New York City Live Music Calendar for February and March 2015

Click this link for the  new calendar for March and April.

There’s a comprehensive, recently updated list of places where these shows are happening at New York 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. If you see a show listed without the start time, that’s because either the artist, their publicist or the venue in question sent incomplete info: those acts are usually listed last on a particular date.  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.

On select Thursdays and Saturdays, an intimate, growing piano music salon on the Upper West Side featuring iconoclastically insightful, lyrical pianist Nancy Garniez – a cult favorite with an extraordinarily fluid, singing, legato style – exploring the delicious minutiae of works from across the centuries. Upcoming concerts on 2/12 at 7 and 2/15 at 4 PM feature music of Beethoven, Stravinsky, Handel  and Bartok, sugg don $30 (pay what you can), delicious gluten-free refreshments, beverages and lively conversation included! email for info/location.

Are you on the fence about whether crack is wack or not? Have you been sheltered from the rantings of crackheads in the street and on the train? Do you miss Amy Winehouse or Gil Scott-Heron? If so, maybe you should see Horrors of Cocaine, written and directed by Carla Cubit, a new play which “chronicles the life of a Kansas City, Missouri woman addicted to cocaine for seven years. After starting a cocaine habit at her job, she loses the job, and her American dream begins to unravel as she encounters crime, theft, prostitution, homelessness, psych wards, hospitals, and more trouble as a result of her addiction to crack,” running February 19 – March 1, 2015, Thursdays-Saturdays at 8 p.m. and Sundays at 3 p.m. at Theater for the New City, 155 1st Ave at 10th St, $10

Mondays in February, 7 and 9 PM, erudite pianist Orrin Evans‘ richly tuneful, purist, stampeding Captain Black Big Band at Smoke

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 and Tuesday nights Vince Giordano’s Nighthawks, a boisterous horn-driven 11-piece 1920s/early 30’s band play Iguana, 240 W. 54th St ( 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 nights at 9 PM charismatic Romany singer Eva Salina and her amazing, psychedelic band play high-voltage dub-tinged jams on classic themes from across the Balkans at Sisters Brooklyn, 900 Fulton St. (Washington/Waverly), Ft Greene, C to Clinton-Washington, free

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 February, 10 PM noir guitar legend Jim Campilongo leads his trio at the small room at the Rockwood. Now you can go see him since the Living Room, that hellhole where he used to rehearse on Monday nights, is closed forever!

Mondays at 10 PM there’s been quite a buzz about the weekly residency by torchy songbird Angela McCluskey and cinematic pianist Paul Cantelon – the brain trust of popular 90s act the Wild Colonials – at the third stage at the Rockwood, with a rotating cast of high-quality special guests. It’s expensive: $15 plus a $10 drink minimum very strictly enforced.

Also Mondays in February 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.

Tuesdays in February, 7 PM Ninth House‘s hotshot lead guitarist Keith Otten plays his own tuneful, Britrock-influenced sounds at Isle of Skye, 488 Driggs Ave (btwn N9th/N10th St.) in Williamsburg

Tuesdays in February, 8:30 PM the George Gee Swing Orchestra play surprising new arrangements of old big band standards at Swing 46, 349 W 46th St,  $15

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

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.

Wednesdays in February, 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.

Fridays at 5 PM, adventurous indie classical string quartet Ethel (Ralph Farris, viola; Dorothy Lawson, cello; Kip Jones, violin; and Tema Watstein, violin) play the balcony bar with a rotating cast of interesting special guests at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, free w/museum adm.

The first Friday of the month, anytime between midnight and midnight you can download four songs from Kiam Records artists – like Jennifer O’Connor, Mascott and Tim Foljahn – for free.  Each month’s theme is different (previously they have tackled covers, colors and money)  December’s the fourth edition and a holiday theme.  Available to download only on Friday and then archived and streaming at Soundcloud.

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

February 28 plus Saturdays in March at 4 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 at 4:30 PM, 1/11 through 2/1 spectacularly eclectic viola virtuoso/composerLjova plays with a revolving A-list cast including violinist Charlie Burnham, bassist Pablo Aslan, his other trio with Miki-Sophia Cloud & JP Jofre,  his wife and spectacular singer Inna Barmash’s Yiddish Lullabies & Love Songs project, and a new mystery project, at Silvana, free.

Sundays in February, 5:30/7 PM up-and-coming purist jazz chanteuse Brianna Thomas – old soul, new ideas – and her quintet at Minton’s, $10 at the bar/$20 at tables

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 February , 8:30 PM purist guitarist Peter Mazza – who gets the thumbs up from bop-era legend Gene Bertoncini – leads a series of trios at the Bar Next Door.

Sundays in February at 9 – check the Barbes calendar to make sure -Romany 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 like art-rock and post-Velvets noiserock. He’s also very popular: get there early.

2/1, 2 PM Small Toolik (postpunk supergroup Heroes of Toolik’s duo project with Jennifer Coates on violin, Arad Evans on guitars ) at Mayflower, 132 Greene Ave  (cor Waverly & Greene), Ft. Greene

2/1, 4:30 PM learn Ukrainian polyphony from the great Mariana Sadovska, composer of Chernobyl: The Harvest, connoisseur of both the avant garde and ancient folk songs! At 440 Studios, Room 3D, 440 Lafayette St. (between Astor Pl. and E. 4th St), $10/$5 stud/srs, kids free space is limited, rsvp reqd

2/1, 4:30 PM the George Gee Swing Orchestra make a rare appearance away from their Swing 46 home turf to play the album release show for their new one Swing Makes You Happy at Smalls.

2/1, 6 PM a cool string improv trio: Daniel Levin, Natura Morta’s Frantz Loriot and Flin Van Hemmen followed at 7 by Pascal Niggenkemper leading a trio at Downtown Music Gallery, free

2/1, 7 PM Jason Loughlin & the String Gliders play smartly exuberant western swing jams at Barbes opening for another amazing guitarist, Stephane Wrembel, who plays at 9.

2/1, 7:30 Patrick Brennan’s Transparency Kestra play fluid, enveloping wind-and-string improvisations for large ensemble at the Firehouse Space, $10

2/1, 8 PM high-energy oldtime acoustic Americana with the Five Mile String Band at the Jalopy, $10

2/1, 8:30 PM tuneful spontaneity: Jacob Sacks, piano; Masa Kamaguchi, bass; Vinnie Sperrazza, drums at Cornelia St. Cafe, $10 + $10 min

2/1, 11 PM intriguing, enveloping slowcore/postrock/soundscape band Aquadora at the Delancey, $5

2/2, 7 PM tongue-in-cheek singer-songwriter parodists the Lascivious Biddies followed eventually at 9 by Sexmob’s Tony Scherr‘s band, then noir guitarist Jim Campilongo and his creepy Monday night residency at the small room at the Rockwood

2/2, 8 PM bewitchingly assaultive art-rock duo Naked Roots Conducive – violinist Natalia Steinbach and cellist Valerie Kuehne play an event lovingly entitled Fucking Strings. Also on the bill: bassist Sean Ali, violinist Jeffery Young,  bassist Shayna Dulberger and guitarist Chris Welcome’s Hot Date,  and thereminist the Use at Torus Porta, 113 Stockholm St, storefront 1A (just off Myrtle), Bushwick, M to Myrtle Ave.

2/2, 8 PM catchy purist psychedelic pop songwriter Sam Kogon at the Cameo Gallery, $8

2/2, 10:30 PM the irrepressible, theatrical, politically spot-on Ukuladies at the Manderley Bar

2/3, 7 PM high-energy newschool honkytonk band American Aquarium at the Mercury, $12 adv tix rec

2/3, 7:30 PM choreographer/ethnic dance maven Avia Moore & Matt Temkin‘s wild klezmer jamband at the Steven Wise Free Synagogue, 30 W 68th St., $15

2/3-8 Ravi Coltrane leads a quintet with Ralph Alessi – trumpet; Aaron Parks – piano; Bob Hurst – bass; Jeff “Tain” Watts – drums, 7:30/9:30 PM at the Jazz Standard, $30

2/3, 8 PM the self-explanatory Gypsy Jazz Caravan at Radegast Hall

2/3-8, 8:30/10:30 PM saxophonist Wayne Escoffery shows off his purist side with a quartet including pianist David Kikoski, bassist Ugonna Okegwo and monster drummer Ralph Peterson- at the Vanguard, $25

2/3, 8:30 PM edgy, acerbic guitarist Travis Reuter leads a killer band: Adam O’Farrill, trumpet; John O’Gallagher, alto sax; Rajna Swaminathan, mrudangam; Chris Tordini, bass at Cornelia St. Cafe, $10 + $10 min

2/3, 9:30 PM Tongues in Trees – vocalist Samita Sinha, drummer Sunny Jain of Red Baraat, and guitarist Grey McMurray from itsnotyouitsme followed by LA noir soul/Nashville gothic pop band Spain at Rough Trade, $15

2/4, 6 PM Duo Yumeno – koto / shamisen player and singer Yoko Reikano Kimura and cellist Hikaru Tamaki – play elgant Japanese folk-based material at the Rubin Museum of Art, free w/museum adm.

2/4, 7 PM Vanguel Tangarov, clarinet and Ekaterina Tangarova, piano play works by Weber, Valtchanov, Poulenc, Giamperi and others at the Bulgarian Consulate General, 121 E 62nd St, free

2/4, 7 PM killer improvisation from this four-piece: Anna Webber: tenor sax; Travis Reuter: guitar; Marc Hannaford:piano; Will Mason: drums at Spectrum, $10

2/4, 7 PM Vanguel Tangarov, clarinet and Ekaterina Tangarova, piano play duo pieces by Weber, Poulenc, Chiamparini, Joseph Horovitz, Marin Valtchanov and Béla Kovács at the Bulgarian Consulate, 121 # 62nd St, 2nd Floor, free

2/4, 7:30 PM pianist Jenny Lin plays brooding works by Valentin Silvestrov plus Stravinsky: Piano Sonata and Scriabin: Piano Sonata No. 4  at Le Poisson Rouge, $15 adv tix rec.

2/4, 8 PM a good stoner garage/retro rock bill with the Greasy Hearts, awesomely unhinged horror surf/hotrod instrumentalists the Mad Doctors and Sun Voyager at St. Vitus, $8

2/4, 8 PM the Tarras Band – who play the repertoire of legendary hotshot klezmer clarinetis Dave Taras -featuring Tarras’ former pianist Pete Sokolow (piano), Michael Winograd (clarinet,) Ben Holmes (trumpet), Jim Guttmann (bass,) and Dave Licht (drums.) at Barbes

2/4, 8 PM a benefit for the Vanilla Queen of Soul, Joy Ryder featuring the legendary blue-eyed soul sister with her band plus CB’s era punk legends the Sic Fucks, violin powerhouse Marissa Licata, cult favorite Americana soul songstress Dina Regine and others at Bowery Electric, $10

2/4, 8 PM the Jake Schepps Quintet play their fascinating cross-pollinating blend of newgrass and classical chamber music at Subculture – plus Bartok for bluegrass band! $20 adv tix highly rec.

2/4, 8:30 PM bassist Bob Gingery leads an all-star quartet with Jon Irabagon, sax; Mike Baggetta, guitar; Mark Ferber, drums playing the album release show for their new one followed at 9:30 PM by irrepressible, sometimes punk-jazz, sometimes edgy postbop composer/guitarist Jon Lundbom & Big Five Chord playing the album release show for their new one Jeremiah – which includes a pair of wiccan songs – at Cornelia Street Cafe, $10 + $10 min

2/4, 9 PM majestic, epic, anthemic cinematic art-rock loopmusic guitarist Sarah Lipstate a.k.a. Noveller at the Wick, $15

2/4, 9 PM the Jalopy’s main man, Feral Foster brings his smart, purist, gloomy Americana to  Hill Country. 2/6 he’s at the overpriced bbq joint’s Brooklyn branch

2/4, 9:30 PM cellist/singer Meaghan Burke and the Rhythm Method play Ligeti’s String Quartet No. 1 plus her own darkly kinetic songs at Joe’s Pub, $16

2/4, 11 PM swirly, hypnotic, totally 80s 4AD dreampop/shoegazers Dead Leaf Echo – who if they let their frontwoman sing all the time would be one of NYC’s best bands – at Cake Shop, $8

2/5, 7 PM the Sylvan Winds play French and American music from NYC’s Gilded Age including works by Debussy, Faure, MacDowell, Still, and Lefebvre at the Museum of the City of NY, $25/$20 stud/srs, reception to follow. Use the museum’s 103rd St. entrance.

2/5, 7:30 PM, repeating 2/6-7 at 8 the NY Philharmonic with violinist Lisa Batiashvili play Rachmaninoff’s Symphony No. 2 plus the Barber Violin Concerto at Avery Fisher Hall, $32 tix avail. There’s also a 2/7, 2 PM concert with the Rachmaninoff preceded by the Dvorak Piano Quintet.

2/5, 7:30 PM experimental vocal works by avant garde composers and extended voice pioneers Joan La Barbara and Pamela Z at the Lincoln Center Atrium, early arrival advised.

2/5, 8 PM a composer portrait of Missy Mazzoli feat. string quartets Ethel and the Mivos Quartet, soprano Marnie Breckenridge, cellist Jody Redhage, violist Nathan Schram, violinist Robert Simonds, playing new and recent, meticulously enveloping, often achingly intense chamber works at the Miller Theatre, $20 tix avail.

2/5, 8ish well whaddya know- ticket sales at the Live Nation empire have tanked so badly they’re finally booking acts from outside the major label latrine! $13 will get you into Irving Plaza  to see edgy gutter blues band Jane Lee Hooker and wild, exhilarating twin guitar-fueled NWOBHM-style metal band the Blackfires and you don’t need to buy tix in advance.

2/5, 8/10 PM fiery guitarist Mike Moreno leads a quartet with Jon Cowherd – piano; Doug Weiss – bass; Clarence Penn – drums  at the Jazz Gallery, $15 first set/$10 second

2/5, 8 PM Dmitry Ishenko opens the night solo on bass followed by pianist Leo Genovese’s chamber jazz nonet at the Firehouse Space, $10

2/5, 9 PM  deviously intense, funny, charismatic oldtimey ukelele siren/songwriter Kelli Rae Powell at at Hill Country. 2/7 she’s at the Brooklyn branch, an hour earlier.

2/5, 9 PM boisteroiusly funny oldschool 60s C&W and brooding southwestern gothic with the Jack Grace Band at Skinny Dennis

2/5, 9ish, $27 for Anti-Flag at the Gramercy Theatre? So much for populism.

2/5, 9:30 PM pyrotechnic salsa jazz pianist Ariacne Trujillo takes a break from Pedrito Martinez‘s band to lead her own quartet at Drom, $10

2/5, 10 PM dark, charismatic, mischieviously witty literate keyboardist/chanteuse Rachelle Garniez at Barbes

2/5, 10 PM oldschool C&W cult favorites Session Americana at at the Jalopy, $10

2/5, 10 PM intriguing, atmospheric, intense avant garde singer Emilie Weibel at Hank’s

2/6, 7 PM excellent blues cover band Boxing the Needle – who reinvent classics from across the ages as psychedelia or dub followed by irresistibly named, darkly sizzling psychedelic garage punk rockers Anderson Council at 8 and then Stones/Social D-influenced guitar band Anchor Lot at the Delancey, $5.

2/6, 7 PM Cantata Profana put renaissance polyphony in sharp context/contrast with a “semi-staged chamber concert: 17th century Monteverdi next to Salvatore Sciarrino’s modern orchestrations of Gesualdo madrigals, Aribert Reimann’s modern string quartet recreations of Brahms songs, along with George Crumb’s fantastical first book of Madrigals, ending with Monteverdi’s most ambitious madrigal, Il combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda” at the Fabbri Library, 7 E 95th St. (just off 5th Ave), $23/$10 stud/srs

2/6, 7 PM irrepressible, historically informed, folk noir/jangly rock songwriter Elisa Flynn with the reputedly like-minded Jim Knable and Maharajah Sweets at Branded Saloon.

2/6, 7 PM WNYC’s annual Battle of the Bands kicks off at the Greene Space with the Manhattan edition. Go out and root for competent salsa romantica crooner Gerardo Contino in hopes that he can beat out a Katy Perry cover band, a bunch of prettyboys playing dentist-office pop, a fusion jazz band, a bearded dude banging out phony noir cabaret and a guy who doesn’t even play music: he plugs his phone into the PA. What Jersey turnpike they find these freaks on? Cover is $15 which includes a drink or $30 for open bar, which you may need to sit through all of this.

2/6, 7:30 PM violinist Rachel Lee Priday and pianist David Kaplan play contemporary works by Eric Shanfield, Matthew Aucoin, Hannah Lash, Caroline Shaw, Scott Wollschleger, Samuel Carl Adams, Sayo Kosugi, Eric Shanfield and Christopher Cerrone at Subculture, $20/$15 stud.

2/6, 8 PM eclectic jam-oriented mostly-female klezmer/tango/jazz band Isle of Klezbos– playing lots of new material off their subversive forthcoming album J. Edgar Klezmer:  Songs From My Grandmother’s FBI Files – at the Actors’ Temple, 339 W. 47th St., $15/$10 stud/srs

2/6, 8 PM violinist Jason Kao Hwang pulls out all the stops, playing two improvisational sets with two extremely interesting units: Sing House with Andrew Drury – drum set; Ken Filiano – bass; Chris Forbes – piano and Steve Swell – trombone and Amygdala with Rami Seo on the haunting, tone-warping Korean gayageum and Michael Wimberly on percussion at Roulette, $20

2/6, 8 PM sprawling gospel-rock orchestra Jesus on the Mainline – featuring spectacular frontwoman Mel Flannery – at the Mercury, $12 adv tix rec. How are they gonna fit all those people on that little stage?

2/6, 8:30 PM the cleverly tuneful, individualistic, witty Broken Reed Saxophone Quartet playing bandleader Charley Gerard’s Bukowski-influenced new suite with guest singer Kristin Slipp at I-Beam, $10

2/6, 9 PM searing, theatrical Romany/Balkan punk rockers Bad Buka acoustic ?!? at Radegast Hall. Even without amps, they have the energy to drown out the tourists. If you couldn’t afford Gogol Bordello at Terminal 5, these guys and girls will hit the spot.

2/6, 9 PM oldschool Rasta roots reggae with Heights of Wisdom followed by powerhouse bassist Dawn Drake & Zapote playing hot Afrobeat-tinged funk grooves at Silvana

2/6, 9 PM guitarslinger Hugo G – whose darkly hypnotic, politically aware originals are a smart, original update on the slowly unwinding Texas blues pioneered by Lightning Hopkins in the 30s and 40s – at Beluga Bar, 75 Murray St, Tribeca, $10

2/6, 9 PM a string-band infused preview of this year’s upcoming Brooklyn Folk Festival with Eli Smith, the Four O’Clock Flowers and ageless psych-folk icon Peter Stampfel at the Jalopy, $10

2/6, 9.10:30 PM the Fringe with free jazz icons George Garzone, tenor saxophone;  John Lockwood, bass;  Bob Gulloti, drums  at Cornelia St. Cafe, $10 + $10 min

2/6, 10 PM estimable fiddler and luthier Chloe Swantner assembles a bunch of topnotch NYC Americana talent to play songs by the great, eccentric C&W songwriter Roger Miller at Sunny’s.

2/6, 10 PM rockabilly/honkytonk maven Monica Passin a.k.a. L’il Mo at the Parkside. 2/14 she offers a rare glimpse of her dark side with a pissed-off, anti-Valentine’s show at 9 at Beast of Bourbon

2/6, 10 PM tunefully riff-rocking psychedelic pop band the Sleepy Hahas at the Cameo Gallery

2/6, 10:30 PM catchy Booker T-esque soul jazz with the David Gibson/Jared Gold, Hammond B3 organ band preceded by the purist, surprisingly low-key Naomi Shelton & the Gospel Queens at the Fat Cat.

2/6, 11 PM catchy janglerockers the Rotaries at Shea Stadium, $7

2/6-7, 10:30 PM trumpeter Alex Sipiagin leads a first-class quintet with Dave Binney – alto sax , John Escreet – piano , Matt Brewer – bass , Donald Edwards – drums  at Smalls

2/6, 11 PM St. Croix roots reggae stars Midnite play a Bob Marley bday celebration at SOB’s, $28 gen adm

2/6, midnight Bombrasstico – sort of the trombone version of Moon Hooch – play their explosive, improvisational organic dancefloor grooves followed by  infectious Brazilian maracatu/funk/New Orleans/surf/country band Nation Beat at Drom, $10 gen adm

2/6, 1 AM (wee hours of 2/7) conscious Rasta dub reggae sensation Jah9 with the Dub Treatment Band, at Milk River Cafe, 960 Atlantic Ave (Grand Ave/St. James Pl.), Brooklyn, 2/3 to Dean St.

2/7, 4 PM quirkily cinematic, psychedelic, family-friendly instrumentalists Songs for Unusual Creatures, followed at 8 by the Alejandro Zuleta Vallenato Collective and then at 10 by upbeat Sinaloa-style Mexican mariachi/ranchera brass group Banda de los Muertos at Barbes

2/7, 4:30 PM two shows by the Cannabis Cup Reggae Band at B.B. King’s: the first a “family-friendly” Bob Marley cover set (with pot brownies for the kids?) followed by one for the older stoners at 7:30, $25 adv tix req.

2/7, 5 PM ecstatic, original, jazzily psychedelic New Orleans funk band Water Seed at the Brooklyn Museum, free

2/7 and 2/21, 7:15 PM charismatic blues harpist/resonator guitarist Wade Schuman’s dark psychedelic acoustic blues/klezmer/reggae/soca jamband Hazmat Modine at Terra Blues

2/7. 7:30 PM intense, lyrically brilliant, quirky female-fronted two-keyboard 80s-style art-rock/new wave revivalists Changing Modes at Bar 13, 121 University Pl (13/14), $10

2/7, 7:30 PM thoughtfully melodic guitarist André Matos leads a quintet w/ Tony Malaby, saxophone; Jacob Sacks, piano; Eivind Opsvik, double-bass; Billy Mintz, drums; and: Sacks plays an intriguing quartet show with Mat Maneri, viola; Eivind Opsvik, double-bass; Billy Mintz, drums afterward, at Greenwich House Music School, 46 Barrow St., $15/$12 stud/srs

2/7, 8 PM drummer Carlo Costa’s viscerally haunting, sepulchral Natura Morta trio at the Full Salon, 221 Linden Blvd, Building D, Apt #3A, Brooklyn

2/7, 8 PM Cuban crooner Pepito Gomez and band at Roulette, open mojito bar 7-8 PM, $25

2/7, 8 PM indie classical chamber stars American Contemporary Music Ensemble and the always awesome avant-garde choral ensemble Roomful of Teeth join forces for a concert full of firsts including the world premiere of a new version of Caroline Shaw’s ever-evolving Ritornello 2.3 plus works by Purcell and Gavin Bryars at the Kasser Theatre at Montclair State University, 1 Normal Avenue, Montclair, NJ, $20, charter bus available from the Port Authority arcade on 41st St between 8th and 9th Aves to the theatre, ($10 per person, round trip), bus reservations may be made at 973-655-5112 or http://www.peakperfs.org

2/7 Unsteady Freddie‘s monthly surf rock extravaganza at Otto’s begins at 9 with B11, the purist reverbtoned Strange but Surf at 10, the savagely Link Wray-inspired Howlin Thurstons at 11 and then surf-loungers Plato Zorba around midnight.

2/7, 9 PM ferociously tuneful southwestern gothic rockers the Downward Dogs at Sidewalk.

2/7, 9:30  soaring, brilliant singer Magda Giannikou’s lush, sweeping, pan-Mediterranean art-rock/chamber pop/jazz group Banda Magda at Joe’s Pub, $20

2/7, 10 PM intense, smart, tuneful janglerock guitarist Jennifer O’Connor at Union Hall, $10

2/7, 10 PM the totally punk, oldschool 60s style Viva Vallenato Badass Acccordion Band at Silvana

2/8, 11 AMish multi-instrumentalists Sam Thomas and Elie Massias play their exciting new update on haunting Sephardic and Jewish diaspora sounds at City Winery, $10, no minimum, under-12’s free

2/8, 11 AM (in the morning), pianist Steven Osborne plays a tantalizingly biting all-Russian program of Rachmaninoff etude-tableaux plus Moussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition at the Walter Reade Theatre, 165 W 65th St.  $22 adv tix highly rec.

2/8, 2 PM utterly charming all-female oldtimey string band the Queens of Everything at Mayflower, 132 Greene Ave (cor Waverly & Greene), Ft. Greene

2/8, 3 PM the Shanghai Quartet premieres Du Yun’s Tattooed in Snow alongside Beethoven’s String Quartet, no. 12 in E-flat Major, op. 127 as well as Ravel’s String Quartet in F Major at the Kasser Theatre at Montclair State University, 1 Normal Avenue, Montclair, NJ, $20, charter bus available from the Port Authority arcade on 41st St between 8th and 9th Aves to the theatre, ($10 per person, round trip), bus reservations may be made at 973-655-5112 or http://www.peakperfs.org.

2/8, 4 PM the Apollo Trio perform Beethoven’s Piano Trio in E-flat Major, Op.1 No.1, Clara Schumann’s Piano Trio in G Minor, Op. 17 and Ravel’s Piano Trio in A Minor at the Dreck Center at the Brooklyn Public Library, free, no under-sixes.

2/8, 4:30 PM at Bowery Electric a killer pan-Asian lineup play a memorial/benefit concert for the survivors of 3/11: Japanese folk-pop band the Poku Poku Boys, the riff-rocking Underground Channel, exhilarating erhu fiddle-driven Taiwanese art-metal instrumentalists the Hsu-Nami, adventurous, fun, quirky female-fronted psychedelic pop duo Robin’s Egg Blue, artsy all-female janglerockers Bala and then danceable ska-pop with the Brown Rice Family and Uzuhi, playing their final show ever. Cover is $10.

2/8, 4:30 PM the intense, minor-key, Middle Eastern tinged Eyal Vilner Big Band at Smalls

2/8, 4:30 PM world premieres by exciting contemporary composers: Miranda Cuckson is the soloist in Wendy Griffiths‘ Concerto for Violin; new works by Thomas Addison, Carolyn Lord, Faye-Ellen Silverman and David Tcimpidis also on the bill at Mannes College Auditorium, 150 W 85th St., free

2/8, 5 PM violist Jessica Meyer leads her new composer-performer ensemble with composer/pianists Steven Long and Amanda Harberg and cellist Paul Dwyer. at Spectrum, $15

2/8, 7:30 PM NYC’s very own mesmerizing, hypnotically pointillistic Balinese orchestra Gamelan Dharma Swara play the North American premiere of “Geregel,” a landmark in contemporary gamelan composition by leading Balinese composer Dewa Ketut Alit at le Poisson Rouge, $15 adv tix rec.

2/8, 8 PM the New Amsterdam Symphony Orchestra play a characteristically dark orchestral program with Brahms’ Tragic Overture and the Shostakovich Cello Concerto with soloist Julian Schwarz at Symphony Space, $25/$18 stud/srs

2/8, 8 PM newschool roots reggae from the Eastern Seaboard and Jamaica: New Kingston and Mighty Mystic at the Knitting Factory, $10 adv tix req

2/8, 8:30 PM the New York Chillharmonic – vocalist/composer Sara McDonald’s lush, third-stream 17 piece big band with string quartet – at Shapeshifter Lab, $8

2/8, 9 PM the incomparable, deviously funny country/jazz/janglerock icon Amy Allison leads her band at 2A

2/8, 10 PM Heroes of Toolik play their deceptively catchy, hypnotically growling post-Velvets grooves at the Mercury, $10

2/8, 11 PM fascinating, kinetic electroacoustic sound sculptures with Sontag Shogun – who do very cool things with water sounds, among other textures – at the Manhattan Inn

2/9, 7:30 PM soprano Jennifer Zetlan and the Claremont Trio play an all-Shostakovich program including Trio No. 1 in C Minor, op. 8; Seven Romances on Poems by Alexander Blok, op. 127; Trio No. 2 in E Minor, op. 67 Music Mondays, Advent/ Broadway Church, 2504 Broadway at 93rd St., free.

2/9, 7:30 PM a subset of the NY Philharmonic plays new music by Israeli composers Avner Dorman, Yotam Haber, Shulamit Ran and Josef Bardanashvili at Subculture, pricy at $35 but could be worth it.

2/9, 7:30 PM Ward Stare conducts a chamber ensemble including Elizabeth Pridgen, piano and Amy Schwartz Moretti, violin playing music of John Adams, Elliot Goldenthal, and Béla Bartók at le Poisson Rouge, $15 gen adm.

2/9, 7:30 PM LES punk/rockabilly/surf/soul legends Simon & the Bar Sinisters at at Bowery Electric, free. 2/13 they’re at Beast of Bourbon at 9.

2/9, 8 PM original psychedelic funk/hip-hop band Mamarazzi a followed by edgy Romany/latin/ska rockers Karikatura at Brooklyn Bowl, $7

2/9, 10 PM Canadian gothic chanteuse Lorraine Leckie with bluesmama Lola Johnson on bass at Silvana; 2/14, 10:30 PM the’re at Muchmore’s

2/10, drinks at 5:30 PM, show at 6, guitarists Alec Holcomb, Jiyeon Kim, Xiaobo Pu and Hao Yang play works by Paul Lansky and Steve Mackey at the Miller Theatre, free

2/10, 7 PM tuneful, evocative, purist original front-porch folk songwriter Joanna Sternberg at the small room at the Rockwood. NYC’s preeminent literate janglerock/chamber pop crooner/bandleader Ward White plays across the way at the big room – tough choice, huh? – followed eventually at 10 by first-class American guitarist Bennett Sullivan and then at 11 by raucous, purist oldschool Asheville bluegrass band Town Mountain

2/10, 7 PM explosive Malian percussionist Awa Sangho and her band at Elebash Hall at CUNY, 365 5th Ave. north of 34th St., $25

2/10, 7;30 PM intense clarinet and violin-fueled klezmer group Litvakus at the Steven Wise Free Synagogue, 30 W 68th St., $15

2/10, 8 PM sizzling sarod superstars Amaan Ali Khan and Ayaan Ali Khan at Symphony Space, $25 adv tix a must

2/10, 8ish awesomely unhinged horror surf/hotrod instrumentalists the Mad Doctors, magically creepy Argentine noir/postrock instrumentalists La Venganza De Cheetara and hard-hitting girlpunks the Whiskey Bitches at Trans-Pecos, $7

2/10-15, 8:30/10:30 PM John Zorn does his Stone thing at the Vanguard, leading a bunch of different groups, $25. Choice pick: the 2/10, 10:30 PM set with Bill Frisell, harpist Carol Emmanuel and Kenny Wollesen on vibes, reprising their ethereally gorgeous set at the Met Museum a couple of years ago.

2/10, 8:30 PM edgy Mediterranean-inflected jazz from Crete via South Africa with violist Maria Manousaki leading her quartet with Shai Maestro, piano;  Petros Klampanis, bass;  John Hadfield, drums at Cornelia St. Cafe, $10 + $10 min

2/10, 9 PM Briana Layon & the Boys play their dark heavy stadium rock anthems at the Cameo Gallery, $10. God DAMN, can this woman belt. And she’s got a genius lead guitarist in  Chris DiBerardino

2/10, 9 PM intriguing jazz quartet Old Time Musketry, who blend oldtimey swing, modern bucolic styles and darker, more challenging improvisational sounds at Bar Chord

2/10, 9:30 PM saxophone powerhouse Lucas Pino‘s two-guitar No No Nonet at Smalls.

2/11, 7 PM intuitive, magically dynamic pianist Karine Poghosyan plays rare Aram Khachaturian works in conjunction with an exhibition by her painter dad Razmik at the Louis Meisel Gallery, 141 Prince St., $35/$25 stud

2/11, 7 PM pianist Tom Rosenkranz plays Sonata No. 2 “Concord, Mass., 1840-1860” by Charles Ives at Spectrum, $15

2/11-12, 7:30 PM the NY Philharmonic play Faure’s Pelléas et Mélisande Suite. a James MacMillan NY premiere and Tschaikovsky’s Symphony No. 4 at Avery Fisher Hall, $29 tix avail.

2/11, 7:30 PM intriguing, intense, fun, lo-fi original punk blues resonator guitarist/singer Breanna Barbara Arneson at Bowery Electric, $8

2/11, 8 PM guitarishly brilliant Afrobeat band Timbila followed at 9 by haunting original Americana/Britfolk chanteuse Jan Bell playing her birthday show at the Jalopy, $10

2/11, 8 PM quirky, sarcastic, lyrically-driven, XTC-ish clang/jangle/postpunk band theJames Rocket followed by the more comedic, considerably louder faux-arenarocking Bunkbed, the similarly hard-charging, distantly Replacements-esque, restkess Kenny Chambers & the Electric Ears and the catchy, jangly Big Star-ish Nu-Sonics at Cake Shop

2/11, 9 PM Dervisi feat. guitar god Steve Antonakos play “exotic Greek gangsta blues” at Troost, 1011 Manhattan Avenue btwn Huron & Green

2/11, 8:30 PM guitarist Lage Lund leads a tuneful improvising quartet with Matt Brewer, bass; Tyshawn Sorey, drums; Glen Zaleski, piano at Cornelia St. Cafe, $10 + $10 min

2/11, 9 PM tuneful/magically counterintuitive jazz drummer/composer Vinnie Sperrazza leads his group at Bar Chord

2/11, 9:30 PM tuneful third-stream pianist Yaniv Taubenhouse and his trio play the album release show for their new one at the Metropolitan Room, 34 W 22nd St

2/12, 6 PM CheHo Lam, violin;  Kyungmi Nam, piano play works by Brahms, Clara Schumann, Kreisler and more at Cornelia St. Cafe, $10 + $10 min followed at 8:30 PM by always surprising saxophonist Michael Blake leading a quartet with Cat Toren, piano;  Ben Allison, bass;  Rudy Royston, drums

2/12, 7 PM pianist Moira Lo Bianco plays solo piano improvisations based on works by composers such as Bach, Chopin and Satie as well as folk songs, standards and original compositions at Spectrum, $15

2/12, 7 PM purposefully noisy improvisation with guitarist Bonnie Kane and drummer Kevin Shea from Talibam at Muchmore’s

2/12, 7 PM a screening of Heather Quinlan’s documentary film If These Knishes Could Talk: The Story of the New York Accent followed by “a competition that pits one New Yorker from each borough against the others to vie for the best New York accent,” at City Lore Gallery, 56 E 1st St (between 1st and 2nd Ave), $15.

2/12, 7:30 PM the lush, psychedelic art-rock/jazz ensemble Awakening Orchestra play their adaptation of Jesse Lewis’ 2008 largescale piece Atticus, featuring the composer himself, at Shapeshifter Lab, $12

2/12, 7:30 PM Talea Ensemble joins forces with the unstoppable John Zorn for a program of new and classic works; Zorn’s “Prophetic Mysteries” for solo flute and two foley performers, with Ikue Mori, plus the world premiere of a new trio for piano, bass and drums featuring Tyshawn Sorey and Trevor Dunn along with Talea pianist Stephen Goslingl and two of Zorn’s notorious game pieces, “Rugby” and “Hockey,” the latter including John Zorn on saxophone. Talea perform the ensemble work “Bateau Ivre,” composed for them, and the world premiere of a new string trio, at Merkin Concert Hall, $25

2/12, 7:30 PM the Chamber Orchestra of NY plays a handful of baroque treats including Albinoni’s Adagio for strings and organ plus works by CPE Bach, Corrette and Vivaldi at Weill Hall at Carnegie Hall, $25 tix avail.

2/12, 8 PM one of the 90s greatest and most distinctive rock guitarists, Thalia Zedek of Come at Troost, 1011 Manhattan Avenue btwn Huron & Green. This place is small, get there early!

2/12, 8 PM darkly intense, tuneful Portland, Maine circus rock/newgrass/noir blues band Muddy Ruckus at at the small room at the Rockwood

2/12, 8 PM improvisational electroacoustic atmospheric and ambient music created by Laura Ortman with Michael Garofalo and Pat Noeckerat the Old Stone House in Park Slope, $10

2/12, 8 PM cult favorite Romany chanteuse (and Berthold Brecht descendant) Sanda Weigl with haunting violist Mat Maneri and Transylvanian pianist Lucian band play Kurt Weill and Weimar songs followed at 10 by the plush, balmy, oldtimey uke swing of Daria Grace & the Pre-War Ponies at Barbes

2/12, 8 PM Robert Sirota’s harrowing 9/11-themed suite for strings, Triptych performed by violinists Sarah Koenig-Plonskier and Karen Dekker, violist Michael Davis, and cellist Benjamin Larsen at St. John’s Episcopal Church, 139 St. John’s Place, Park Slope, free

2/12, 8 PM the New Amsterdam Symphony Orchestra plays  the Shostakovich Cello Concerto and Franck’s Symphony in D minor at Symphony Space, $25/$18 stud

2/12, 8:30 PM ambitious, smart, noir-inclined tenor sxophonist Patrick Cornelius with Jared Gold on organ and and McClenty Hunter on drums at the Bar Next Door, $12

2/12, 9 PM pianist/flutist Diana Wayburn‘s hypnotically intense, spectacularly eclectic African/Middle Eastern/indie classical/improvisational Dances of the World Chamber Ensemble at the Firehouse Space, $10

2/12, 9 PM fiery, tuneful, female-fronted psychedelic powerpop jamband Devi records a live album at Arlene’s

2/12, midnight, noir-inspired alto saxophonist/composer Nick Hempton leads a quartet with Dan Aran – drums , Jeremy Manasia – piano , Dave Baron – bass at Smalls. They’re also here on the 26th, same time

2/13, 7 PM pianists Mira Armij Gill and Marc Ponthus play music by Mendelssohn, Liszt, Lyapunov, Beethoven and Boulez  at Third Street Music School Settlement, free

2/13, 7 PM WNYC’s annual Battle of the Bands continues at the Greene Space with the Bronx edition. As with the Manhattan competitors, the pickings are slim. Go vote for individualistic third-stream jazz pianist Russ Kaplan and his septet,or explosively psychedelic soul/funk/Afrobeat band Lady Moon & the Eclipse, or competent funk band Dragonfly13 to make sure they don’t lose out to an Alicia Keys wannabe, a lame Jack Johnson wannabe, a fusion jazz dude from Buffalo (how’d he get in here?) or a bunch of gay dudes who ostensibly sound like Belle & Sebastian but don’t even have a single song on the web. How does one get into this contest, let alone compete in the finals, without a single recording, live or otherwise? Who blew who? Cover is $15 which includes a drink or $30 for open bar

2/13-16 the Mingus Big Band plays a rare multi-night stand, 7:30/9:30 PM at the Jazz Standard, $30. Hmmm…did Sue Mingus notice the Vanguard Jazz Orchestra doing a week on their home turf and think, ok, we can kick their ass?

2/13, 7:30 PM soulful, latin-inspired, lushly exciting new jazz chanteuse Marianne Solivan leads her quartet followed at 10:30 by suave, smoky tenor player Harry Allen and his quartet at Smalls

2/13, 8 PM viola Duo Folie a Deux – Nora Krohn and Nick Revel – play a program TBA at Flushing Town Hall, free but rsvp reqd. There’s also a second show free here at the same time featuring the Composers Collective ensemble playing works by Alicia Lieu, Kit Goldstein Grant, Deborah Lau, Derek P. Simon, Eimi Tanaka, Matthew Mezzacappa, Ruth Ansell, Mike Wells, Charles Martin Casal, Peter Jan, Hany Rizkalla and Terence Petersen

2/13, 8 PM pianist Kumi Ogano and violinist Rolf Schulte play works by pioneering, cross-pollinating Japanese composer Akira Miyoshi plus Ravel’s Sonata for Violin and Piano and Donald Martino’s 1962 Fantasy-Variations for solo violin at the Tenri Institute, 43 W 13th St, $15/$10 stud/srs

2/13, 8/10 PM pianist Manuel Valera leads a killer quintet with John Ellis – saxophone; Nir Felder – guitar; John Benitez – bass; EJ Strickland – drums at the Jazz Gallery, $22

2/13, 9 PM cinematic, plaintively sardonic composer/violinist Christopher Tignor followed by pensively tuneful female-fronted keyboard-driven chamber pop band Secret Cities at the Cameo Gallery, $10

2/13, 10 PM intense, fearless Romany/Balkan chaunteuse Eva Salina and her allstar band at Friends and Lovers; 2/25 she’s playing a rare solo show (vox/accordion) at the Jalopy at 9ish

2/13, 10 PM intense, atmospheric, hauntingly abrasive guitar band VBA followed by acidic, hypnotically swirling shoegaze/dreampop band Lazyeyes at the Acheron, $10

2/13, 10 PM brilliant Americana guitarist Jason Loughlin leads a band playing murder ballads at Sunny’s

2/13, 10 PM erudite, brilliant swing jazz/Americana guitar virtuoso Matt Munisteri plays a duo show with Jared Engel at the Jalopy, $10

2/13, 11 PM deviously fun oldtimey swing guitarist/crooner Seth Kessel & the Two Cent Band at the small room at the Rockwood. 2/19 he’s at Radegast Hall at 9.

2/13, SF’s raging, Nirvana-influenced gutter blues guitar/drums duo Two Gallants‘ shows at the Mercury and on 2/14 at Rough Trade are both sold out. Good for them

2/14, 4 PM eclectic jazz/soul/classical violinist Mazz Swift‘s loopmusic project followed by murderously intense noir Americana chanteuse Liz Tormes and then the Bogmen’s Vic Thrill at 6 at Pete’s

2/14, 7 PM Chicago-style blues guitar monster Bobby Radcliff and his trio at Terra Blues

2/14, 7 PM viola da gamba virtuoso Lisa Terry and lutenist Richard Stone perform music of Marin Marais plus solo lute and theorbo pieces by Sainte-Colombe, Francois Couperin, and Robert de Visée  at St. Peter’s Church, 54th/Lex, $25

2/14, 7:30 PM anthemic, eclectic, often haunting female-fronted Americana/acoustic funk/art-rock jamband the Sometime Boys at Hometown BBQ in Red Hook

2/14, 8 PM darkly captivating Americana/dreampop songwriter and former Aquanetta Debby Schwartz followed by jangly chamber pop/dreampop/80s Britpop band the Special Pillow at Cake Shop, $8

2/14, 8 PM sultry retro Franco-American torch jazz/chamber pop/ukulele swing band les Chauds Lapins at Barbes

2/14, 8 PM a multi-generational ska-punk triplebill: the Mugs, Ladrones and 90s cult faves Inspecter 7 at Grand Victory, $15

2/14, 8 PM Enrique Bátiz conducts the Orquesta Sinfonica del Estado de Mexico with rising-star pianist Irina Chistiakova playing music of Granados, de Falla and Brahms at the Lehman Center Auditorium, 250 Bedford Park Blvd West in the Bronx, $25 tix avail.

2/14, 8 PM the New York Virtuoso Singers perform amorous choral works by Josquin des Prez, Purcell, Monteverdi, Haydn, Ravel, Daniel Pinkham, Cole Porter, Paul Simon, Thea Musgrave and others at Merkin Concert Hall, $25.

2/14, 9 PM wry, sly, slide guitar-driven blues band the Cannibal Ramblers at Red Hook Bait & Tackle

2/14, 10 PM a rare US appearance by newschool Portuguese fado chanteuse Sofia Ribeiro and her trio at Cornelia St. Cafe, $10 + $10 min

2/15, 2 PM unearthly, disquieting lo-fi avant/shoegaze/psychedelic group Goddess at Mayflower, 132 Greene Ave  (cor Waverly & Greene), Ft. Greene

2/15, 3 PM the North/South Consonance Ensemble with William Schimmel, accordion play his compositions in addition to works by Max Lifchitz, Frank Corcoran, Terry Riley and Thomas Whitman at Christ & St. Steven’s Church, 120 W 69th St., free

2/15, 3 PM trombonist Craig Harris leads his quintet playing a multimedia jazz score that aims to float like a butterfly, sting like a bee in tribute to Muhammad Ali at Mt. Morris Presbyterian Church, 122nd St & Mt. Morris Pk W (equivalent of 5th Ave) across the street from Marcus Garvey Park, 4 train to 125th St, $10

2/15, 4 PM haunting, otherworldly Georgian mens choir Zekari at the Dreck Center at the Brooklyn Public Library, free, no under-sixes.

2/15, 4 PM early music choir Blue Heron explore the repertoire of underrated 15th century composer Johannes Ockeghem plus two of his earlier influences, Gilles de Bins (a.k.a. Binchois) and Guillaume Du Fay at Corpus Christi Church, 529 W 121st St, $10 seats avail.

2/15, 8 PM a killer twinbill: the increasingly darker, more Americana-oriented, lyrically brilliant Linda Draper followed by the very dark, very Americana-oriented Eilen Jewell and her amazing band at City Winery, $18 standing room avail.

2/15, 8 PM groovealicious Philly psychedelic soul band Needle Points, a Cure wannabe and then terse, wickedly tuneful garage/jangle/powerpop band Aloud at the Mercury, $10

2/15, 8 PM Gisela Tangui & the Voodoo Cabaret play their Santeria-inspired funk, roots reggae and Afrobeat jams at Silvana

2/15, 8:30 PM catchy, Americana-tinged North Carolina janglerocker Jeffrey Dean Foster at 12th St. Bar & Grill,1123 8th Ave @ 12th St, Park Slope (F/G to 7th Ave;) 2/17 he’s at the small room at the Rockwood at 6. If you’re into Big Star, vintage REM or the whole chimy 80s southern pop thing, he’s the man.

2/15, 8:30 PM jazz singer Annie Chen records a live album with her sextet plus a string quartet at Shapeshifter Lab, $12

2/15, 10 PM haunting Nashville gothic crooner Mark Sinnis – whose recent turn into hard honkytonk is absolutely kick-ass – upstairs at 2A

2/16, 7:30 PM Art Hirahara – one of the real unsung titans of current lyrical jazz piano – plays the album release show for his eclectic, kinetic new one Libations & Meditations with Linda Oh on bass and John Davis on drums at Smalls

2/16, 7:30 PM – 100 years ago Claude Debussy began a project of six large-scale sonatas for “diverse instruments” but completed only three before his death in 1918. Three contemporary composers – Thomas Adès, Marc-Andre Dalbavie and Libby Larsen – completed those six final large-scale works; a stellar eleven-piece chamber ensemble plays them along with the three that Debussy himself finished, in a world premiere rescheduled from last months at Advent/ Broadway Church, 2504 Broadway at 93rd St., free

2/16, 8 PM pianist Gerald Clayton leads a quartet featurning reedman Ben Wendel at Subculture, $25 adv tix req

2/16, 9:30 PM exhilarating, brass-driven retro 60s latin soul revivalists Spanglish Fly at Barbes

2/17, 7 PM accordion monster Ismael Butera’s Velvet Jubilee play “bluesy ballads and cajuny/zydeco/African-esque accordion inspired music from the jaunts & haunts of neo-tropical humidity” at at Cowgirl Seahorse, 259 Front St in the South St Seaport

2/17, 7 PM a rare screening of filmmaker Richard Widmer and Taiwanese musician Yi-Chen Chang’s microtonal Joe Maneri biopic The Passion of Joe at Spectrum

2/17, 7 PM an evening of new music hosted and curated by Bright Sheng featuring scenes from his new opera Dream of the Red Chamber at the National Opera Center, 330 Seventh Avenue (at 29th St), $15

2/17, 7:30 PM intense guitarist Allen Watsky’s Jewish/Romany jazz Djangle Box Project at the Steven Wise Free Synagogue, 30 W 68th St., $15

2/17-18 entrancing, unselfconsciously deep jazz guitarist Russell Malone plays the album release show for his new one with a stellar quartet: Rick Germanson – piano; Gerald Cannon – bass; Willie Jones III – drums 7:30/9:30 PM at the Jazz Standard, $30

2/17 and 2/19, 8 PM Jim Jarmusch’s legendary noiserock/post-Velvets band Squrl play live soundtracks to four classic Man Ray silent films: Retour a la Raison (1923); Emak Bakia (1926); Les Mysteres Du Chateau Du De (1929); L’Etoile De Mer (1928) at the World Financial Center, free, early arrival advised

2/17, 8 PM intense, lyrically brilliant Americana/soul/janglerock tunesmith Matt Keating plays the album release show for his long-awaited new one at the big room at the Rockwood

2/17, 8ish a killer doublebill with wickedly oldschool Brazilian-flavored dub reggae with Kiwi and powerhouse oldschool soul band the One and Nines – NJ’s counterpart to Sharon Jones & the Dap Kings – at Port-o-Lounge, 286 1st St. at Newark Ave, Jersey City, $20

2/17-22, 8/10 PM individualistic, colorful pianist Uri Caine leads a series of ensembles at the Stone, $15. Choice pick: Caine backing crooner Theo Bleckmann singing Schubert’s Winterreise on 2/19 at 8 ?!?

2/17, 8 PM the Ariel Quartet plays Beethoven quartets in their ongoing cycle of the composer’s works at Subculture, $25 adv tix rec

2/17, 8 PM drummer Andrew Drury leads a 2-sax trio with Briggan Krauss and Ingrid Laubrock and follows with a second set, adding Brandon Seabrook on guitar at Roulette, $20

2/17, 8:30 PM pianist Nick Sanders plays the album release show for his kinetic, tunefully shapeshifting new one You Are a Creature with Henry Fraser, bass; Connor Baker, drums at Cornelia St. Cafe, $10 + $10 min

2/17 and also 2/19, 10 PM one of most original and entertaining of the many NYC urban country songwriters, Alex Battles at Pete’s

2/17, 9 PM edgy third-stream pianist Frank Carlberg with bassist John Hebert and drummer Michael Sarin followed at 10:30 by pianist David Bryant and trumpeter Peter Evans at Korzo

2/17, 9:30 PM trumpeter Josh Evans leads 15-piece his big band at Smalls.

2/18, 6 PM flamenco guitarist Diego Campo and violinist Ben Swan at the Rubin Museum of Art, free w/museum adm

2/18, 8 PM tuneful, lyrical, inscrutable cellist/multi-instrumentalist/siren Serena Jost and irrepressible, improvisationally-inclined pianist/guitarist Matt Kanelos at LIC Bar

2/18 and 2/20, 8 PM the US premiere of Pablo Berger’s film Blancanieves with live soundtrack provided by Wordless Music Orchestra with Alfonso Vilallonga at the World Financial Center, free, early arrival advised

2/18, 10 PM oldschool soul/funk band the Jay Vons followed by Des Roar – whose tuneful mix of punk and post Jesus & Mary Chain late 80s/early 90s rock includes the classic Ted Bundy Was a Ladies Man – at Rough Trade, $12 adv tix very highly rec.

2/19-22 a celebration of the freedom songs of the Civil Rights Movement with a compelling current-day focus on inequality in NYC organized by the Brooklyn anti-gentrification movement and Equality for Flatbush with artists including Justin Hicks and Heritage Blues Orchestra frontwoman Chaney Sims at Jack in Ft. Greene, details tba

2/19, 7 PM best quadruplebill of 2015 by a country mile: bewitchingly intense Americana/jazz/janglerock songwriter Erica Smith, subversively torchy oldtime Americana chanteuse Robin Aigner, rockabilly/honkytonk maven Monica Passin and accordion-violin duo the Wisterians at the Jalopy, free

2/19, 7 PM chamber ensemble Canta Libre play works by Piazzolla, Jean Cras, Francaix,Villa-Lobos and Ginastera at the Salmagundi Center for American Art, 47 5th Ave, $15

2/19, 7:30 PM a killer oldschool edgy NYC triplebill at Bowery Electric: brilliant bassist/singer Felice Rosser’s perennially vital groove band Faith, ferociously funny, intense, guitar-fueled Americana punks Spanking Charlene at 8:30 and Lakeside Lounge supergroup Los Dudes playing the album release show for their new one Hipster Entertainment Home, $8

2/19, 7:30 PM a monster sardonic/edgy/punkish jazz triplebill: the Kraus/Halvorson/Fujiwara Trio, bari sax-driven Charles Evans Quartet and the inimitable, hilarious Mostly Other People Do the Killing at Shapeshifter Lab, $10

2/19, 7:30 PM the Daedalus Quartet play Bartok: String Quartet No. 2 and Sibelius: String Quartet in D minor (“Voces intimae”) at the Lincoln Center Atrium, early arrival advised

2/19, 8 PM virtuoso cinematic psychedelic/western swing steel guitar player Raphael McGregor leads his eclectic band at Freddy’s

2/19, 8 PM La Vitrola feat. Neha Jiwrajka on voice, Alejandro Zuleta on voice and guitar and Sebastian Cruz on requite and voice, Edward Perez on bass and Jonathan Gomez-Cornejo on percussion playing classic, haunting Puerto Rican boleros at Barbes

2/19, 8 PM a “composer portrait” featuring the dissociative, acerbically kinetic work of Stefano Gervasoni performed by Yarn/Wire, Mivos Quartet and Ekmeles at the Miller Theatre, $20 tix avail

2/19, 9 PM savage, macabre,cinematic noir jazz band Beninghove’s Hangmen at Bar Chord

2/19, 9:30 PM purist oldschool country songwriter/bandleader Michaela Anne at the big room at the Rockwood. 2/22 she’s at Skinny Dennis at 9

2/19, 9:30 PM ethereal, Middle Eastern-tinged Malagasy chanteuse Razia Said plays the album release for her new one at Joe’s Pub, $20

2/19, 9:30 PM trombonist David Gibson leads an interesting quintet with Josh Evans – trumpet , Theo Hill – piano , Alexander Claffy – bass , Kush Abadey – drums  at Smalls

2/19, 10 PM catchy, sardonically jangly, lo-fi soul-rockers Larry & the Babes – sort of a more tuneful, less punk version of Clear Plastic Masks – at Palisades

2/19, 10 PM sick Dolly Parton cover band Doll Parts – who mix straight-up rock versions of her schlockiest 80s crap with acoustic covers of her country classics – at Rock Shop, $10

2/20, 5:30 PM tuneful Americana/blues guitarist Jon LaDeau followed by purist, clear-voiced front-porch folk songstress Cara Scarmack at the American Folk Art Museum, free

2/20, 6 PM edgy, intense postbop tenor saxophonist/composer Tom Tallitsch leads a quartet at the Garage, free

2/20, 7 PM Orrin Evans‘ mighty Captain Black Big Band play a tribute to Thomas Hart Benton in the aditorium at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, $35

2/20, 7 PM the annual Battle of the Bands continues at the Greene Space with the Queens edition. Pyrotechnic pianist/’songwriter/blues and ragtime maven Jack Spann ought to walk away with this one:: come out and make sure he doesn’t lose out to a promising but raw jazz guitarist…or an Eddie Money wannabe, a stilted folk-jazz trio, or a talented chamber pop duo who should have way better songs than they do. Cover is $15 which includes a drink or $30 for open bar

2/20, 8 PM art-rocker Pierre de Gaillande’s Bad Reputation plays witty chamber pop English translations of Georges Brassens classics followed at 10 by rambunctious oldtime Baby Soda Jazz Band at Barbes

2/20, 8 PM elegant chamber pop and indie classical themes with the Parkington Sisters followed by Jocie Adams’ sprightly, shiny pastoral pop band Arc Iris at the Knitting Factory, $10 adv tix rec. There’s also a midnight show by horn-fueled country jamband Yarn, separate adm., $15 adv.

2/20, 9 PM haunting, intense, wickedly tuneful Nashville gothic songwriter Jessie Kilguss and her band at Red Hook Bait and Tackle.

2/20, 9 PM epic, sweeping, tuneful spacerock/art-rockers Sky Picnic at Matchless

2/20, 9.10:30 PM perennially interesting, Middle Eastern-inspired bassist Petros Klampanis leads a large, luminously string-driven improvising unit including Gilad Hekselman, guitar; Jean-Michel Pilc, piano; Gokce Erem, violin; Maria Manousaki, violin, viola; Peter Kiral, viola; Colin Stokes, viola at Cornelia St. Cafe, $10 + $10 min

2/20-21, 10:30 PM Mike DiRubbo leads his killer quintet with Josh Evans – trumpet , Brian Charette – organ , Ugonna Okegwo – bass , Rudy Royston – drums  at Smalls. On the 21st, drummer Sylvia Cuenca leads a high-voltage B3 quartet with Tivon Pennicott – tenor sax , Jared Gold – organ , Paul Bollenback – guitar , to open the night at 7:30

2/20, 11 PM Canadian gothic chanteuse Lorraine Leckie and her phenomenal, ferocious band at Sidewalk

2/22, 1 PM Quintet of the Americas plays tangos, waltzes, a William Grant Still classical piece and others allowing “the opportunity for the audience to join the Quintet playing bells and water glasses” at El Paraiso, 102-11 43rd Avenue, Corona, Queens, free

2/21, 7 PM wry, tuneful, eclectic Nashville gothic band Maynard & the Musties play a rare acoustic gig at the Cowgirl Hall of Fame, 519 Hudson St (W 10th/Charles)

2/21, 7:30 PM Jane Sheldon on vocals plus avant garde luminary Lisa Moore on piano plus Eileen Mack on clarinets playing music by Beat Furrer, David Lang and others at Spectrum, $15

2/21, 8 PM an extremely rare US appearance by Kuwait-born oud virtuoso Issam Rafea in a duo performance of jams and compositions with bassist Dave Phillips at Alwan for the Arts, $20/$15 studs/srs

2/21, 8 PM accordionist/chanteuse Kamala Sankaram’s hot surfy psychedelic Bollywood art-rock project Bombay Rickey at Barbes

2/21, 8 PM pianist Marc Peloquin joins forces with composer/pianist/thereminist Dalit Warshaw for a fascinating program including works by Brahms, Warshaw, Schubert, a David Del Tredici world premiere and a new piano/theremin arrangement of a portion of Messiaen’s otherworldly Quartet for the End of Time at the Tenri Institute, 43A W 13th St, $20

2/21, 8 PM Kiran Ahluwalia sings mystical Sufi songs with a west African desert rock edge with her husband guitarist Rez Abbasi, sensational accordionist Will Holshouser and a rhythm section at Roulette, $30/$25 stud/srs

2/21, 8 PM haphazardly edgy, Middle Eastern-tinged guitarist Yonatan Gat and band at Baby’s All Right.

2/21, 8 PM the choir of Trinity Wall Street presents epic rarities by Ginastera & Ives at Stern Auditorium at Carnegie Hall with further epic enhancement from three additional choirs (!!), $15 tix avail.

2/21, 9 PM a first-class homegrown bluegrass twinbill with fiddler Diane Stockwell’s Fresh Baked Bluegrass followed by the Feinberg Bros. duo at the Jalopy, $10

2/21, 9/10:30 PM three guys who can’t resist a good time, and may make fun of you, or themselves: Jon Irabagon, tenor sax; Bob Stewart, tuba; Barry Altschul, drums at Cornelia St. Cafe, $10 + $10 min

2/21, 9 PM improvisational brass band the Revolutionary Snake Ensemble at BAM Cafe, free

2/21, 10 PM roots reggae group Royal Khaoz at Shrine

2/21, 10:30 PM Black Taxi play their propulsive oldschool disco-funk at the big room at the Rockwood, $12

2/22, noonish, tuneful jazz bassist/composer Iris Ornig leads her quartet for brunch at the Garage

2/22, 2 PM singer Liv Carrrow and Wowz guitarist Sam James “explore the shadowy terrain of Appalachian melody”at Mayflower, 132 Greene Ave (cor Waverly & Greene), Ft. Greene

2/22, 3 PM organist Adam J. Brakel plays Healey Willan’s iconic Introduction, Passacaglia and Fugue plus Jeanne Demessieux’s Six Etudes, as well as music of J.S. Bach, Bossi, Rameau, Reger, Whitlock and de Grigny at St. Ignatius Loyola Church, Park Ave at 84th St., $20

2/22, 3 PM pianists Tania Tachkova and Luba Poliak play a program TBA at the Weill art gallery at the 92nd St. Y, free

2/22, 3 PM the Park Ave. Chamber Symphony plays Stravinsky: Le sacre du printemps and Lorin Maazel’s arrangement of Wagner themes, The Ring Without Words at Rose Theatre at Jazz at Lincoln Center.

2/22, 3 PM the adventurous Washington Square Winds play a program TBA at Spectrum, $15

2/22, 7 PM an auspicious new trombone-fueled big band twinbill: Nick Finzer’s Ten Years Suite and Andy Clausen’s Split Stream Big Band at Shapeshifter Lab, $8

2/22, 7 PM noir guitar twangmeister Jim Campilongo followed by the more psychedelic, Romany inspired Stephane Wrembel at Barbes

2/22, 7 PM legendary Piedmont fingerstyle blues guitarist Larry Johnson at Terra Blues

2/22, 8 PM intense Balkan chanteuse Jenny Luna‘s haunting, traditional Turkish band Dolunay followed at 9 by the all-star Brooklyn Takht Ensemble: Shelley Thomas – vocals; Brian Prunka- oud; Tareq Rantisi- riq; Bridget Robbins- nay flute – doing Arabic classical music plus hits by Fairouz, Leila Murad + Asmahan at Drom, $10

2/22, 8 PM guitarist Tom Csatari leads an ensemble tba (his new big band album is rapturously good and tuneful) followed by bludgeoning noise instrumentalists James T. Psychopath at Trans-Pecos, $tba

2/22, 8 PM pensive, dark Americana/country blues songwriter Jeffrey Foucault – sort of a younger, more somber Steve Earle -at Subculture, $18 adv tix a must

2/22, 8:30 PM edgy gutter blues band Jane Lee Hooker at the Mercury, $10

2/23, 8:30 PM a cool indie classical duo collaboration between violist Jessica Meyer and bassist Florent Ghys at Cornelia St. Cafe, $10 + $10 min

2/23, 8:30 PM soaring, rapturous jazz chanteuse Whitney James with LaRue Nicholson on guitar and the great Gregg August on bass  at the Bar Next Door, $12

2/23, midnight, drummer Tim Kuhl‘s St. Helena psychedelic art-rock project at the small room at the Rockwood.

2/24, drinks at 5:30 PM, show at 6, the Jack Quartet play the American premiere of Georg Friedrich Haas’ String Quartet No. 8 at the Miller Theatre, free

2/24, 7 PM pyrotechnic nuevo tango paradigm-shifter and bandoneonist JP Jofre leads a quintet with Siyi Fang-piano; Eric Silberger-violin; Amy Kang-cello; Chris Johnson-bass at Something Jazz Club, $15

2/24, 7 PM violinist Miranda Cuckson and pianist Blair McMillen play works by Prokofiev, George Crumb, Anna Weesner, and David Rakowski at Zinc Bar, $25/$15 stud

2/24, 7 PM powerhouse, eclectic, up-and-coming tenor saxophonist Carl Bartlett Jr. leads a trio at the Garage, free

2/24, 9 PM irrepressible, historically informed, folk noir/jangly rock songwriter Elisa Flynn presents a night of murder ballads – everybody does one of their own and one of somebody else’s – artists include Chris Q. Murphy, Maharajah Sweets, the Halsey Hellhounds, Jim Knable, Neville Elder of Thee Shambels and others at the Way Station

2/24, 9 PM brilliant drummer/percussionist Willie Martinez & La Familia Sextet play classic salsa grooves at the Nuyorican Poets Cafe, $10

2/24, 10ish Brooklyn What frontman Jamie Frey’s edgy, tuneful new band No Ice at Three’s Brewing Company, 333 Douglass St. in Gowanus

2/24, 11 PM NYC’s preeminent literate janglerock/chamber pop bandleader Ward White does a stripped-down acoustic show at Pete’s

2/25, 6 PM a potentially pyrotechnic collaboration: House of Waters‘ psychedelic hammered dulcimer virtuoso Max ZT and eclectic cellist Dave Eggar at the Rubin Museum of Art, free w/museum adm.

2/25, 7 PM striking, stark, soaring sounds from the global Jewish diaspora with Bukharian Jewish singer Muhabbat Shamayeva and Persian Jewish singer/composerGaleet Dardashti and their ensembles at Symphony Space, $30/$20 stud/srs

2/25, 7 PM the Amphion String Quartet, special guests Miki-Sophia Cloud & Karl Doty perform their noir theatre piece Death’s Cabaret at Shapeshifter Lab, $12

2/25, 7:30 PM Goodnight Moonshine with Americana luminaries Molly Venter (Red Molly) and Eben Pariser (Roosevelt Dime) play lively oldtimey and torchily jazzy pre-rockabilly sounds at the third stage at the Rockwood, $10 plus $10 min. strictly enforced

2/25-3/1 well-loved jazz bassist Rufus Reid leads a big band playing material from his fantastic Elizabeth Catlett-inspired album, 7:30/9:30 PM  at the Jazz Standard, $30

2/25, 10ish bewitchingly assaultive art-rock duo Naked Roots Conducive – violinist Natalia Steinbach and cellist Valerie Kuehne – at Muchmore’s

2/25, 10 PM uproarious newgrass/Americana bandleader JD McPherson at Bowery Ballroom

2/26, 6 PM pianist Marta Sanchez leads a rippling, tuneful sextet with Kavita Shah, voice, keys;  Charlotte Greve, alto sax;  Patricia Franceschy, vibes;  Petros Kamplanis, bass;  Mark Schilders, drums followed at 8:30 PM by the incomparable, atmospheric, paradigm-shifting singer Sara Serpa playing her birthday show with her fresh quartet including André Matos, guitar;  Pete Rende, piano, keyboards;  Thomas Morgan, bass at Cornelia St. Cafe, $10 + $10 min

2/26, 7 PM Boston C&W band Girls Guns & Glory play high-voltage Hank Wiliams covers off their latest live Hank Williams album at the big room at the Rockwood, $10

2/26, 7:30 PM the Skip James Project  featuring trombone powerhouse Ku-umba Frank Lacy, Kevin Ray, and Andrew Drury with special guests J.D. Allen and Justin Hicks at the Lincoln Center Atrium. “Eschewing chordal instruments, they deploy trombone/flumpet, bass, drums, and vocals to re-examine the material of 1930s delta blues legend Skip James’s musical legacy,” at the Lincoln Center Atrium, early arrival advised

2/26, 7:30 PM, repeating 2/28 at 8 the NY Philharmonic play Sibelius’ Oceanides and Violin Concerto plus Brahms’ Symphony No. 2 at Avery Fisher Hall, $30 tix avail.

2/26-27. 7:30 PM, repeating on 2/28 at 5:30 PM Norwegian actress Nina Bendiksen stars in a performance of Flagstad – Triumph and Tragedy, the one-woman bioplay written and directed by Norwegian playwright Einar Bjorge in celebration of legendary soprano Kirsten Flagstad’s debut with the Metropolitan Opera 80 years ago that launched her to stardom, at Scandinavia House, 58 Park Ave (at 38th St), $20

2/26, 8 PM So Hideous play “throat searing chamber music” followed by Christopher Tignor‘s more contemplative, unselfcosciously deep cinematic pieces, followed by more assaultive postrock with This Will Destroy You at St. Vitus, $20

2/26, 8 PM “new music from two important figures of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians. Pianist/composer Amina Claudine Myers brings her trio with Jerome Harris (bass guitar) and Reggie Nicholson (drums). Composer and percussionist Thurman Barker presents his percussion quintet Strike Force, plus the premiere of Chicago Suite featuring Malik Washington (timpani, percussion) Bryan Carrott (vibes, percussion), Eli Fountain (marimba, percussion), Ray Mantilla (percussion), Lonnie Gasperini (Hammond organ) and Thurman Barker (drums and percussion). at Roulette, $tba

2/26, 8 PM excellent, dark Americana guy/girl duo A Brief View of the Hudson followed eventually at 10 by devious, charismatic, subversive comedic songwriter Killy Dwyer at Sidewalk

2/26, 8 PM the Eddie Palmieri Salsa Orchestra, undiminshed and explosive as ever, at B.B. King’s, $30 adv tix req.

2/26, 8 PM bassist Ben Wolfe plays the album release show for his new one with his quartet at Ginny’s Supper Club, $10

2/26, 9 PM Single Red Cent– who mix sharp, socially aware punk with a more atonal Gang of Four/Neighborhoods vibe – at Trash, $8

2/26, 10 PM high-voltage violin shredding with Stratospheerius at Shrine

2/26, 11 PM hard-hitting, lyrically edgy powerpop band Tenterhooks – Cheap Trick if they came up via CB’s rather than Chicago – at the Way Station

2/26, 11 PM Sandra Lilia Velasquez’s torchy, sultry downtempo/trip-hop/neosoul band SLV at Pete’s

2/27, 5:30ish intense, individualistic, torchsong/art-rock piano chanteuse Jeanne Marie Boes at the American Folk Art Museum, free

2/27, 7 PM Yi-Fang Huang, piano; Dana Pielet, piano; Shanda Wooley, cello with flutist Susan Friedlander and violnist Caitlin Lynch play works by Aitken, Bach, Brahms, Ian Clarke, Farrenc, Hétu, Mauthe and Piazzolla at Third Street Music School Settlement, free

2/27, 7 PM the  annual Battle of the Bands continues at the Greene Space with the Staten Island edition. Pickings are extremely slim: come out for rockabilly/cowpunk band the Grand Pantrymen, who at least have some good guitar, and hope they don’t lose out to a bunch of indie dorks, a generically mathrocky metal act, a couple of lame emo acts and an even lamer white rapper. Cover is $15 which includes a drink or $30 for open bar

2/27-28, 8 PM a rare acoustic show by legendary Colorado funky Americana jamband Poi Dog Pondering at City Winery, $25 standing room avail.

2/27, 8 PM Mantra Percussion, Dither Guitar Quartet and Philip White premiere new Paula Matthusen compositions at the opening night of this year’s Avant Festival at Wild Project Theatre, 195 E 3rd St, $15/$10 stud.

2/27, 8 PM the NYU Symphony with conductor Jens Georg Bachmann and piano competition winner Tadeusz Domanowski perform Rachmaninov’s Piano Concerto No. 2, Stravinsky’s Firebird and student works at Symphony Space, free, early arrival advised

2/27, 9 PM the Moonlighters play charming but biting oldtime Hawaiian swing and noir jazz at the Delancey, $5

2/27, 10 PM hilarious, politically spot-on faux French garage rockers les Sans Culottes – whose new album Les Dieux Ont Soif is the closest thing to the Clash, lyrically speaking, that’s been released in this city lately – at Rock Shop, $10

2/27, 10 PM dark female-fronted paisley underground/postpunk/psychedelic rockers Mesiko at Union Hall, $10

2/27, 10 PM the Me Oh My Oh’s – Hilary Hawke and Abby Hollander’s raucous honkytonk band – at Sunny’s

2/27, midnight Middle Eastern dancefloor jamband Yemen Blues play a rare acoustic show at SOB’s, $25 gen adm

2/28, 2 PM brilliant Britrock tunesmith/crooner Edward Rogers at Rough Trade, free

2/28, 2:15 PM EastRiver Ensemble mix acrobatics stunts and rarely heard folk tunes from the the Dongbei and Hebei regions of northern China, with yangqin (dulcimer), pipa (lute), flutes, fiddles and percussion at Flushing Town Hall, $13

2/28, 2 PM flutist Daphna Mor’s slinky East of the River ensemble doing their bracing Mediterranean/Middle Eastern mashups at Flushing Town Hall, $13

2/28, 4 PM charmingly edgy oldschool C&W/Americana rock songstress Karen Hudson at Caffe Vivaldi

2/28, 6 PM pianist/flutist Diana Wayburn‘s hypnotically intense, spectacularly eclectic African/Middle Eastern/indie classical/improvisational Dances of the World Chamber Ensemble at Silvana

2/28, 7 PM Lucia Baldacci, organist of the Cathedral of Florence, plays music associated with that medieval structure at Christ and St. Stephen’s Church, 120 W 69th St

2/28, 8 PM Svetlana & the Eastern Blokhedz: Svetlana Shmulyian (vocal), Patrick Farrell (keyboards), Izaak Mills (organ, sax, vocal, sound effects), Quince Marcum (vocal, horn, tympani), Wade Ripka (guitar, vocal), Nick Cudahy (bass), Russ Meissner(drums) playing rare 1960s Soviet pop followed at 10 by the pan-latin Chia’s Dance Party at Barbes

2/28, 8 PM, repeating 3/1 at 4 PM William Hite, tenor and Gilles Vonsattel, piano play Schubert’s creepy, doomed, thinly veiled existentialist political suite Winterreise at Bargemusic, $35/$30 srs/$15 stud

2/28, 8 PM celebrated, magical UK early music choir Stile Antico join the rest of the choral world in resuscitating renaissance music written for the court of the Hapsburgs by Josquin, Crequillon, Tallis and others at Church of St. Mary the Virgin, 145 W 46th St, $35 tix available via the Miller Theatre box office

2/28, 8 PM the Sweet Plaintain Quartet play their kinetic originals and other material at Subculture, $20 adv tix req.

2/28, 9 PM one one of the year’s best doubleiblls:  fiery, hyperliterate punk/powerpop alienation anthems with Hannah vs. the Many followed by catchy, edgy, tuneful soul/rock/Americana band Bethany St. Smith & the Gun Show at Rock Shop, $10

2/28, 9 PM a killer (sorry, couldn’t resist) twinbill: Nashville gothic/circus rock icons O’Death followed by the more theatrical but similar Murder by Death at Bowery Ballroom, $20 adv tix highly rec

2/28, 9 PM rare noir jazz and cinematic themes from the 30s and 40s with Brian Carpenter’s Ghost Train Orchestra followed by the cosmopolitan, global Carte Blanche Jazz Band at the Jalopy, $10.

2/28, 9 PM increasingly creepy southwestern gothic/western swing crooner Sean Kershaw & the New Jack Ramblers at Bar Chord

2/28, 9 PM roughhewn alt-country band Mail the Horse at Union Hall, $10

2/28, 10 PM Random Test play oldschool roots reggae at Shrine

2/28, 10 PM popular creepy indie experimentalists Deerhoof at Webster Hall, $18. Note that the show is not in the main room but in the smaller first-floor space which has a much lower ceiling and inferior sound

2/28, 11 PM adventurous, fun, quirky female-fronted psychedelic pop duo Robin’s Egg Blue at  the Bitter End playing the album release show for their new one

2/28, 11ish popular honkytonk jamband Blackberry Smoke at Webster Hall, $25

2/28, 11 PM jangly, sharply lyrical folk-rock/chamberpop band the Morning Sea – like a more stripped-down, less druggy Elliott Smith – at the Way Station

2/28 dark, sardonically lyrical Swedish paisley underground psych rockers the Plastic Pals at Sidewalk. 3/4 they’re at Bowery Electric at 9:30 for $8.

3/1, 1 PM intense, boisterously fun clarinet and violin-fueled klezmer group Litvakus – who specialize in rare songs from Belarus -at JCH in Bensonhurst, 7802 Bay Pkwy., Brooklyn, D to Bay Parkway, walk 8 blocks.

3/1, 3 PM Ann Kim, violin; Benjamin Larsen, cello; Juliana Han, piano; Ian Rosenbaum, percussion play a Mozart Violin Sonata, then Golijov’s “Mariel”, before moving on to Sirota’s Cello Sonata, and wrap up with Beethoven’s Piano Trio in E flat, Opus 70 no. 2.at St. John’s Episcopal Church, Park Slope, 139 St. John’s Place at 7th Ave., any train to Grand Army Plaza and walk downhill

3/1, 9:30 PM Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment (OAE) perform Mozart and Haydn on period instruments at Littlefield, $10

3/2, 6:30 PM noir chanteuse and Reid Paley collaborator Peg Simone followed by powerpop icons George Usher & Lisa Burns at the Mercury, $10 adv tix rec

3/3, 7:30 PM high-voltage string-fueled klezmer dance tunes with the Klez Dispensers‘ Amy Zakar’s Fidl Kapelye at Stephen Wise Free Synagogue, 30 W 68th St, $15

3/3, 8 PM clarinetist/singer/composer Dave Ruder presents The Gentleman Rests, for five vocalists and five instrumentalists, contemplating the infamous events of the joint session of Congress on January 6th, 2001 which rubberstamped the “election” of George W. Bush as President after the Supreme Court-approved coup d’etat, at Roulette, $20/$15 stud/srs

3/3, 8 PM American Modern Ensemble with powerhouse pianists Stephen Gosling and Blair McMillen play music of Amanda Harberg, Robert Paterson and Frederic Rzewski, by Margaret Brouwer, George Crumb and Laura Kaminsky.at Subculture, $20 adv tix rc

3/4-6, 8 PM catchy reverbtoned janglerockers the Growlers at Baby’s All Right, $20. Be aware that the Saturday, 3/7 show is sold out

3/4, 10 PM brooding darkwave songstress Alice Boman at Rough Trade, $12

3/5, 7:30 PM the up-and-coming new New York Festival Orchestra plays Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7 in A major and  Piano Concert No. 5 in E-flat major with pianist Ivan Donchev, plus the Overture to “The Marriage of Figaro” by Mozart; and the American premiere of “Misteri” (Mysteries) for Piano and String Orchestra by Italian composer Francesco Marino at Merkin Concert Hall, $30

3/5, 8 PM JACK Quartet and Third Coast Percussion play an all Augusta Read Thomas program at the Miller Theatre, $25 tix avail.

3/5, 9:30 PM iconic, satirical “surrealistic swing” band the Microscopic Septet play their first-ever concert of free improvisations at The Stone, as part of soprano saxophonist Phillip Johnston’s residency there – a one-time event! 3/7, 8 PM a unique variant, the Microscopic Saxophone Quartet, performs at the Stone. 3/19 at 9:30 the whole band is at Smalls

3/5 individualistic guitarist Alyse Lamb’s jaggedly intense postpunk band Eula play the album release for their deliciously abrasive Siousxie-esque, Martin Bisi-produced new album Wool Sucking at Palisades

3/6, 7 PM the annual Battle of the Bands continues at the Greene Space with the Brooklyn edition. Of all the intra-borough battles, this one is a horse race. This blog’s pick is moody, intriguingly relevant, angst-fueled lo-fi folk-rock act Company of Selves, although pensive postpunks Teletextile and the lively, wryly lyrical New Orleans-flavored Nat Osborn Band are also good. Would be a shame if they lost out to a world-weary folkie girl who specializes in Xmas carols, an old Cuban guy struggling to master a Leonard Cohen song, a couple of Frank Ocean wannabes, or an autistic dude. Yup, one of the finalists is a retard. This is NYC, 2015, y’all. Cover is $15 which includes a drink or $30 for open bar

3/6, 8 PM the extraordinary Lebanese-American composer/multi-instrumentalist Bassam Saba and his ensemble playing haunting, sweepingly majestic original works at Roulette, $30/$25 stud/srs.

3/6, 8 PM eclectic soul-groove chanteuse Imani Uzuri premieres a new cantata inspired by the clever signification in the Black American quiltmaking tradition, as part of this year’s Avant Festival at Wild Project Theatre, 195 E 3rd St, $15/$10 stud.

3/7, 7 PM Alan Gilbert conducts a NY Phil chamber ensemble playing exciting new Nordic music by Per Nogard, Kalevi Aho, Duro Zivkoric and Kaija Saariaho at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, $25

3/7, 7 PM a marathon evening of Randy Gibson‘s hypnotic, psychedelic minimalist drone music, part of this year’s Avant Festival at Wild Project Theatre, 195 E 3rd St, $15/$10 stud

3/7, 7 PM legendary jazz/blues/soul guitarist Ronnie Earl & the Broadcasters at B.B. King’s, $27 adv tix req

3/7, 8 PM intense, lyrically brilliant , quirky female-fronted two-keyboard 80s-style art-rock/new wave revivalists Changing Modes at Lit

3/7, 8 PM Texas swing icons the Hot Club of Cowtown – whose fiddler Elana James has a sizzling new album out – at Subculture, $20 adv tix rec

3/7, 8 PM the Aaron Diehl Quartet with Peter Washington, bass; Pete Van Nostrand, drums; Warren Wolf, vibes play the pianist’s elegant melodic straight-ahead jazz at the Miller Theatre, $20 tix avail.

3/7, 9 PM intense, funky Indian brass bhangra band Red Baraat at Bowery Ballroom, $18 adv tix req. The following night 3/8 they’re at Brooklyn Bowl for three bucks less on a killer triplebill starting at 8 with the psychedelic Brooklyn Raga Massive followed by circus rock/noir cabaret chanteuse Rupa & the April Fishes.

3/7, 9 PM oldtimey harmony-fueled band the Calamity Janes and wryly humorous NYC urban country pioneer Alex Battles & the Whisky Rebellion play a Johnny Cash bday party show at the Bell House, $18 adv tix rec; there’s also a 3 PM all-ages show there on 3/8 for three bucks less in advance

3/7, 9 PM charismatic, psychedelic funkmeistress Sister Sparrow & the Dirty Birds at Brooklyn Bowl, $12 adv tix rec

3/7 10ish Brooklyn What frontman Jamie Frey’s edgy, tuneful new band No Ice at Big Irv’s, 381 Hooper St (Grand/S 2nd) in Williamsburg, L to Lorimer St.

3/8, 2 PM the Momenta Quartet play Tan Dun’s aptly named Ghost Opera at Flushing Town Hall, $15

3/9, 8:30 PM the Frikativ Quartet presents compositions by Sarah Bernstein for improvising string quartet. Four inventive and soloistic musicians create a sound that taps the orchestral power of string ensembles and the agility of the jazz quartet. With Scott Tixier, violin, Sarah Bernstein, violin, Stephanie Griffin, viola, Malcolm Parson, cello at Cornelia St. Cafe

3/10, 7:30 PM a slightly smaller subset of the explosive Ayn Sof big band playing epic klezmer jazz tunes with Greg Wall, Jordan Hirsch, Zev Zions, Brian Glassman, and Aaron Alexander among others at the Stephen Wise Free Synagogue, 30 W 68th St., $15.

3/10 8 PM pyrotechnic pianist Kathleen Supove plays space-specific new works for piano and soundtrack by Joan La Barbara, Mary Kouyoumdjian, Randall Woolf, and Marti Epstein at Roulette

3/10, 8 PM 90s roots reggae nostalgia with Rasta crooner Luciano at B.B. King’s, $25 adv tix req

3/11, 7 PM the Isaye Trio – Rada Ovcharova, violin; Emlyn Stam, viola; Willem Stam, cello – play works by Teethoven, Donyanyi and Otterloo at the Bulgarian Consulate General, 121 E 62nd St, free

3/11, 7:30 PM a rare NYC apprearance by the extraordinary violist Kim Kashkashian with Péter Nagy, piano playing works by Schumann, Bartok, Brayms and  László Tihanyi at the Morgan Library, $35

3/12, 7  PM searingly intense, charismatic, fearless acoustic punk blues siren Molly Ruth followed by fiery Canadian gothic rocker Lorraine Leckie and her psychedelic band with Hugh Pool on lead guitar at the Mercury

3/12, 7 PM Pakistani chanteuse/bandleader Mai Dhai plays traditional Manganiyar songs at Elebash Hall at CUNY, 365 5th Ave. north of 34th St., $25

3/12, 7 PM Doron Schleifer, countertenor with Corina Marti on clavisymbalum and recorders perform Jewish and Christian music from late medieval Italy at Stephen Wise Free Synagogue, 30 W 68th St

3/12, 7 PM a rare performance of traditional Garifuna songs in endangered indigenous Caribbean languages by folk ensemble Libaña Maraza at City Lore Gallery, 56 E 1st St (between 1st and 2nd Ave), $10

3/12, 8 PM Israeli reggae crew Moshav Band play the album release show for their new one at Highline Ballrooom, $15 adv tix req

3/12, 8:30 PM luminous, intense, enigmatic art-rock chanteuse/cellist/multi-instrumentalist Serena Jost at the third room at the Rockwood, $10

3/12, 9 PM irresistibly named, darkly jangling psychedelic garage/powerpop rockers Anderson Council at Maxwell’s

3/13, 7 PM pianist Daniela Bracchi plays works by Bach, Schubert and Chopin at Third Street Music School Settlement, free

3/13,  7:30 PM Chia’s Dance Party spinoff tthe Cumbia River Band play psychedelic, surfy grooves at Drom, $10 adv tix rec

3/13, 7:30 PM the NY Composers’ Circle ensemble plays eclectic new vocal music by Frank Retzel, Dana Dimitri Richardson, Eugene Marlow, Susan J. Fischer and Tamara Cashour’s plus instrumental pieces by Matt Weber and Robert S. Cohen (the latter inspired by an ant carrying the much larger carcass of a dead roach across a tennis court) at the DiMenna Center, 450 W 37th St., $20, reception to follow

3/13, 8 PM hypnotic guitarscaper Hubble, plantively sardonic, elegant nouveau-chamber violinist/composer Christopher Tignor and the similarly poignant, evocative indie chamber minimalists/pastoralists Bing & Ruth at Littlefield, $14 . Particularly appropriate that B&R would be on this bill here considering that they have an album titled Kentile Floors.

3/13, 9 PM legendary, sweepingly majestic,timelessly relevant Australian psychedelic rockers the Church – who were arguably the best rock band in the world for a good fifteen years back in the 80s and 90s – at Bowery Ballroom, $30. 3/14 they’re at Rough Trade for the same price and will undoubtedly sell out. Adv tix rec at the Marcury, from 5-7 PM, M-F

3/14, 5 PM edgy Argentine classical pianist Mirian Conti plays a solo recital tilted “$5 for 5 Composers” at the DiMenna Center, 450 W 37th St.

3/14, 8 PM the sixteen-piece Caribbean and south-of-the-border big band flavors with the Gregorio Uribe Big Band and special guest violinist/singer Mireya Ramos from Mariachi Flor de Toloache at Roulette, $25; open rum bar 7-8 PM!

3/14, 9:30 PM elegant oldtime Americana chanteuse Nora Jane Struthers and the Party Line at Joe’s Pub, followed at 11:30 PM (separate admission) by haunting Portuguese noir surf band Dead Combo (not to be confused with the Stooges-influenced New York band from the mid-zeros) at Joe’s Pub, $12

3/15, 4-11 PM the annual New Music Bake Sale with performances by avant garde ensembles including AndPlay (violin and viola duo), Eleonore Oppenheim (solo upright bass), ThingNY (composer-performer chamber collective), C4: The Choral Composer/Conductor Collective (contemporary choral music), Anti-Depressant: Kathleen Supové and Jennifer Choi (outrageously fun piano and violin duo), Tigue (percussion trio), the Knells (art-rock ensemble) plus all kinds of yummy treats available, at Roulette, $10

3/15, 7 PM a rare Portuguese superstar twinbill: fado crooner Camané and noir cabaret/monster surf band Dead Combo at NJPAC in Newark, $30 tix avail.

3/15, 8 PM fiery, trance-inducing  percussionist/bandleader Alessandra Belloni‘s ensemble Daughters of Cybele at the Italian American Museum,155 Mulberry St, $20

3/16, 8 PM a rare small club appearance by cutting-edge avant garde composer/performer Milica Paranosic at Silvana

3/17-22, 8/10 PM irrepressible, paradigm-shifting accordionist Guy Klucevsek plays with a whole bunch of ensembles, $20. Choice pick: 3/18 at 8 doing film music with Kamala Sankaram and Peter Brown (vocals); Phyllis Chen (toy piano & piano); Todd Reynolds (violin)

3/17, 7 PM pianists Simone Dinnerstein and Doris Stevenson play music of Ravel, Gershwin, and Philip Lasser at PS321 Auditorium, 180 7th Ave., Park Slope, Brooklyn, R to Union St and walk uphill, $15, all proceeds to benefit the school.

3/17 intense, darkly cinematic slowcore/postrock guitarist Shannon Wright at St. Vitus

3/18, 8 PM the alternatively explosive and shimmering Nakatani Gong Orchestra at the Green Building, 452 Union St (Nevins/Bond) in Gowanus, R to Union St. and walk downhill, $15

3/18 the CTMD puts on one of their occasional, hellraising Jewish/Slavic Yiddish Zingeray dance parties at City Lore Galley,  56 E 1st St., performers tba

3/19, 7:30 PM torchy intense southwestern gothic songwrite Julia Haltigan and her excellent band at the Mercury, $10 adv tix rec

3/19, 7:30 PM entrancing Middle Eastern/Nubian largescale jamband the Nile Project revisit the scene of their live album, the Lincoln Center Atrium, free, early arrival a must

3/19, 7:30 PM early music consort the Wayward Sisters perform a program titled The Naughty List: Music By Braggarts, Hotheads, Curmudgeons and Snobs with music by obnoxious men Matthew Locke, Tarquinio Merula, William Brade, Nicola Matteis, and Dario Castello at the Kosciuszko Foundation, 15 E 65th St, $25

3/19 and 3/24 at 7:30 PM, plus 3/20 at 11 AM (in the morning) and and 3/22 at 8? the NY Phil play Ravel’s Piano Concerto in G, Richard Strauss’ Der Rosenkavalier plus works by Debussy and Esa-Pekka Salonen at Avery Fisher Hall, $30 tix avail

3/19-21, 7:30 PM kabuki theatre maven Tamasaburo Bando‘s explosive taiko drum/Japanese folk ritual troupe play their new extravaganza Kodo One Earth Tour: Mystery at BAM, $25 tix avail

3/19, 9 PM the perennially intense, tuneful godfather of edgy, lyrical, anthemic downtown NYC rock, Willie Nile at Rough Trade, $30

3/20, 7 PM violinist Melissa Tong with members of the Artemis Chamber Ensemble play music by Part, Johnston and Messiaen at Third Street Music School Settlement, free

3/20, 7:30 PM intense, state-of-the-art alto saxophonist/composer Miguel Zenon and his quartet salute the Puerto Rican roots in much of jazz at the Hostos Center Theater, 450 Grand Concourse in the Bronx, 2/4/5 to Grand Concourese/149th St., $15/$7.50 stud/srs

3/20, 7:30 PM 90s indie powerpop/mod punk legends the Figgs play the album release show for their new one at the Mercury, $12 gen adm

3/20, 8 PM, repeating 3/21, 7:30 PM the Chelsea Symphony play Bedford: Flushing Meadows, 1964 for Saxophone and Orchestra (world premiere) with soloist Aaron Patterson; Vaughan Williams: Oboe Concerto with soloist Kelly Jo Breczka; Grafe: Cello Concerto with soloist Eric Allen; Sibelius: Overture to the Tempest and Tchaikovsky: The Tempest at St. Paul’s Church, 315 W 22nd St, $20 sugg don.

3/20, 9 PM a killer literate rock/powerpop twinbill: Paula Carino’s transgressively fun original band, Regular Einstein and Elvis Costello-esque underground powerpop heroes Lazy Lions both play the album release show for their new ones at Rock Shop, $10

3/20, 9:30 PM Dan Finnerty’s hilarious, viciously sarcastic top 40 cover band the Dan Band at Joe’s Pub, $22

3/21, 8 PM North Indian violinist Kala Ramnath and ensemble at Roulette

3/22, 3 PM composer Huang Ruo and up-and-coming chamber ensemble New Asia Chamber Music Society play music for modern dance to accompany Nai-Ni Chen’s dance group at Flushing Town Hall, free but rsvp reqd

3/22, 3 PM Hannah Min, violin; Monica Davis, viola; Isabelle Fairbanks and Benjamin Larsen, cello; Zach Mo, piano play Faure’s C minor Piano Quartet, and Arensky’s haunting A minor Quartet for violin, viola and two cellos at St. John’s Episcopal Church, Park Slope, 139 St. John’s Place at 7th Ave., any train to Grand Army Plaza and walk downhill

3/24, drinks at 5:30 PM, show at 6, indie chamber group Yarn/Wire play electroacoustic works by Thomas Meadowcroft and Chiyoko Szlavnics at the Miller Theatre, free.

3/26, 7 PM badass, torchy Irish swing singer Tara O’Grady plays the album release for her new one Irish Bayou – tracing the rich history of the Irish in New Orleans – at the Metropolitan Room, 34 W 22 St

3/26, 7:30 PM the Heath Quartet play Janácek’s String Quartet No. 2 (“Intimate Letters”) and Beethoven’s String Quartet in C-sharp minor, Op. 131 at the Lincoln Center Atrium, free, early arrival advised

3/26 Jack Ladder & the Dreamlanders – late 80s Leonard Cohen wannabe crooning down-and-out synth/darkwave/noir pop – at Rough Trade

3/27, 7:30 PM Sexmob – who’ve distinguished themselves with their noir jazz reinventions of Nino Rota Fellini soundtracks – perform the world premiere of their score to Guido Brignon’s classic Italian silent film Maciste all’inferno at Symphony Space, $25

3/28, 5 PM pianist Rosa Torres Pardo plays an all-Iberian program including works by Soler-Scarlatti, Albeniz, de Falla at the DiMenna Center, 450 W 37th St., $5

3/30 biting, darkly psychedelic Eurofolk/rock band Carl Barât & The Jackals at the small downstairs studio space at Webster Hall

4/10, 8 PM anthemic, eclectic often haunting female-fronted Americana/acoustic funk/art-rock jamband the Sometime Boys and hard funk band Afroskull at Rock Shop, $10

4/11, 5 PM Argentine pianist Agustin Anievas plays Schubert and Chopin at the DiMenna Center, 450 W 37th St., $5

4/11, 9 PM Trapper Schoepp – a Milwaukee minor-leaguer with some promise, in a growling, lyrical Jeffrey Foucault Americana vein – opens for noiserock/paisley underground/noir rock legend Steve Wynn at Bowery Ballroom, $20

4/12, 3 PM the Greenwich Village Orchestra play an all-Tchaikovsky program with the Festival Coronation March, the Violin Concerto with soloist Siwoo Kim, and Symphony No. 4 at Washington Irving HS Auditorium, 16th St./Irving Place, $15 sugg don., reception to follow

4/13, 8 PM legendary 70s art-rock/hippie band Magma keep their own invented Kobaiian language alive at le Poisson Rouge, $30 adv tix req

4/14, 7:30 PM Brian Glassman’s brass-fueled Klezmer/Jazz Alliance at at Stephen Wise Free Synagogue, 30 W. 68th St, $15

4/16, 7:30 PM haunting Middle Eastern jazz trumpeter Amir El Saffar‘s Two Rivers Large Ensemble at the Lincoln Center Atrium, free, early arrival a must

4/17, 8 PM pensive, intense newgrass fiddler April Verch and her trio at Subculture

4/17, 9 PM edgy Chilean psychedelic cumbia/hip-hop/reggaeton bandleader Ana Tijoux at Bowery Ballroom, $15 adv tix rec

4/17-19 the Brooklyn Folk Festival at St. Ann’s Church in Brooklyn Heights, lineup tba

4/18 Australian sensation the Cat Empire – quirky, latin-and-ska-inflected and great fun organic stoner dance grooves – at the at Webster Hall, 9 PM $25

4/18 one of the year’s best rock doublebills: scorchingly lyrical, politically-fueled two-guitar anthemic punk/circus rock band the Brooklyn What followed by the similarly lyrically-driven, savagely political, hard-hitting Alabama populist rockers Lee Bains III and the Glory Fires at the Knitting Factory

4/22, 7 PM Norway, Sweden and the Shetland Islands’ virtuoso fiddling traditions represented by Olav Luksengård Mjelva, Anders Hall and Kevin Henderson at Symphony Space, $30

4/23, 7:30 PM otherworldly all-female choral quartet Anonymous 4 – on their final tour with Americana music maven Bruce Molsky – at the great hall at Cooper Union, $25 gen adm

4/24, 10 PM soulpunk/psychedelic band Clear Plastic Masks open for acoustic populist Alynda Lee Segarra aka Hurray for the Riff Raff at Bowery Ballroom, $15 adv tix rec

4/24 the queen of otherworldly, exhilarating Romany ballads, Esma Redžepova at le Poisson Rouge

4/25, 7 PM torchy, intense, dramatically soaring pianist/songwriter Elaine Romanelli at the third room at the Rockwood, $10

4/26, 3 PM the Australian Chamber Orchestra play works by Haydn, Mozart, Prokofiev and a world premiere by Radiohead’s Jonny Greenwood at Zankel Hall at Carnegie Hall

4/30, 8 PM Guinean Fula flute sounds with Bailo Bah & Sylvain Leroux followed by fiery Mauritanian pschedelic/desert rock bandleader/chanteuse Noura Mint Seymali at Roulette

4/30 8ish edgy gutter blues band Jane Lee Hooker followed at around 10 by the Bluebonnets with the Go Go’s Kathy Valentine (not only a superior bassist but a ferociously sizzling lead guitarist), $10 gen adm

5/1, 8 PM Pakistan’s Farid Ayaz, Abu Muhammad & Brothers Qawwali at Roulette

5/1, 9 PM this era’s version of Steve Earle, Joe Pug at Bowery Ballroom, $15

5/2, 8 PM entrancing Moroccan sintir virftuoso Hassan Hakmoun – the James Brown of gnawa – with his band at Roulette

5/3, 8 PM avant jazz grooves with Ned Rothenberg & Glen Velez followed by a rare global throat-singing twinbilll with Alash and Huun-Huur-Tu, the Throat-Singers of Tuva at Roulette http://www.nedrothenberg.com

5/9, 5 PM pianist Josep Colom plays “a dialogue between Mozart and Chopin” at the DiMenna Center, 450 W 37th St., $5

5/16, 8 PM the band that put Haitian psychedelic funk on the map in the 90s, Boukman Eksperyans at Roulette, $25

Jah9 Brings Her Homegrown Jamaican Rasta Roots Reggae to NYC

With her coolly determined alto voice and politically-fueled lyrics, Jah9 is the latest Jamaican roots reggae star to make a move beyond the island to a larger stage in mid-career. She stands out for a lot of reasons, most obviously because she’s a woman in an overwhelmingly male-dominated field. At a time when dancehall – which these days is basically just Jamaican rap – dominates across the Caribbean, she comes across as committed to a roots vibe, albeit one from the 90s when she was growing up. And in an era where roots reggae is pretty much a legacy genre, like bluegrass or Chicago blues, played mostly by white American jambands, she keeps her Rasta spear burning. Truth in advertising: the title track on her new album New Name – streaming at Soundcloud – is a remake of a Ras Michael classic. She’s playing a New York show on Feb 6 (actually the wee hours of Saturday the 7th, at one in the morning) backed by her group the Dub Treatment Band at Milk River Cafe, 960 Atlantic Ave (Grand Ave/St. James Pl.), in Brooklyn. The closest trains are actually the 2 or 3 to Dean St.; otherwise, take any train to Atlantic Ave and walk a few blocks deeper into Brooklyn.

Musically, the album’s production – with judicious, jazz-tinged guitar, synthesized brass and strings, digital organ and piano, synth bass and drum samples (or just a drum machine) – looks back to the era when Luciano rather than Sister Carol (an artist Jah9 resembles philosophically if not musically) ruled the charts. Where the album’s title track works a spiritual vibe, the second, Intention, has an incendiary political focus, Jah9 determined to live outside the system as much as she dares.

After a long, cinematic intro and some light dub touches, Preacher Man gives Jah9 a platform to go after hypocrites in politics and religion, a braver move than you might think considering that she’s a minister’s daughter. She follows a surprisingly poetic voice-and-piano contemplation with the trippy, dubby Gratitude and its mantra of “your only limitation is your imagination.”

Taken, the token shout-out to the only cure for glaucoma, features none other than the ageless Cedric Myton of the Congos on backing vocals – and it may be the only reggae song ever to suggest that you might not want to get so stoned that you can’t function. Avocado nicks a famous Burning Spear tune for a sly stoner boudoir jam, while Jungle offers encouragement for anyone who’d rather find their own niche in the world instead of slaving for some “unjust corporation,” a message Jah9 revisits on the album’s closing cut, Inner Voice.

 

Edgy Guitarist Jon Lundbom’s New Album – Sweet Home Y’all?

Guitarist Jon Lundbom is one of the Hot Cup Records crew, associated with notorious/uproarious jazz parodists Mostly Other People Do the Killing. As you might expect, his music shares that group’s corrosive sarcasm, but that’s only part of the picture. For Jeremiah, his seventh album with his long-running band Big Five Chord, he’s brought back  the usual suspects – Jon Irabagon on soprano sax, Bryan Murray on tenor and balto (hybrid baritone/alto) saxes, Moppa Elliott on bass and Dan Monaghan on drums along with Sam Kulik on trombone and Justin Wood on alto sax and flute. They’re playing the album release show next Wednesday, Feb 4 at 10 PM at Cornelia Street Café; cover is $10 plus a $10 minimum.

As the title implies, the album is an instrumental jeremiad, more or less. The bustling energy and keenly focused improvisation of Lundbom’s previous live album, Liverevil, take a backseat here to disquiet, anger and cynicism. In a city where the elite jazz players who still remain are often forced to take cheesy folk club gigs backing wannabe American Idol girls just to be able to make rent for another month, that anger shouldn’t come as any surprise.

And yet, the horn charts throughout the album have an unselfconscious, understated poignancy and bittersweet beauty. The opening track, The Bottle is not the Gil Scott-Heron classic but a Lundbom original named after a town in Alabama (he stole the concept from Elliott, whose repertoire is littered with Pennsylvania place names). And it’s full of sarcasm – although Alabama doesn’t seem to factor into it. It sways and shuffles, with snide, offcenter horns, a busily bubbling, more-or-less atonal solo from Lundbom and some neat contrasts between Murray’s squall and the rhythm section’s hypnotically waterfalling drive.

The next Alabama song (these compositions are about as Alabaman as Kurt Weill) is Frog Eye, with its lustrous, majestic if uneasy horn arrangement punctuated by chirpy pairings between Irabagon and Elliott, Lundbom lurking in the shadows before emerging with a smirk. The third one, Scratch Ankle opens somewhat the same before conversations between the horns go their separate ways.

Lick Skillet, which may or may not be a Tennnessee reference, pairs an irresistibly funny, Spike Jones-ish intro from Kulik with another astigmatically glistening horn chart and a spoof on latin flute funk. First Harvest, a wiccan song recorded on Lundbom’s previous album, gets a morosely terse new arrangement by Wood that Murray and Irabagon take up a notch. By contrast, W.P.S.M. takes a jauntily shuffling New Orleans-inspired strut outward, agitatedly..but then Elliott rescues it with some classic comic relief. The album winds up with Screamer, a loose, easygoing jam that seems tacked on for the hell of it. Who is the audience for this? People who like edgy sounds, and jazz with a vernacular that relies less on tunesmithing than creating and maintaining mood. This isn’t an album to lull you to sleep or dull your hangover but it sure as hell will make you feel something. It’s not officially out yet, although the first tune is up at Soundcloud.

Newborn Bring High-Voltage Guitar-Driven Tunefulness to the Mercury This Saturday Night

If Metallica was a Coney Island High band (you have to go back to the late 90s to get the reference), they’d be Newborn. Hearing the power trio – who happen to call the real Brooklyn Coney Island their home – playing Broken Virgo, you’d think that they’re a metal band at heart. The song is a big stadium anthem, an interesting mix of what could be latin rock (Caifanes at their early 90s peak, maybe) with Baba Yaga fanning the flames from behind her Russian peasant broom.  The band name sounds suspiciously like a pun that doesn’t translate from what it means in the old country – that, or just plain old sarcasm. They’re playing this Saturday night, Jan 31 at 10 at the Mercury for $10 if you get tickets in advance (they sell them there from 5-7 PM Monday through Friday).

With Uma, the second track at their soundcloud page, they tease you with what seems like a ballad but then they segue into what’s essentially The Passenger by Iggy Pop – ok, if you’re going to rip somebody off, you could do a lot worse. The third track there is Pulse, another teaser: for a second: you think you’re getting 80s hair-metal until guitarist Allen James kicks in with yet another tasty, brooding, allusively chromatic solo. Rhythm guitarist Eric Ross and drummer Blake Suben give him a roaring backdrop for the pyrotechnics. They’ve working on an ep lately and they sound like they kick out the jams live.

Blue-Eyed Soul Band Spain Bring Their Disquieting Sounds to NYC

For the past twenty-odd years, Josh Haden’s group Spain have occupied a unique, distantly Lynchian netherworld of blue-eyed soul and moody, purist pop tunesmithing, sort of like the Eels playing Orbison – or vice versa. They’re making a rare couple of stops in NYC, first at the Lincoln Center Atrium on Jan 29 at 7:30 PM for free, early arrival being the keyword there. They’re also at Rough Trade on Feb 3 at 9 for $15.

Their fifth and latest album, Sargent Place – streaming at Spotify – features the latest incarnation of the band, with Haden on bass plus Daniel Brummel on lead guitar, Randy Kirk on keys and guitars and Matt Mayhall on drums. Textures are big with this band: for example, the way that Haden’s bass and Brummel’s guitar evoke the spare sound of a Fender Rhodes on the tersely catchy, incendiarily crescendoing opening track, Love At First Sight. There’s an actual Rhodes on the enigmatically soul-tinged, waltzing second cut, The Fighter, featuring Haden’s sister Petra on harmony vocals and strings – it wouldn’t be out of place in the Lee Feldman catalog. She reappears on the duskily smoldering, blues-drenched dirge From the Dust

It Could Be Heaven subsumes its morbidness in Chuck Prophet-style purist pop catchiness – but just barely. Sunday Morning isn’t the Velvets classic but a pretty damn good song in its own right, an insistently pulsing, troubled, vintage 60s minor-key soul strut with a savage guitar solo out.

Haden brings down the lights with the slow, balmy, gospel-tinged 6/8 soul ballad Let Your Angel and keeps the moody, churchified atmosphere going with To Be a Man. He hits a peak with the absolutely Lynchian longing and angst of In My Soul, fueled by Brummel’s eerily gleaming, reverbtoned lead lines. The hushed folk-pop lullaby You and I is sadly notable for being the final studio recording by Haden’s dad, jazz bass legend Charlie Haden. The album winds up with the simple, disarmingly direct Waking Song: “Every time I go to sleep, it’s time to wake up,” Haden relates, something for the insomniac in all of us.

The Electric Mess Headline a Kick-Ass Triplebill at Union Pool on Thursday

The Electric Mess distinguish themselves from the legions of garage rock imitators out there in a lot of ways. For one, they have a heavier, more Detroit- and Australian-influenced sound. Much as they’ve got the swirly Farfisa organ and the stomping rhythms, they aren’t just recycling old riffs: you know, one-one, FOUR-FOUR, one, chucka-chucka-chucka, repeat for two minutes thirty seconds. And where most bands are lucky to have a single strong songwriter, the Electric Mess have three: singer/percussionist Esther Crow (aka Chip Fontaine), savagely Deniz Tek-influenced guitarist Dan Crow and bassist Derek Davidson. They’re headlining a good triplebill at 11 at Union Pool on Jan 29 that starts with retro 60s soul band the Jay Vons at 9 followed by the catchy, jangly all-female Party Lights. Cover is eight bucks.

The Electric Mess also make excellent albums. Their latest one, House on Fire is streaming at Bandcamp. Guitarist Crow’s Better to Be Lucky Than Good opens the record: it’s sort of a less frantic take on what Radio Birdman was doing with Aloha Steve & Danno, the sonic attack anchored by Oweinama Biu’s tremolo organ. The catchy, barely two-minute title track sounds like a Steve Wynn song if he’d been recording back in the 60s. Another Birdman-style sizzler, Beat Skipping Heart ponders the impact of a girl who’s both a “biscuit roller and a barrel stack.” The album’s best track, Winding Stairs pairs a swaying, brooding four-chord minor-key verse with a bittersweetly anthemic chorus. And the longest number here, Every Girl Deserves a Song, draws a jaggedly druggy line back toward the MC5 with diversions through acid-scarred Stooges wah psychedelia and Brian Jonestown Massacre hypnotics.

Esther Crow also contributes three songs. The first is the Brill Building garage anthem She Got Fangs, with its droll Hendrix quotes – does the Brill Building have a garage? In the basement, maybe? The second is Leavin’ Me Hangin, which with Craig Rogers’ pummeling surf drums sounds like a mashup of the previously mentioned Birdmen and the Fleshtones. The last one is Lemonade Man, a twisted stalker’s tale.

Davidson has five songs on the album. She’s Got Something to Say is like a tighter version of Them; Get Me Outta the Country is a galloping mashup of Blues Magoos and Reducers. The ominously vamping There’s Nothing You Can Do offers a tip of the helmet to a certain Radio Birdman classic, while The Thing That Wouldn’t Leave is a kiss-off to noodge. Davidson’s final track here is You Never Come Around Anymore, which wouldn’t be out of place on a Plan 9 album from that band’s peak era back in the 80s. Fans of this era’s best garage and psychedelic retroists like the Allah-Las will love this band.

The Cutting-Edge Vanguard Jazz Orchestra Play a Rare Weeklong Stand At Their Usual Spot

This year the Vanguard Jazz Orchestra celebrates 49 years as a New York institution. They were a lot different when trumpeter Thad Jones and drummer Mel Lewis founded the group in 1966 as a way to blow off steam and have some fun playing swing tunes as a break from the schlock they had to contend with at their dayjobs in Broadway pit bands. Jones left the group in the late 70s; a couple of years later, valve trombonist Bob Brookmeyer took the project in a rather radically different direction by introducing his own ambitious, more classically-influenced and sometimes strikingly noir compositions. Since then the group has become a vehicle for one of Brookmeyer’s many proteges, pianist Jim McNeely, who continues to serve as the band’s guiding force. Their weekly Monday residency at the Vanguard is the stuff of legend, and starting tomorrow, Monday the 26th and continuing through Feb 2 they’ll be playing a rare weeklong stand on their home turf. Sets are at 8:30 and 10:30; cover is $30 which includes a drink ticket. Early arrival is always advised at this place, no matter who’s playing. Update – there is no show Monday night because of the weather – check the club for what’s up with Tuesday’s show.

The Vanguard Jazz Orchestra’s latest album, Over Time – streaming at Spotify – is a collection of Brookmeyer pieces, five of them previously unreleased, the others dating from his early years with the band. Brookmeyer was a very distinctive writer, and his influence is still widely felt in jazz circles. His time in Gerry Mulligan’s big band is obvious in these numbers’ many West Coast noir moments. Brookmeyer liked building to lots of sudden, explosive crescendos, usually getting there by pairing instruments or sections of the band against each other, and the band really pull out the stops paying tribute to a guy who did more than anyone to put them on the map.

The older material here is also the darkest. Sad Song, a dirge and the album’s most overtly classical piece, featuring for the most part just McNeely’s piano and Dick Oatts’ flute, brings to mind Gil Evans going off onto an Indian tangent. The Big Time – a previously unreleased early 80s number – works every cinematic trick in the book: breathlessly bustling swing, suspenseful cymbals against eerie tinkling piano, uneasily chattering trumpets, the works. The enigmatically titled XYZ, a partita, is the showstopper here, from its creepy conga opening, through broodingly starlit piano, sarcastic blues caricatures and eventually a poignantly restrained Terrell Stafford muted trumpet solo that sounds like it’s wafting from around the corner. By contrast, Brookmeyer’s well-known arrangement of the well-known standard Skylark comes together brassily, with lots of tersely carefree alto sax from the veteran Oatts.

The more recent stuff – delivered to the orchestra right before Brookmeyer’s unexpected death in 2011 – is somewhat more boisterous. A triptych, Suite for Three begins with a modally astringent pulse with Oatts’ brightly acidic alto over ominously lustrous brass (and some bizarrely avant garde piano). Part two, featuring vivid work by lead trumpeter Scott Wendholt on flugelhorn, is a gorgeous mood piece that draws a line straight back to 50s Miles Davis. Tenor saxophonist Rich Perry features prominently on the concluding section, a wickedly catchy, blues-infused cha-cha in disguise. And At the Corner of Ralph and Gary provides a long, hard-swinging launching pad for intertwining lines from tenor saxophonist Ralph LaLama and his baritone counterpart Gary Smulyan. It’s hard to imagine a more fitting tribute to Brookmeyer, who was clearly on top of his game until the end.

A Killer Debut Album and a Show Uptown by Charming Disaster

Guitarist/pianist Jeff Morris is the mastermind behind mighty, darkly harmony-fueled art-rock/circus rock/noir cabaret/salsa swing band Kotorino. Ellia Bisker plays ukulele and fronts catchy, lyrically driven indie pop band Sweet Soubrette. Together they are Charming Disaster, whose new album of murder ballads, Love, Crime & Other Trouble – streaming at Bandcamp – is one of the most twistedly delicious noir albums of recent years. They seem to have had so much fun making it that they ended up bringing in most of Kotorino in the process. Charming Disaster’s next show is on Jan 27 at 8 PM at Silvana on 116th St., down the hill from Morningside Heights, about a block from the C train.

Two things immediately distinguish Charming Disaster from the many other would-be hitmen with murder ballads. Where so many of those songs come out of the folk and country traditions, Charming Disaster’s are more urban, and urbane. A closer listen reveals little Raymond Chandler-esque vignettes with all kinds of unexpected narrative twists and ghoulish humor that manages not to be campy. Bisker’s ability to change her voice to suit the song, whether with a petulant hint of New Jersey or a brassy oldtime swing delivery, informs how she channels the various dangerous dames here.

The opening track, Ghost Story, begins with a gorgeous interweave of guitar and uke and rises toward Spectorish proportions as Bisker unveils a tale about a woman who’s haunted by not one but two ghosts, and how everybody got to where they are, dead or alive. Ocean City comes across as a more skittish, shuffling take on what Springsteen captured in another low-budget coastal town, pushed along by Mike Brown’s bass and Jerome Morris’ drums.

With its tinkling saloon piano, the Weimar blues-tinged Showgirl is a duet, a wickedly sardonic tale that reminds that corruption in the NYPD goes way, way back. Wolf Song recasts 80s goth rock as a delicate acoustic nocturne with a big brass-fueled crescendo from trombonist Cecil Scheib and trumpeter Jesse Selengut. Artichoke blends ghoulabilly with Romany jazz and noir cabaret in a Tom Waits vein. One of the best tracks here, Secretary, paints a ghoulish picture of a real femme fatale over an eerie staccato guitar bounce a la Iggy’s The Passenger: this girl always smells like smoke even though she’s never been known to step out of the office for one.

Morris and Bisker intertwine voices on Grifters, a cynical Depression-era con artists’ tale set to another ominously swinging, Waits-flavored shuffle. They pick up the pace with the roaring, punk-flavored, grisly Osiris, an aptly shapeshfitting number and the album’s most straightforward track. They keep the energy at knife’s edge with Deep in the High, a cruelly carnivalesque number about a couple unraveling fast.

The most suspenseful track here is Knife Thrower, a lushly menacing look at the symbiotic relationship between a carnival couple with some gorgeously deep-sky steel guitar from Morris. The album winds up with the uneasy I Know You Know, a bittersweet love song with a dark undercurrent. If you aren’t hooked on this by now, there’s no hope for you. You should also grab the band’s 2013 debut single, Murderer b/w East River Ferry Waltz, a free download also up at their Bandcamp page.

Grace McLean Steals the Show at Lincoln Center

There’s no one in the world who sounds exactly like Grace McLean. With a stiletto sense of humor, a sharp sense of history, an irresistibly infectious stage presence and a quirky, individualistic sense of melody that’s nothing short of avant garde yet incredibly catchy,  she charmed and seduced a young, energized, very drama-school-looking crowd at Lincoln Center Wednesday night with her inimitable mix of bouncy loopmusic and savagely deadpan between-song banter. McLean’s lyrical references and tunesmithing may be in the here and now, but her sensibility is pure, early-80s edgy downtown NYC punk performance art. Among more contemporary artists, she brings to mind both Killy Dwyer and Tammy Faye Starlite.

Her genius is that she draws the crowd in with her catchy, dancing hooks – her timing, rhythmwise and otherwise is as amazing as her music is strangely compelling. Then, when she’s got your head bobbing, she smacks you right there. She’s got an opera about Hildegard von Bingen currently in development, and this time out chose instead to do a song inspired by a Hildegard counterpart, St. Ursula. As McLean told it, that woman led a thousand virgins on a pilgimage to the Holy Land…where they were intercepted by Huns, who killed them all. “That’s what you had to do to be famous in the eleventh century if you were a woman,” McLean mused. But that also meant achieving the pinnacle of success for a medieval girl: “You got to join in everlasting marriage with god,” McLean beamed.

She performed most of her set by layering loops of vocals against each other and then singing over them, an art that takes split-second timing and perfect pitch to pull off, and she made it look easy. She opened the set seated at the piano for a single number, joined by a rhythm section and backup singers who’d return at the end of the show. The first couple of songs had a suspiciously sardonic urban top 40 flavor, but exactly what McLean was spoofing, if anything, wasn’t clear.

From there, things got interesting in a hurry. Her cover of Heather Christian’s Wild Animals – employing rhymes from Gertrude Stein’s lone children’s book – was as funny as it was disconcertingly trippy. McLean’s own Natural Disaster raised the gallows humor factor, something that would permeate much of the rest of the show. A mighty, anthemic number titled Where Is the White Light evoked My Brightest Diamond as McLean took a swipe at new age cluelessness, while the ethereally crescendoing waves of a diptych a little later on brought to mind Bjork at her artsiest and weirdest. Existential angst was everywhere, particularly in a later number whose momentary refrain was “I’m sick of not having the courage to be an absolute nobody.”

Elsewhere, McLean had plenty of fun with guy/girl dynamics, particularly when the music lapsed toward faux “R&B,” most memorably with a couple of what were ostensibly diary entries from her gradeschool years. She wound up the show by finding the missing link between a couple of iconic Beatles and Stones songs, closing with a rousingly Memphis-flavored take of her big va-voom crowd-pleaser My Friend’s Roommate and then a Broadway standard where she pulled out all the stops to show off a powerful, brassy mezzo-soprano. It’s impossible to think of an edgier, more entertaining way for Lincoln Center to introduce this year’s Great American Songbook series.

String Ensemble Sybarite5 Sell Out Subculture

[republished from Lucid Culture, New York Music Daily’s jazz and classical annex]

Sybarite5 are a game-changer in the chamber music world. A cynic might say that the chamber music world needs a change: what appeared to be a sold-out, mostly twentysomething crowd Sunday night at Subculture might have agreed. Maybe it’s Sybarite5’s imaginative, genre-defying programming that pulls a younger demographic. Or maybe it’s their obsession with Radiohead: their 2013 album of new arrangements of songs by that band is a landmark in art-rock, a genre they also embrace. Whatever the case, they drew raucous applause and screams for an encore that might not have been out of place in another century when string quintets were more common, but aren’t exactly what you come to expect in the more sedate confines of, say, Carnegie Hall.

The group – violinists Sami Merdinian and Sarah Whitney, violist Angela Pickett, cellist Laura Metcalf and bassist Louis Levitt – opened with the first of the Radiohead covers, 15 Step, reinventing it as a kinetic, almost funky piece with hints of a canon but also a lively country dance, some of the members beating out a rhythm on the bodies of their instruments. They followed with a contemporary piece, Dan Visconti’s Black Bend, which slowly came together as a blues and then drifted from the center again.

Merdinian’s Armenian-Argentinian heritage came to the forefront with a couple of Armenian folk songs, a plaintive lament and then a bracing dance from the Komitas catalog. They offered a rapturously tender take of Astor Piazzolla’s Milonga del Angel, but then reveled in another Piazzolla piece, Esqualo, bringing its shark-fishing narrative to life with a sinewy intensity. It was here especially that Levitt’s role made itself clear, driving the music with the power of a rock bassist.

There was also more Radiohead (a surrealistically pulsing take of Weird Fishes and a broodingly anthemic remake of No Surprises); Shawn Conley’s Yann’s Flight, a cinematic depiction of Hawaiian hang gliding; a tensely circular, cinematically crescendoing Jessica Meyer premiere, and a romp through a Taraf de Haidoucks Romany number that was as feral as it was majestic. They encored with an irresistibly droll mashup of the old 80s cheese-pop hit Take on Me with Flight of the Bumblebee. Anyone who thinks that chamber music is strictly for greybeards wasn’t at this show. Roll over Beethoven, tell Tschaikovsky the news.