just like Sumud, this is one of the most richly captivating albums of the year, further evidence of the brilliant collaborations that continue to come out of the expatriate Persian community.

Big Lazy Returns with a Vengeance

With a big echoing crash and then a swipe of toxically reverb-drenched guitar, Big Lazy were back like they’d never left. If memory serves right, the world’s darkest noir instrumental band’s last gig had been a record release show in June of 2007 at Luna Lounge in what would soon afterward become the Knitting Factory space. It was the loss of a drummer (Tamir Muskat leaving to join Gogol Bordello and then lead Balkan Beat Box) that did them in. In the wake of the breakup, guitarist Steve Ulrich composed for film and tv, and joined forces with Pink Noise’s Itamar Ziegler, with whom he eventually put out the best album of 2012, the luridly menacing if prosaically titled Ulrich Ziegler. Friday the 12th at Barbes, the back room was packed, a mix of neighborhood folks along with what’s left of the band’s cult following from when they were a regular weekend attraction at Tonic.

Second and third versions of bands are usually pale imitations, but this lineup might be Big Lazy’s best ever  – and they had the brilliant Willie Martinez, the band’s original drummer, guesting on bongos on several songs. The new guys seemed to be jumping out of their shoes to be playing Ulrich’s material. Who knew that drummer Yuval Lion (another Pink Noise alum) could swing as hard as he did? And it figures that Ulrich would have to go outside the rock world, in this case, to the Greenwich Village Orchestra, for their first-chair bassist Andew Hall. Amped as high in the mix as Ulrich’s guitars, Hall anchored the songs in a murky yet precise pulse, adding an occasionally wrathful, pitchblende wash when he played with a bow. Meanwhile, Lion was having a ball with his hardware, pinging and rattling away when he wasn’t swinging a country backbeat or a nonchalant funk groove.

In practically two hours onstage, the band began with the brand-new Bernard Herrmann-style 6/8 blues Swampesque and ended with a typically out-of-breath, desperate Princess Nicotine. In between, they played mostly new material: Ulrich may not have been doing many shows lately, but he’s hardly been idle. Don’t Cross Myrtle blended monster movie improvabilly and purposeful Mingus swing, Lion riding the traps. Lunch Lady chugged along, shedding jagged chromatic sparks, followed by the Lynchian highway anthem Minor Problem, Ulrich’s lapsteel swerving eerily like Eraserhead behind the wheel.

Another new grey-sky highway theme, The Low Way unwound apprehensively, paving the way for a murderously spacious take of Skinless Boneless, a standout track from the band’s second album. Ulrich never stops reinventing his songs – no disrespect to Bill Frisell or Marc Ribot, but there is no more intense guitarist in the world right now. Martinez came up to join them and underscore the murderous tiptoe insistence of Gone, from the band’s third album, and then the rapidfire chase scene Just Plain Scared. The highlight of the second set was Uneasy Street, a morose classic from the band’s first album, Hall unleashing a river of ultraviolet ambience when Ulrich let his lurid, tremoloing lines fade out and handed over the melody. Big Lazy are at the Gutter bowling alley in Williamsburg on May 3 at atound 10 with Sexmob’s Steven Bernstein guesting on trumpet: if dark sounds are your thing, this is a show not to miss