Live Music Calendar for New York City and Brooklyn For April 2023

All these concerts are free of restrictions on entry. Weekly events first followed by the daily calendar. If a venue is unfamiliar, look for it on the old guide to NYC music venues here, which is more of a worksheet now, but it has links to most of the places on this calendar.

Tuesdays in April, inspired, latin-influenced postbop trombonist Conrad Herwig and his septet at the Django, $25.

Thursdays in April, 5 PM poignantly lyrical, eclectic pianist Marta Sanchez at Bar Bayeux.

Three Fridays in April, 8 PM hauntingly cinematic Lynchian/southwestern gothic instrumentalists Suss at Culture Lab

Sundays at around 8 PM trumpeter Jon Kellso and (frequently) guitarist Matt Munisteri lead the Ear-Regulars in NYC’s only remaining weekly hot jazz jam session at the Ear Inn

Sundays in April at 8 PM  cheery, kinetic 20s hot jazz crew Baby Soda Band at St. Mazie’s

4/1, 6 PM soulful reedman Paquito D’Rivera  teams up with pianist Alex Brown at Bethany Baptist Church, 275 W Market St, Newark, free

4/1, 6 PM Colin Carr, cello and Kyungwha Chu, piano play Schubert Arpeggione Sonata in A minor, D.821 and Rachmaninov Sonata in G minor, Op.19 at Bargemusic, $35

4/1, 7 PM dark psychedelic acoustic blues/klezmer/reggae/soca jamband Hazmat Modine at Terra Blues. They’re back on 4/29

4/1, 7:30 PM tuneful oldschool soul/jazz trombonist Dave Gibson leads his quartet followed at 10:30 by purist postbop saxophonist TK Blue  at the Django, $25. Gibson is also at Smalls on 4/13 at 10:30

4/1, 8 PM surf night at Otto’s with the hard-charging, eclectic  Underwater Bosses, followed at around 9:30 by the more trad Tsunami of Sound and then the space-theme inclined Blue Wave Theory

4/1, 9 PM outrageously entertaining colorful, Bowie-esque female-fronted glamrockers the Manimals at Gold Sounds, $14

4/1,  10:30 PM wildly erudite tenor saxophonist Eric Wyatt and band at Smalls for a set and then the jam session, $25

4/2, 3 PM the Choir of Trinity Wall Street, classical chorale the Downtown Voices, and NOVUS NY, play works inspired by the seven last words of Christ on the cross, by Jane Hawes, Michael John Trotta, Richard Burchard, Gounod, Haydn and Joel Thompson at Trinity Church, free

4/2, 3 PM fiery Spanish sounds with Cuadro Flamenco at the Triad Theatre, 158 W 72nd St (Bwy/Amsterdam), $25

4/2, 6 PM a free reunion show by early 80s LA punk band Channel 3 (original members) at Berlin. They didn’t record a lot but they were more tuneful than most of their contemporaries.

4/2, 7 PM iconic, hilariously charismatic Americana songstress Amy Allison at Pangea, $25

4/2, 7 PM fantastic story-songwriter Lara Ewen, the enigmatically tuneful Shira Goldberg and Nashville honkytonk/southern rock songstress Mercy Bell share the stage at the downstairs room at the Rockwood, $10

4/2, 7:30 PM haunting classical Iraqi crooner Hamid Al-Saadi with iconic trumpeter/santoorist Amir Elsaffar’s Two Rivers Ensemble at Drom, $20 adv tix recd

4/3, 6:30 PM drummer Leonid Galganov, trumpeters Kenny Warren and Aquiles Navarro and tenor saxophonist David Crowell at Downtown Music Gallery

4/3, 10:30 PM smartly impressionistic postbop pianist Miki Yamanaka leads a trio at Smalls, $25. She’s back on  4/10

4/4, 7:30 bassist Giacomo Merega, guitarist Andrew Smiley and drummer Raf Vertessen improvise at Downtown Music Gallery

4/4, 7:30 PM the Balourdet Quartet play works by Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Hugo Wolf and others at Merkin Concert Hall, $30

4/4, 8 PM psychedelic Silver Arrow  funk-jazz crew the Silver Arrow Band at Drom, free. They’re back o 4/18

4/4. 8 PM a dadaesque collaboration between the Bang on a Can All-Stars’ guitarist Mark Stewart and thereminist Rob Schwimmer‘s Polygraph Lounge project at Roulette, $25 adv tix rec

4/4, 9 PM singer Veronica Davila’s twangy, Bakersfield-flavored hard honkytonk band Low Roller at Skinny Dennis

4/5, 1 PM purist oldschool jazz guitarist Bill Wurtzel with bassist Jay Leonhart at the American Folk Art Museum. He’s back on 4/19

4/5, 8 PM anthemic speedmetal band Cold Dice, then a mystery band who call themselves Peace Sign (GREAT branding, dudes) and then stoner boogie road warriors the Golden Grass at Our Wicked Lady, $14

4/5, 8 PM International Contemporary Ensemble play new chamber works by Mazz Swift and Murat Çolak at Roulette, $25 adv tix rec

4/5, 10 PM nigmatically tuneful, psychedelically abstract rock band Gold Dime at TV Eye, $10

4/6, 7:30 PM  adrenalizing postbop vibraphonist Mark Sherman leads a quartet at Smalls, $25

4/6, 8 PM a Randy Weston tribute with his ex-bandmates, bassist Alex Blake, pianist Danny Mixon, and gnawa musicians Ma’alem Hassan Ben Jaafer on sintir and his Innov Gnawa bandmates Amino Belyamani and Naoufal Atiq at the Dreck Center at the Brooklyn Public Library, free

4/6, 8 PM haunting, cinematic Mediterranean art-rock/postrock themes with Xylouris White  at the Poisson Rouge, $20 adv tix rec

4/6, 8 PM ethereal, raptly haunting singer Sara Serpa and her Encounters and Collisions chamber jazz quartet at Seeds

4/6, 8 PM jazz violinist Sara Caswell with similarly lyrical pianist Julian Shore at the Owl

4/6. 8 PM wild noise/rock trio Loren Connors & the Electric Nature at P.I.T., 411 S 5th Street, Williamsburg, J/M to Marcy

4/6, 8:30 PM catchy all-female luddite punks Tracy City at Otto’s

4/6, 8:30 PM Glass Clouds Ensemble – Raina Arnett (violin), Lauren Conroy (violin), and Marisa Karchin (soprano) – perform works by Telemann, Vaughan Williams, Melissa Dunphy, Forrest Eimold, and Christian Quiñones exploring themes of nature and the meaning of home, at the Tenri Institute, $10 sug don

4/7-8, 7:30 PM perennially tuneful piano improviser Jean-Michel Pilc leads a trio at Smalls, $25

4/7, 9 PM  colorful, lyrical pianist Danny Fox leads his trio  playing the album release show for their new one at the Owl

4/6, 10:30 PM psych-funk/disco group People of Earth a at the Django, $25

4/7, noon, innovative harpsichordist Bálint Karosi, orchestra and choir play his reimagined version of Bach’s unfinished St. Mark Passion at St. Peter’s Church, 53rd/Lex, $30

4/7-8, 6 PM the Catalyst Quartet play works by Germaine Tailleferre and Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel in galleries TBA at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, free w/museum adm, follow the sound

4/7, 7:30 PM sizzling postbop saxophonist Mike DiRubbo with his quartet followed at 10:30 PM by  lyrical, thoughtful tenor saxophonist Eric Alexander with his quartet at the Django, $25

4/7-8, 7:30 PM colorful jazz organist Larry Goldings leads a trio at Mezzrow, $25

4/7, 8ish  blazing all-female street band the Brass Queens and psychedelic Afrobeat band Emefe at the Sultan Room, $20

4/7, 8 PM haunting folk noir/Americana songwriter Emily Frembgen at the small room at the Rockwood

4/7, 8 PM a great improvisational evening: Ken Filiano on bass with Santiago Liebson on piano followed by Horse’s Mouth with Ricardo Gallo on piano, Ben Goldberg on clarinet, Sam Kulik on trombone and Ricardo Ricabarren on drums at Soup & Sound

4/7, 10 PM the jangly Big Star-influenced Hasbros at Otto’s

4/7, 10:30 snarling highway boogie/heavy psych band One Way Out at Lucky 13 Saloon, $13

4/8, 4:30 PM neofolk violinist Kite joined by her aunt, superstar klezmer violinist Alicia Svigals at Cara, 225 West 13th St. free

4/8, 7:30 PM multistylistic bassist Max Johnson with his trio at the Django, $25

4/8, 7:30 PM incisive, mesmerizing ragas with Apratim Majumdar on sarod with Amit Chatterjee on tabla at the Chhandayan Center for Indian Music  $25

4/8, 8 PM an intriguing improvisational lineup: Jeong Lim Yang – bass / Christopher Hoffman – cello / Billy Mintz – drums  at Downtown Music Gallery

4/8, 10:30 PM prolific postbop composer and tenor saxophonist Ken Fowser leads a quintet  at Smalls, $25

4/9, 7:30 PM a rare NY return show by brilliantly lyrical early zeros cult favorite Americana songstress Florence Dore at City Winery, $25

4/9, 7:30 PM charmingly retro Americana jazz chanteuse Sasha Dobson with her quartet at Smalls, $25. 4/24, 10 PM they’re at the Ear Inn for the tip jar

4/9, 8:30 PM  intense, cinematic, politically fearless jazz flutist Elsa Nilsson and her Band of Pulses at the Owl

4/10, 7 PM intense, charismatic oldschool soul belter Sami Stevens  at the small room at the Rockwood

4/10. 8 PM noir-inspired honkytonk crooner Sean Kershaw at Cowgirl Seahorse

4/10. 8 PM Amy Irving – the Crossing Delancey star, who as it turns out is an inspired and competent jazz singer – plays the album release show for her new one at City Winery, $25

4/10, 8 PM cellist  Amanda Gookin’s multimedia Forward Music Project featuring works for solo cello by composers Pamela Z, Jessie Montgomery, Sarah Hennies, Camila Agosto, Seong Ae Kim, at Roulette, $25 adv tix rec

4/10, 9 PM  Melissa Gordon of Melissa & the Mannequins – one of the best purist janglerock songwriters in NYC – at the big room at the Rockwood. free

4/10, 9 PM oldtimey string swing crew the Buck and a Quarter Quartet at Skinny Dennis

4/11, half past noon Polish organist Gedymin Grubba plays a program TBA at Central Synagogue, 54th/Lex, free

4/11, 7ish macabre metal band Castle Rat and 90s/zeros metal legends Firebreather at St. Vitus, $20

4/11, 7:30 PM Timothy Chooi, violin and Michelle Cann, piano play works by Amy Beach, Grieg, Silvestrov, Debussy and others at Weill Hall at Carnegie Hall, $23

4/11, 8 PM rockabilly veterans Emy & the Epix followed by wickedly jangly surf/twang/country instrumentalists the Bakersfield Breakers at 11th St. Bar

4/11, 8:30 PM trumpeter Brad Henkel, violist Joanna Mattrey and drummer Lesley Mok jam at Downtown Music Gallery

4/12, 8 PM timeless nonagenarian vocal jazz legend Sheila Jordan sings the album release show for her new one with Jacob Sacks, David Ambrosio, Vinnie Sperrazza at Bar Bayeux

4/12, 8 PM trombonist Curtis Hasselbring’s playfully cinematic Curhestra at the small room at the Rockwood

4/12, 9 PM  electrifying vibraphonist Simon Moullier and band at Bar Lunatico

4/12, 10 PM guitar goddess Barbara Endes’ exhilarating psychedelic janglerock band Girls on Grass  at Skinny Dennis

4/13, 7 PM the New York Composers Circle  feat. the Bergamot Quartet (Ledah Finck, violin, Sarah Thomas, violin, Amy Huimei Tan, viola, Irène Han, cello), along with Valerie Gonzalez, soprano, Adam C. J. Klein, tenor, Craig Ketter, piano, Haig Hovsepian, violin and Nara Avetisyan, piano play new works by Eric Heilnert, Carl Kanter, Thomas Parente, Susan J. Fischer. Marina Shmotova and Christopher Kaufman at Church of the Transfiguration, 1 E 29th St, $20

4/13, 7:30 PM Americana soul veteran Joe Henry at City Winery, $28 standing room avail

4/13, 7:30 PM tuneful postbop pianist Jim Ridl leads a trio at Smalls, $25

4/13, 9 PM otherworldly French-Algerian singer Ourida at Bar Lunatico

4/13, 9:30 PM Scottish folk trio the Highland Divas at the Cutting Room, $25 adv tix rec

4/13, 10 PM psychedelic soul-rockers Madam West at Bar Freda, $10

4/13. 3 PM Mayuki Fukuhara and Kae Nakano, violins; Liuh-Wen Ting, viola; Benjamin Larsen, cello play works by Beethoven and Grieg at Concerts on the Slope, St. John’s Episcopal Church, 139 St. John’s Place downhill from 7th Ave, $25

4/14, 7:30 PM jazz organist Mike LeDonne with his quartet at the Django, $25

4/14, 8 PM ska night at Otto’s: Mephiskapheles spinoff Barbicide, the edgy, female-fronted Penniless Loafers and  trombone legend Buford O’Sullivan and the Roosters

4/14, 9:30 PM Americana songstress Karen Hudson and and her band play Linda Ronstadt’s 1978 album Living In the USA all the way through at the Triad Theatre, 158 W 72nd St (Bwy/Amsterdam), $15

4/14, 10 PM ambient avant-garde singer/harpist Kitba at the Owl

4/15 the reconfigured Sadies at Union Pool are sold out

4/15, 11 AM (in the morning) a family show by clever, fiery, eclectic ten-piece Balkan/hip-hop/funk brass maniacs Slavic Soul Party at the Lincoln Center Atrium. There’s another show at 7:30 PM with fearlessly multistylistic pipa virtuoso Min Xiao-Fen‘s White Lotus featuring guitarist Rez Abbasi

4/15, 6 PM catchy, anthemic, female-fronted janglerock band the Belle Curves at the small room at the Rockwood

4/15, 7 PM lavish Indonesian bell orchestra Gamelan Dharma Swara at Ridgewood Presbyterian Church, 59-14 70th Ave (Forest/60th), J to Seneca Ave, $25 adv tix rec

4/15, 7:30 PM  the New York Virtuoso Singers perform Bach cantatas at Merkin Concert Hall, $30/$10 stud. They’re back with a similar Bach program on 4/29.

4/15, 8 PM elegantly ferocious Iranian tar lute star Sahba Motallebi at Roulette, $30 adv tix rec

4/15, 8 PM the Boston Modern Orchestra Project play works by Andrew Norman, Lei Lang and Lisa Bielawa at Stern Auditorium at Carnegie Hal., $21 tix avail

4/15, 8 PM the NY Scandia Symphony play dynamic Nordic works by Hugo Alfven, Friedrich Kuhlau, Carl Nielsen, Jean Sibelius at Alice Tully Hall, $25 tix avail

4/15, 9 PM Afrobeat all-star crew Armo – feat. members of Antibalas – at Bar Lunatico

4/16, 3:15 PM Ken Corneille plays his own colorful works on the organ at St. Patrick’s Cathedral

4/16, 4 PM gutter blues/punkabilly band James Godwin and the Ultrasounds at Mama Tried

4/16, 5 PM pyrotechnic clarinetist Ismail Lumanovski’s ferociously kinetic NY Gypsy All-Stars with Ara Dinkjian on oud at Our Saviour’s Atonement, $25

4/16, 7 PM flutist Tessa Brinckman, violinist/violist Allyson Clare, trombonist Taylor Peterson and pianist Brian Mark perform works by Meredith Monk, Brian Mark, Brinckman, Messiaen, Ted Hearne, and Randall Woolf on themes of embattled individualism, accompanied by digital audio and video at Theatre 71, 152 West 71st St, $17.50

4/16, 7ish purist oldschool tenor sax player Craig Handy leads his New Orleans-flavored band at the Django, $25

4/16, 8 PM violinist Terry Jenoure leads a fantastic chamber jazz quintet playing compositions inspired by her grandfather’s harrowing experience being detained at the Canadian border in the 1930s at Roulette, $25 adv tix rec

4/17, 1 PM erudite jazz drummer Winard Harper & Jeli Posse  at St. Paul’s Chapel downtown

4/17, 7:30 PM the Merz Trio play works by George Lewis, A. Mahler, Berg, Bingen, Cheryl Frances-Hoad, Brahms, and Ravel at Weill Hall at Carnegie Hall, $25

4/18, 1 PM Aletheia Teague plays the organ at St. Paul’s Chapel downtown

4/19, 7 PM at Willow Place Auditorium. 26 Willow Place, Brooklyn Heights. repeating 4/21 at 7 PM at Bohemian National Hall. 321 E 73rd St off First Ave, the  S.E.M. Ensemble play works by Petr Kotik, Petr Bakla, Christian Wolff, improvisations by Roscoe Mitchell, Thomas Buckner and guests, Jana Vörösová, Pavel Zemek Novák, Rudolf Komorous and Pauline Oliveros, free

4/19, 8 PM imaginatively techy female-fronted acts: Nebula the Velvet Queen on theremin followed by the dissociatively drifting Sick Din, the Bjork-esque Linda Gardens and new wave/powerpopstress Kira Metcalf at Bar Freda, $10

4/19, 8 PM shapeshifting art-rock/no wave band Heroes of Toolik at the Zurcher Gallery, $20

4/19, 9 PM excellent new Brooklyn Middle Eastern band Baklava Express at Radegast Hall

4/19, 9 PM clever, purist B3 jazz organist Akiko Tsuruga at Cellar Dog

4/19, 9:30 PM  slinky psychedelic reggae-tinged jamband Ace Bandage at Hart Bar

4/20, 1 PM the NOVUS NY String Quartet, featuring Melissa Attebury, mezzo-soprano play works by Rebecca Clarke, Lili Boulanger, Schubert. Juhi Bansal. Samuel Barber and Respighi at St. Paul’s Chapel downtown

4/20, 7 PM ish epic NWOBHM twinbill: Shadowland and Tanith playing the album release for their new one at St. Vitus, $20

4/20, 8 PM a fiery Ukrainian female-fronted folk-punk twinbill: Balaklava Blues and Dakh Daughters at the Poisson Rouge. $30 adv tix rec

4/20, 7 PM  rustic Piedmont-style blues guitar duo Gordon Lockwood at Terra Blues, $20

4/20, 7:30 PM the mighty, stunningly eclectic, Middle Eastern-tinged Eyal Vilner Big Band at the Lincoln Center Atrium.

4/20, 7:30 PM Drew Petersen, piano, plays works by Chopin, Schumann, Ravel, and more at the 92nd St. Y, $30

4/20, 8 PM pianist Beatrice Rana plays works by Bach and Debussy plus Beethoven’s Hammerklavier Sonata at Stern Auditorium at Carnegie Hall, $30 tix avail

4/20, 8:30 PM violinist Ludovica Burtone  Ben Rosenblum (USA) on accordion, and bassist Eduardo Belo at the Owl

4/20, 9 PM  noir guitar legend Jim Campilongo leads his trio at Bar Lunatico

4/20, 9:30 PM Hannah vs. the Many’s fierce, lyrically brilliant frontwoman Hannah Fairchild & Megan Sperger work up material from their upcoming rock musical Stars In My Eyes / Food On the Table at Greenroom 42, inside the hotel at 570 Tenth Ave south of 42nd St.,, expensive,$36 but worth it

4/21, 7 PM Czech chamber ensemble Ostravska Banda play works by Roscoe Mitchell, Petr Kotik, Pauline Oliveros, Christian Wolff, Jana Vörösová and others at Bohemian National Hall, 321 E 73rd St,, free

4/21, 7 PM the Low Frequency Trio play new pieces by Latin American female composers at the Americas Society. 680 Park Ave, free

4/21, 7:30 PM an interesting duo: Geoffrey Keezer on piano and bassist John Patittuci at Mezzrow, $25

4/21-22, 7:30 PM  indie classical chamber orchestra Wild Up play surreal Julius Eastman works at the 92nd St. Y, $25

4/21, 7:30 PM smart, thoughtful vibraphonist Sasha Berliner leads a trio followed at 10:30 by eliably powerful tenor saxophonist Stacy Dillard at Smalls, $25

4/21, 7:30 PM timbalero Tito Rodríguez, Jr.’s salsa band at the Lincoln Center Atrium.

4/21-22, 7 PM cellist Matt Haimovitz plays solo works by Bach, David T. Little, Annabelle Chvostek, Tyshawn Sorey, Niloufar Nourbahksh, Roberto Sierra and others at Bargemusic, $35

4/22, 2 PM bassist Santi Debriano leads a quintet with vocalist Nina Shankar at Faber Park Recreation Center, 2175 Richmond Terrace, Staten Island

4/22, 4 PM bass goddess/soul singer Felice Rosser’s ageless reggae-rock-groove band Faith at the community Garden, 311 East 8th St between Ave B and C

4/22, 4 PM Quintet of the Americas play an ecologically-themed concert of works by Shanyse Strickland, Samuel Barber, Christopher Kaufman, Alexandra Molnar-Suhaida, Frank Ticheli and Julio Medaglia at Gallery 9B9, 9 Avenue B, free, res req

4/22, 7 PM New Andalusia play flamenco and arabic themes at the Bronx Music Heritage Center, 1303 Louis Nine Blvd,, $10, 2/5 to Freeman St

4/22, 7 PM the environmentally conscious Jhoely Garay Jazz Orchestra at Culture Lab, free

4/22 10 PM  the fiery, string-driven Sedi Donka Balkan Band at St. Mazie’s

4/23, 3:15 PM organist Simon Leach at St. Patrick’s Cathedral

4/23, 7 PM nuanced jazz and chamber pop singer Kari van der Kloot at the small room at the Rockwood

4/23, 9:30 PM lyrical pianist Bennett Paster‘s Understated Trio at the Django, $25

4/23, 10ish the 3rd Street Band – fronted by Billy Miller, son of iconic freedom fighter Mark Crispin Miller – at Hart Bar. So new they don’t have a website yet but word on the street is that they’re kind of retro and lyrically brilliant.

4/24, 7:30 PM the Catalyst Quartet play African American spirituals, Florence Price’s Piano Quintet in E Minor (with Aaron Wunsch) and a new setting of Langston Hughes’s poem, Kids Who Die, for soprano, piano, and string quartet – how appropriate for 2023! at Music Mondays, Advent Church, northwest corner of 93rd and Broadway, free

4/24, 8 PM Dervisi feat. psychedelic guitarist George Sempepos play an acoustic set of haunting 1930s Greek underground anthems and hash-smoking tunes at Troost

4/24, 8 PM avant garde singer Dafna Naphtali airs out her voice with a jazz duo and octet at Roulette, $25 adv tix rec

4/25, 1 PM Thomas Mellan plays the organ at St. Paul’s Chapel downtown

4/25, 7:30 PM acerbic, versatile tenor saxophonist Julieta Eugenio leads a trio at Smalls, $25

4/25, 7:30 PM glimmering, noir-inspired vibraphonist Tom Beckham leads a trio with Henry Hey on piano and Matt Clohesy on bass at Mezzrow, $25

4/25, 8 PM pianist Florian Noack plays his transcriptions of the Bach Brandenburg Concerto No. 3, Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherezade, works by Liszt and more at Merkin Concert Hall, $35

4/25, 8 PM pianist Alison Deane plays her son  Adam O’Farrill’s new suite followed by the O’Farrill Family Band at Roulette, $25 adv tix rec

4/25, 9 PM vicious noiserock jamband the the Skull Practitioners– led by Steve Wynn sparring partner/genius guitarist Jason Victor – at Union Pool, $10

4/25, 9ish perennially haunting, atmospheric folk noir/art-rock chanteuse Marissa Nadler at Public Records, $26

4/26, 1 PM Alcee Chriss, organ; Sandra Miller, flute; Sarah Stone, cello play an all-Bach program at St. Paul’s Chapel downtown

4/26, 7:30 PM Lun Li, violin & Janice Carissa, piano play works by Poulenc, Sciarrino, Messiaen, Bartok and others at Merkin Concert Hall, $24

4/26, 7:30 PM noir-inspired alto saxophonist/composer Nick Hempton with his quartet at Smalls. $25

4/26, 8 PM edgy chromatic vocalists: Palestinian singer Mona Miari and Greek chanteuse Nefeli Fasouli at Drom, $25

4/26, 8 PM energetic ragtime/Romany swing guitarist Felix Slim at St. Mazie’s

4/26, 8 PM saxophonist Caroline Davis leads a killer quartet with Matt Mitchell, Chris Tordini, Allan Mednard at Bar Bayeux

4/27, 1 PM NOVUS NY play chamber works by Messiaen, Biber, Andrew Yee, Elena Kats and Mel Bonis at St. Paul’s Chapel downtown

4/27, 7:30 PM Trio Fadolín (featuring violinist Sabina Torosjan, cellist Valeriya Sholokhova, and cinematic composer Ljova on fadolín), with lustrous klezmer singer Inna Barmash, clarinetists Sam Sadigursky and Zisl Slepovitch; and Ljova’s parents, Soviet-era freedom fighters Alexander Zhurbin and Irena Ginzburg, who bedeviled the authorities back in the 70s and 80s, at the Lincoln Center Atrium, free

4/27. 7:30 PM  brilliant baritone saxophonist Lauren Sevian at the Django, $25

4/27, 7:30 PM the Experiental Orchestra play Xenakis’ challenging classical duel piece Linaia-Agon and works by Julius Eastman at the Church of the Advent Hope, 111 E 87th St, $29

4/27, 7:30 PM  conversational pianist Jeffrey Siegel plays works by Chopin and Grieg at Scandinavia House, $25

4/27, 10 PM lo-fi newschool psychedelic band Gringo Star  at TV Eye, $15

4/28, 7 PM piano trio Longleash performs music by James Díaz, Igor Santos, Vicente Hansen Altria, Linda Catlin Smith, and Jimena Maldonado at the Americas Society, 680 Park Ave, free .

4/28, 7 PM Yoko Reikano Kimura on shamisen, Sumie Kaneko on koto and James Nyoraku Schlefer on shakuhachi play classic and new music for Japanese instruments at Bargemusic, $35

4/28, 7:30 PM  fearlessly political jazz poet/vocalist Moor Mother at Merkin Concert Hall, $25

4/28, 8:30 PM Cape Verde morna torch singer Fantcha at Drom, $20 adv tix rec

4/28, 10 PM  edgy lead guitarist Damian Quinones and his psychedelic latin soul band  at Freddy’s

4/28, 10:30 PM  fiery, latin-inspired trombonist Mariel Bildstein at the Django, $25

4/29, 4 PM darkly torchy southwestern gothic/Europolitan songwriter/guitarist Miwa Gemini, with taiko drummer/pianist Midori Larsen and Shoko Morikawa at Freddy’s

4/29, 7:30 PM carnatic singer Sangeetha Swaminathan with Sriram Raman on mridangam, Siddharth Ashokkumar on violin and Kabilan Jaganathan on kanjira at the Chhandayan Center for Indian Music, 4 W 43rd Street #618, $25

4/29, 7:30 PM the Modus Operandi Orchestra play Beethoven’s Coriolan Overture and Symphony No. 7 plus Mozart’s Symphony No. 35 and other works with soprano Laura Leon at St. Mary Church, 1008 49th Ave, Long Island City, $25

4/29, 7:30 PM picturesque jazz pianist Michael Weiss  and his trio at the Django, $25

4/29, 8 PM Changing Modes – NYC’s funnest, most unpredictable, sharply lyrical new wave art-rock band – at Connolly’s

4/30, 3:15 PM organist Clayton Roberts at St. Patrick’s Cathedral

4/30, 4 PM the Argus Quartet and Steven Beck, piano play the NY premieres of Michael Shapiro’s Yiddish Quartet and Piano Quintet at Bargemusic, $35

4/30, 7 PM spine-tingling, darkly mystical art-rock/avant-garde/chamber pop songwriter Carol Lipnik  with Gordon Beeferman on piano at Pangea, $25

4/30, 7:30 PM  purist vocal jazz stylist Melissa Stylianou leads a trio with Ike Sturm on bass and Gene Bertoncini on guitar at Mezzrow, $25

4/30, 9 PM thrash metal band Wizard Rifle and then the sludgy immersive riff-heavy Bongzilla at St. Vitus, $27

5/1, starting at noon, New Yorkers come out to protest the New York City Parks Department crackdown against independent vendors. Protests at Union Square Park & Washington Square Park. Why is the city persecuting vendors? Vendors add individual character to neighborhoods, they don’t work for Jeff Bezos, and they’re a cash business.

5/4, 8 PM Max Lifchitz conducts the North/South Chamber Orchestra playing his own works plus pieces by Brian Banks, Carlos Chavez, Manuel Enriquez, Eduardo Mata & Silvestre Revueltas  at the National Opera Center, 330 7th Ave,. free

5/4, 8 PM eclectic violinist Dana Lyn’s protean, psychedelic Animal Revenge at Greenwich House Music School, $20

5/8, 7:30 PM the Jupiter Quartet and East Coast Chamber Orchestra play works by Schubert, Jessie Montgomery, Adolphus Hailstork at Music Mondays, Advent Church, northwest corner of 93rd and Broadway, free

5/15, 6 PM Ensemble Pi play works inspired by banned books by Lenny Bruce, Art Spiegelman and others, from  composers Richard Brooks, Louis Goldford, Laura Jobin-Acosta, Laura Kaminsky, Tamar Muskal, and Damian Norfleet at the NYPL for the Performing Arts, 111 Amsterdam Ave (64/65), free, res req

5/17, 7:30 PM  the amazing, haunting, otherworldly NY Andalus Ensemble – who play ancient Middle Eastern and North African Jewish sounds from as far back as a thousand years ago  – at La Nacional, 239 W 14th St, $28

A Rare, Harrowing Gem by One of New York’s Most Riveting Voices

Erica Smith was still in her twenties when she recorded a handful of quietly shattering acoustic songs in 2003. They were meant as demos. Her electric band would later air those songs out, memorably, at venues across New York and beyond, but recordings of them haven’t seen the light of day until recently. Her ep, which she calls The Dead and the Saints, is up at Bandcamp as a free download. It’s an important piece of New York music history and you should own it.

Smith’s first album was a stark, saturnine acoustic folk record. She pulled a band together for her second record, Friend or Foe, a showcase for her ability to reach from simmering oldschool soul, to stark traditional songs and impassioned ballads.

That versatility, and her similarly eclectic songwriting, came to the forefront with her third release, Snowblind, a harrowing chronicle of tragedy, loss and eventual resurgence. More recently she’s flexed her chops as a jazz stylist.

But this riveting little record reminds how strong she already was, two decades ago. “It starts with the sound of the siren,” she sings in Jesus’s Clown, a crucifixion parable and a co-write with the late Sean Dolan that ranks with that famous Phil Ochs song. “There were more than twelve of us around, and those who stayed got their names written down,” she reminds: “I was there and I know what I saw.”

See You in the Morning might be Smith’s most haunting song, a sober waltz with childhood memories of her mother, whom she lost as a gradeschooler. The vocals will rip your face off.

As they will on All the King’s Horses, another Dolan co-write. This version is a stripped-down version of the metaphorically-loaded pilgrim’s narrative which pretty much capsulizes the ugly history of the world in a few cinematic minutes. It’s been called one of the best songs ever written:

By now He would have died six more times, been resurrected and forgiven
We watched in hiding as they rolled away the stone
Praised heaven and all that’s forbidden

It’s also missing the eventual crushing final verse. The final cut on the ep is a rare waltz version of Old Pine Box, a haunted, imagistic tale that the band played as a brisk psychedelic janglerock tune.

Smith is still active as a performer; the last time this blog was in the house was a similarly magical acoustic show upstairs at 2A in the spring of 2018.

20-String Koto Sorceress Yumi Kurosawa Brings Her Flickering Magic to Joe’s Pub

Yumi Kurosawa got her start as a national champion koto player in her native Japan. But she hardly limits herself to traditional Japanese sounds. On her latest album Metamorphosis – which isn’t online yet – she expands her signature style, cross-pollinating with other traditions from around the globe. The result is individualistic to the nth degree and often unselfconsciously gorgeous: this is one of the most beautiful albums of 2023 so far. She’s playing the album release show on March 30 at 7 PM at Joe’s Pub; cover is $25/$15 stud.

Here’s what it sounds like. She and the band launch into a brisk, verdant sway in the opening track, Oneday Monday, violinist Naho Parrini sailing over Kurosawa’s spiky, intricate phrasing, which sometimes resembles a harp, other times a banjo. Her flashy glissandos and cascades make a contrast with the undulating groove from Eric Phinney’s tabla. There’s a tantalizingly brief violin-koto duel before they wind it up.

She and her trio follow a suspensefully cantering pace in track two, aptly titled Journey, with more of a traditional pentatonic folk atmosphere spiced with stark violin and delicately dancing tabla, down to an elegant Britfolk-tinged waltz. By contrast, Dawn is a slow, stately processional in 6/8 time, with wistful violin over Kurosawa’s intricately churning lines. As it winds out, she moves to a more incisive rhythm while Parrini reaches to an angst-fueled peak.

The album’s big epic is Restless Daydream: first Kurosawa and Parrini follow a similar stark/resonant dynamic, then the boomy percussion kicks in, violin and and koto building a kaleidoscopic interweave. Guest alto saxophonist Zac Zinger and then Parrini add thoughtful solos: the way she blasts out of a misterioso Kurosawa break as the group reach liftoff will give you goosebumps.

The terrain changes just as vividly in New Land Found, the group shifting from a catchy, anthemic intro to a rising and falling, bracingly tense theme and then a graceful waltz. Likewise, they move from an insistent, martial pulse to more airy textures in Zealla.

Mystical, lingering passages interchange with adrenalizing climbs and flurries throughout the next track, Mandala. While Inner Space is the only solo koto piece here, it’s arguably the high point of the album: Kurosawa is a one-woman orchestra with her thickets of circling, wavelike phrases underpinning an incisive melody that she drives to a slashing crescendo, and then gracefully downward. The band wind their way from a wistful mashup of Japanese folk and a rock ballad to a boisterously shuffling theme bookending a boomy percussion solo in the album’s final cut, Departure.

Live Music Calendar for New York City and Brooklyn For March 2023

All these concerts are free of restrictions on entry. Weekly events first followed by the daily calendar. If a venue is unfamiliar, look for it on the old guide to NYC music venues here, which is more of a worksheet now, but it has links to most of the places on this calendar.

Tuesdays in March, Inspired, latin-influenced postbop trombonist Conrad Herwig and his septet at the Django, $25.

Thursdays in March, 5 PM poignantly lyrical, eclectic pianist Marta Sanchez at Bar Bayeux. 2/28 at 7:30 PM she leads a trio at Mezzrow, $25

Sundays at around 8 PM trumpeter Jon Kellso and (frequently) guitarist Matt Munisteri lead the Ear-Regulars in NYC’s only remaining weekly hot jazz jam session at the Ear Inn

3/1, noon, not a music event but important, say no to Kathy Hochul’s persistent attempt to build concentration camps on New York soil at the rally at the Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Office Building. 163 W. 125 St. at 7th Ave. in Harlem

3/1, 8 PM Middle Eastern-flavored surf band twinbill: the Zolephants and slinky Pontic surf crew the Byzan-tones at Sundownstairs, 68-38 Forest Ave (at Catalpa) Ridgewood, Queens $10, J to Seneca Ave.

3/2, 8 PM singer Lea Kalisch‘s irreverent Shtetl Cabaret revisits Yiddish theatre music classics and not-so-classics at Drom, $20 adv tix rec

3/2, 8 PM 8 PM deviously theatrical oldschool C&W/rockabilly parodists Susquehanna Industrial Tool & Die Co. at Otto’s

3/3, 8 PM new-music group Black Box Enxemble play works by Ari Sussman, Cole Reyes. Eliza Brown. Jimena Maldonado and Inti Figgis-Vizueta at Culture Lab, $20

3/3, 8 PM  the raucously oldtimey Buck and a Quarter Quartet at Sunny’s

3/3, 9 PM jangly, clangy, surf-inspired retro psych band Spirit Ghost play the album release show for their new one at Alphaville, $15

3/3, 9 PM Afrobeat all-star crew Armo – feat. members of Antibalas – at Bar Lunatico

3/3, 10:30 PM prolific postbop composer and tenor saxophonist Ken Fowser leads a quintet at Smalls, $25

3/3, 10:30 PM lyrical Mingus band pianist David Kikoski leads a trio at Mezzrow, $25

3/4, 7:30 PM lyrically provocative mashups of Ethiopiques, parlor pop, hard funk and psychedelia with Meklit at the Lincoln Center Atrium, free, early arrival advised

3/4, 8 PM brooding folk-rocker Peter Is Dead a.k.a Peter Carlovich, female-fronted dreampop band Heat Death and sprawling,. jangly athemic newschool psychedelic band Bard’s Flying Vessel at Alphaville, $14

3/4, 9 PM Pangari & the Socialites play classic ska and rocksteady– most of it from the 60s Skatalites catalog – at Bar Lunatico

3/4, 9ish deviously fun, female-fronted ska band Across the Aisle at Lucky 13 Saloon, $tba

3/4, 9ish guitar goddess Barbara Endes’ exhilarating psychedelic janglerock band Girls on Grass and Renee LoBue’s darkly catchy veteran powerpop/art-rock band Elk City at the Windjammer, $tba

3/5, 4 PM the Orchestra of St. Luke’s play works by Tania Leon, Keyla Orozc and others at the Dreck Center at the Brooklyn Public Library, free, no under-sixes.

3/5, 5 PM Siwoo Kim, violin; Melissa Reardon, viola and Raman Ramakrishnan, cello reinvent Bach’s Goldberg Variations for string trio at Our Saviour’s Atonement Lutheran Church, 178 Bennett Ave at 189th, Washington Heights, $25, A to 186th St.

3/5, 8 PM improvisational, immersive bassist Kato Hideki leads a quintet with Doug Wieselman: clarinet; Masahiko Kono: trombone. Gordon Beeferman: piano; Ryan Sawyer: drums & percussion at Roulette, $25 adv tix rec

3/5, 7 PM Miqayel Voskanyan’s hauntingly driving Armenian jazz MVF Band at Drom, $25 adv tix rec

3/6, 8:30 PM edgy oldschool and newer soul styles with singer Maya Sharpe at the downstairs room at the Rockwood, $10

3/6, 9 PM  boisterously funny oldschool 60s C&W and brooding southwestern gothic with Jack Grace at Skinny Dennis

3/6, 10:30 PM  smartly impressionistic postbop pianist Miki Yamanaka leads a trio at Smalls, $25. She’s back on 3/13

3/7, 6:30 PM Louise D. E. Jensen on sax with cellist TJ Borden followed by drummer Dave Miller with multi-reedman Ras Moshe and then drummer Anders Griffen with violin scorcher Sana Nagano at Downtown Music Gallery

3/7, 7 PM  noir guitar legend Jim Campilongo leads his trio at the big room at the Rockwood, $20

3/7, 8 PM funk-jazz crew the Silver Arrow Band at Drom, free. They’re back on 3/21

3/7 the Sun Ra Arkestra show at TV Eye is sold out. Good for them.

3/8, 7 PM the Brooklyn Raga Massive – a rotating cast of A-list Indian, jazz and rock musicians who love to jam out classic Indian themes from over the centuries to the present day – at Branded Saloon

3/8, 8/9:30 PM lyrical pianist Aaron Parks leads a trio at Bar Bayeux

3/8, 8 PM Palestinian singer Nibal Malshi performs vintage classics from Syria, Lebanon and Egypt at Roulette, $30 adv tix rec

3/9, 7:30 PM Rolling Stones tenor saxophonist Tim Ries and his quartet at the Django, $25. He’s back on 3/30

3/9, 7:30 PM conversational pianist Jeffrey Siegel plays works by Chopin, Schubert and Sibelius at Scandinavia House, $25

3/9, 7:30 PM eclectic. edgy violinist Zach Brock with pianist Aaron Goldberg and bassist Matt Penman at Mezzrow, $25

3/9, 8 PM ferocious powerpop/psychedelic guitarslinger Pete Galub opens a triple bill with edgy King Crimson-influenced Woodhead and noisy stoner boogie band Mustafina at Main Drag Music, 50 S 1st St, Williamsburg

3/9, 8 PM smartly crafted, new and recent Dan Joseph chamber works for marimba and saxophone, violin, cello, saxophone and clarinet, and  piano, with pianist Marija Ilic and ensemble; composer Michael Byron premieres new works for two pianos and small orchestra featuring pianists Joseph Kubera and Steve Beck with Petr Kotik conducting members of the S.E.M. Ensemble, as well as a performance by violin duo String Noise (Conrad Harris and Pauline Kim Harris). at Roulette, $20 gen adm

3/9, 8:30 PM  Certain General guitarslinger Phil Gammage plays his dark Americana and blues at 11th St. Bar

3/9, 9 PM slinky psychedelic reggae-tinged jamband Ace Bandage – who are a lead singer away from brilliance – at Bar Freda, $10

3/9. 9 PM cinematic, ethereal vibraphonist Chris Dingman leads his trio at Bar Lunatico

3/10, 7:30 up-and-coming saxophonist Erena Terakubo leads her group followed at 10:30 by clever, purist B3 jazz organist Akiko Tsuruga at the Django, $25

3/10-11, 7:30 PM suave, smoky tenor saxophonist Harry Allen leads a trio with Mike Karn on bass and Andy Brown on guitar at Mezzrow, $25

3/10, 8 PM violist Joanna Mattrey leads an intriguing improvisational ensemble with Patrick Shiroishi, Chris Williams, and Gabby Fluke-Mogul at Roulette, $25 adv tix rec

3/10, 8 PM Bint plays Arabic occult-inspired dark electronic soundscapes at MITU580, 580 Sackett St Unit A (off Union), Gowanus, F to Carroll St, $10

3/10, 8ish gutter blues band Daddy Long Legs play the album release show for their new one at the Sultan Room, $21

3/10, 8/9:30 PM riveting Japanese shamisen player/singer/improviser Emi Makabe leads a trio with Thomas Morgan on bass at Bar Bayeux

3/10, 10 PM ferociously dynamic, tuneful, female-fronted art-rock power trio Castle Black at Bar Freda, $10

3/11,6 PM pianist Jed Distler and cellist Juliana Soltis play works by Amy Beach, Leo Ornstein, Helen C. Crane , Florence B. Price and Margaret Bonds at Bargemusic, $35

3/11, 7:30 PM Nagash Armenian Ensemble play songs on themes of exile at Zankel Hall at Carnegie Hall, $34 tix avail

3/11, 7:30 PM Indian singer Pratima Doobay and drummer Roshni Samlal exploring the global diaspora of Hindi folk songs, the poetry of Shivanee Ramlochan, bass riffs by Liany Mateo, and the visual art of Renluka Maharaj at the Lincoln Center Atrium, free, early arrival advised

3/11, 7:30 PM  tuneful oldschool soul/jazz trombonist Dave Gibson leads his quartet at the Django, $25

3/11, 8 PM guitarist Nick Demopoulos’ twinkling, psychedelic Smomid spacescape project at Downtown Music Gallery

3/11, 9 PM tuneful, first-class Kenyan reggae crooner Nixon Omollo at Shrine.

3/12, 3:30 PM potentially mind-blowing improvisation with violinist Ladonna Smith, Taylor Rouss on sax and “game calls,” and Andrew Drury on drums plus the Home of Easy Credit witih Louise D.E. Jensen on sax and Tom Blancarte on bass at Soup & Sound

3/12, 4 PM early music ensemble Alkemie play medieval works by Guillaume du Fay  at the Dreck Center at the Brooklyn Public Library, free, no under-sixes.

3/12, 4 PM Yael Weiss, piano; Mark Kaplan, violin; Peter Stumpf, cello play trios by Haydn and Schubert at Bargemusic, $35

3/12, 7:30 PM imaginative, purist baritone saxophonist Claire Daly leads her quintet at Smalls

3/12, 8 PM ghoulabilly band the Gunsmoke Sinners at Otto’s

3/12, 8 PM the Trinity Youth Chorus and Trinity Baroque Orchestra perform Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater at St. Paul’s Chapel, free

3/12, 9 PM mysterious organ-driven 60s Canterbury-style psychedelic band the Lucifer Sams at Gold Sounds, $12

3/12, 9 PM singer Veronica Davila’s twangy, Bakersfield-flavored hard honkytonk band Low Roller at Skinny Dennis

3/13, 7 PM guy/girl harmonies and eclectic folk-rock/new wave songwriting with the Oracle Sisters at Baby’s All Right, $18

3/13. 7:30 PM NY Phil principal clarinetist Anthony McGill and the Pacifica Quartet play works by Prokofiev, Brahms and James Lee at Music Mondays, Advent Church, northwest corner of 93rd and Broadway, free

3/13-14, 7:30/9 PM tenor sax legend  George Coleman leads a quartet at Smalls, $25

3/13, 9 PM slinky, impressionistic postbop jazz with saxophonist Alison Shearer and her quartet at Bar Lunatico

3/13, 10:30 PM crooner Kevin Harris with jazz organ paradigm-shifter Brian Charette at the Ear Inn

3/13, 10:30 PM  classy, cinematic, purist NZ jazz pianist Alan Broadbent  leads a trio at Mezzrow

3/14, half past noon Swiss organist Olivier Eisenmann plays a program TBA at Central Synagogue, 54th/Lex, free

3/14, 1 PM organist Amelie Held plays a program TBA at St. Paul’s Chapel downtown

3/14, 6:30 PM improvisational alchemy: guitarist Aron Namenwirth, trombonist Steve Swell and guitarist Rodney Chapman followed at 7:30 by Dr. Paul Austerlitz & the Spirit Cabinet at Downtown Music Gallery

3/15, 7 PM in reverse order: surreal, amusingly bombastic heavy psych band Howling Giant, the noisier Restless Spirit and Stoogoid stoner boogie band Sun Voyager at TV Eye, $15

3/15, 8 PM socially aware 2nd gen nueva cancion songwriter Juana Luna plays the album release show for her new one at El Puente, 211 S 4th St. Williamsburg, J/M to Marcy Ave, sug don

3/15, 8 PM cinematic rock band Fuck You Tammy play amazingly spot-on recreations of themes and songs from Twin Peaks and David Lynch films at Alphaville, $14

3/15, 8 PM extrovert drummer Johnathan Blake’s Trio with Ravi Coltrane and Dezron Douglas. wow, at Bar Bayeux

3/15,  8:30 PM Dark Streets play Celtic classics by the Pogues, Flogging Molly, the Dubliners and others at 11th St. Bar. 3/17, 8 PM they’re at Mama Tried

3/15, 9 PM smart, purposeful Americana guitarslingers Jason Loughlin and band at Skinny Dennis

3/16, 1 PM NOVUS NY plays works by Brad Balliett, Valerie Coleman, Joan Tower and Louise Farrenc at St. Paul’s Chapel downtown, free. They’re back on 3/23 playing works by Tania Leon, Christopher Cerrone, Kevin Puts and Paola Prestini and on 3/30 with works by Missy Mazzoli and Jessica Meyer, plus Schoenberg’s Verklärte Nacht

3/16, 7:30 PM  eclectic violinist Dana Lyn’s protean, psychedelic, ecologically aware jazz project Baby Octopus plus one of New York’s most eclectic, interesting oudists, Brian Prunka  with a string section, wow, at the Owl

3/16, 7:30 PM tabla virtuoso Sandeep Das and his instrumental HUM Ensemble blend Indian and Turkish sounds at the Lincoln Center Atrium, free, early arrival advised

3/16, 8 PM a rare Brooklyn gig by multi-reedman Scott Robinson and his group at Bar Bayeux

3/16, 8 PM wildly virtuosic jazz improv trumpeter Peter Evans with vibraphonist Joel Ross, bassist Nick Jozwiak and drummer Michael Od at Roulette, $25 adv tix rec

3/16, 8 PM the perennially intense, tuneful godfather of edgy, lyrical, anthemic downtown NYC rock, Willie Nile plays his album Streets of NYC at City Winery, $28 standing room avail

3/16, 8 PM Max Lifchitz conducts the North/South Chamber Orchestra playing his own works plus pieces by Frank Corcoran, Robert Lemay, Rob Smith and Hsuh-Yung Shen at Christ & Saint Stephen’s Church, 120 W 69th Street (between Broadway & Amsterdam), free

3/16, 8 PM pianist Joseph Kubera plays Daniel Rothman’s Queens Plaza, and Dry County by Conrad Winslow at the Old Stone House in Park Slope, $15

3/16, 9 PM hypnotic percussive Moroccan trance band Innov Gnawa collaborate with steel wizard Daniel Freedman and guitarist Gilad Hekselman at Bar Lunatico

3/17 starting at noon live music all day with Jameson’s Revenge, Shilelagh Law at 4,  the Narrowbacks at 8 and Prodigals at 10:30 at Connolly’s, free

3/17, 8 PM intense, ecstatic oldschool soul band Empire Beats at Silvana

3/17, 9 PM cult favorite gonzo pianist Dred Scott‘s Cali Mambo band with Tom Beckham on vibes at Bar Lunatico

3/17, 9ish psychedelic cumbia band Los Aliens play the album release show for their new one at C’Mon Everybody, $13

3/17, 10:30 PM  noir-inspired alto saxophonist/composer Nick Hempton with his quartet at the Django, $25

3/18, 4 PM Sarah Durning plays twangy oldschool-style original honkytonk at Skinny Dennis

3/18. 6 PM cellist Andrew Gonzalez plays Bach’s Cello Suites #4-6 at Bargemusic, $35

3/18, 7 PM in reverse order at St. Vitus, damn, what a great doom/stoner metal lineup: ferocious female-fronted art-rock/stoner metal band Ruby the Hatchet ,  classic 70s style doom band (some would say Sabbath ripoff) High Reeper, and the death metal Leather Lung, $20

3/18, 7 PM ish dark psychedelic acoustic blues/klezmer/reggae/soca jamband Hazmat Modine at Terra Blues.

3/18, 8 PM maybe the best quadruplebill of the year: guitar goddess Barbara Endes’ exhilarating psychedelic janglerock band Girls on Grass, psychedelic supergroup the Elgin Marbles feat. members of Love Camp 7, Dervisi and Peter Stampfel’s jug band, Canadian C&W purists the Pickups and acerbic, surrealistically jangly early zeros favorites Cementhead playing the album release show for their new one at Gold Sounds, $12

3/18, 8 PM a rare US performance by flamenco guitar wizard Rafael Riqueni at Roulette, $30 adv tix rec

3/18, 8:30 PM moodily lyrical, politically savvy Irish folk-rocker Niall Connolly  at the downstairs room at the Rockwood, $15

3/18, 9 PM fiery electric bluegrass and C&W with Demolition String Band at Skinny Dennis

3/19, 11 AM, not a music event but family friendly and brilliantly conceived: Libs of Tik Tok Story hour with Chaya Raichik reading from her empowering new kids’ book No More Secrets and Trent Talbot reading from his Fight For Freedom Island at the Women’s Republican Club, 3 W 51st St #2, free

3/19, 3 PM Jessica Bowers, mezzo-soprano and Oren Fader, guitar play works by Brahms, Mozart, Tim Mukherjee, Randall Woolf and others at Concerts on the Slope, St. John’s Episcopal Church, 139 St. John’s Place downhill from 7th Ave,, $25

3/19, 3 PM baroque orchestra Apollo’s Fire play melancholy themes by baroque Jewish composers at the Rogers Auditorium at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, $35 tix avail

3/19, 3:15 PM German organist Stefan Madrzak at St. Patrick’s Cathedral

3/19, 5 PM brilliantly adventurous harpist Bridget Kibbey  at the lounge at Hudson View Gardens, 116 Pinehurst Ave, Washington Heights, A to 181st St., $15

3/19, 7/9 PM lyrical pianist Geoffrey Keezer leads his trio at the Django, $25

3/19, 7:30 PM dark, sardonic, brilliantly tuneful jazz pianist Danny Fox and his Trio at Mezzrow, $25

3/19, 9 PM pianist Cat Toren‘s magical Ocelot trio followed by the similarly lustrous Ochion Jewell Quartet  at the Owl

3/19, 9 PM trumpeter Wayne Tucker leads his sunny soul-infused jazz quartet at Bar Lunatico

3/20, 1 PM vibraphonist Nikara Warren’s soulful Black Wall Street project at St. Paul’s Chapel downtown, free

3/20, 9 PM jazz tuba legend Bob Stewart with his son, violinist Curtis Stewart and Kelvynator guitarist Kelvyn Bell at Bar Lunatico

3/21, 1 PM organist Thomas Gaynor at St. Paul’s Chapel downtown, free

3/21, 7 PM ragas and kathak dance with surbahar virtuoso Radhika Samson, dancer Barkha Patel, Lasya & Ensemble on bansuri flute at Joe’s Pub, $30

3/21, 8 PM Marwa Morgan sings compositions by iconic Egyptian tunesmith Sayed Mekkawy with her quartet at Sisters Brooklyn, 900 Fulton off Washington, $20, C to Clinton-Washington

3/21, 8 PM electroacoustic composer Lucie Vítková’s creepy, dystopic portrait of a cyborg, Earth Eater at Roulette, $25 adv tix rec

3/22, 1 PM purist oldschool jazz guitarist Bill Wurtzel with bassist Jay Leonhart at the American Folk Art Museum

3/22, 8 PM energetic ragtime/Romany swing guitarist Felix Slim at St. Mazie’s. 3/27 at 9 he’s at Skinny Dennis

3/22, 8 PM the String Orchestra of Brooklyn collaborates with composer-performers Zach Layton and Nyokabi Kariũki at Roulette, $25 adv tix rec. They return on 3/23, joined by cellist Andrew Yee

3/22, 9ish Red Baraat trumpeter Sonny Singh plays funky bhangra psychedelia at C’Mon Everybody, $19

3/23, 7 PM acerbic classical and tango pianist Polly Ferman plays perform a program of Piazzolla, Joplin, Villalobos, Albeniz, Chabrier, Mortet, Cimaglia, Gottschalk, and Binelli, at Christ & Saint Stephen’s Church, 120 W 69th St (between Broadway & Amsterdam), $20

3/23, 7:30 PM stark, haunting Tunisian artrock/soul songwriter/guitarist Nour Harkati at Drom, $25 adv tix rec

3/23, 7:30 PM western swing and 20s hot jazz chanteuse Tamar Korn with soul/gospel belter (and Lenny Molotov collaborator) Queen Esther,at the Lincoln Center Atrium, free, early arrival advised

3/23, 7:30 PM  the Harlem Quartet perform music by Fanny Mendelssohn, Aldo López-Gavilán and more at Merkin Concert Hall, $25

3/23, 8 PM jangly, gritty dark country band Midnight Confessions (not to be confused with Lisa Lost’s legendary 90s reggae band), stomping late 90s style indie/punk band Wild Powwers and and post-Syd Barrett-ish Obits spinoff Savak at Gold Sounds $14

3/23, 8 PM pianist Per Tengstrand and cellist Robin Park play works by Beethoven and Rachmaninoff at Scandinavia House, $30

3/24, 7 PM Rob Schwimmer plays new music for Theremin, Haken Continuum and piano, also possibly works by John Barry, Bernard Herrmann and the Beach Boys at Bargemusic, $35

3/24, 7 PM pianist Mariel Mayz plays the album release show for her new one featuring music by Cuban composer Leo Brouwer at the Americas Society, 680 Park Ave., free, res rec.

3/24-25, 7:30 PM adventurous trumpeter John Bailey leads his quartet at Smalls, $25. 3/24 at 10:30 energetic, inventive, gospel-inspired pianist Pete Malinverni leads his trio

3/24, 8 PM excellent oldschool soul-influenced psychedelic band One Way Out, legendary garage-psych guitarslinger Palmyra Delran and enigmatic folk noir chanteuse Soraia at Berlin, expensive, $19 but a good lineup

3/24, 8 PM the Dallas Symphony Orchestra play Tschaikovsky’s Symphony No. 5 plus Rachaminoiff’s Piano Concerto No. 2 with Garrick Ohlsson on piano at Stern Auditorium at at Carnegie Hall, $34 tix avail

3/24-25 at 8 PM and 3/26 at 3, in solidarity with the freedom fighters in Iran, Hamid Rahmanian’s Song of the North, a shadow puppet performance of the ancient Persian epic the Shahnameh with Nashaz’s Azam Ali on vocals at Symphony Space, $25 tix avail

3/24, 8 PM the Eris Quartet – named for an astrologically vengeful asteroid – play a program TBA at the Owl

3/24, 9 PM brassy, psychedelic Afrobeat band Holy Hand Grenade at Aphaville, $14

3/24, 9ish a rare reunion show by late 90s/early zeros janglerock/powerpop legends the Star Spangles at the Sultan Room, $16

3/24, 9:30 PM fearless, insurgent, amazingly spot-on comedienne/vocal impersonator Tammy Faye Starlite does her hilarious, spot-on Nico “tribute” at Joe’s Pub, $20

3/24, 10:30 PM  purist oldschool tenor sax player Craig Handy leads his New Orleans-flavored band at the Django, $25

3/25, 7:30 PM carnatic violin powerhouse Arun Ramamurthy and his group at the Chhandayan Center for Indian Music  $25

3/25, 7:30 PM  the New York Virtuoso Singers perform Bach cantatas at Merkin Concert Hall, $30

3/25, 8 PM, repeating 3/26 at 3 the 8 PM, the NJ Symphony Orchestra  play WIlliam Grant Still’s gorgeous Symphony No. 1 and Tschaikovsky’s haunting Symphony No. 4 plus works by Arvo Part at NJPAC in Newark, $25 tix avail

3/25, 8 PM the fiery, string-driven Sedi Donka Balkan Band at St. Mazie’s

3/25, 9 PM deviously entertaining hot 20s jazz chanteuse Sweet Megg Farrell puts on her western swing hat at Skinny Dennis

3/25, 9 PM brilliant pianist  Emilio Solla’ and Antonio Lizana team up for tango-jazz and flamenco-jazz at Joe’s Pub, $30 adv tix rec

3/25, 10:30 PM wildly erudite tenor saxophonist Eric Wyatt and band at Smalls for a set and then the jam session, $25

3/26, 3 PM luminous latin-inspired jazz chanteuse Marianne Solivan leads her quartet at a house concert in Prospect Lefferts Gardens, sug don, email for deets/location

3/26, 4 PM fiery, force-of-nature klezmer/classical violinist Lara St. John  plays a program tba  at the Dreck Center at the Brooklyn Public Library, free, no under-sixes.

3/26, 5 PM one of New York’ most acerbic, distinctive voices in front-porch folk, Jo Williamson at the small room at the Rockwood,

3/26, 9 PM Pastoral gothic accordion art-rock band Sam Reider & the Human Hands at Bar Lunatico

3/27. 7 PM the New York Composers Circle premieres intriguing new small-ensemble works by Hubert Howe, Mark Belodubrovsky, Linda Marcel, Sergey Oskolkov, Madelyn Byrne, Nataliya Medvedovskaya and Robert S. Cohen at the National Opera Center, 330 7th Ave, $20

3/27, 10:30 PM electrifying vibraphonist Simon Moullier and band at Smalls, $25

3/27, 10:30 PM playfully intense pianist Liya Grigoryan leads her quartet at the Django, $25

3/28, 1 PM organist Alexander Straus-Fausto at St. Paul’s Chapel downtown, free

3/28, 8 PM hypnotic electroacoustic composer Caterina Barbieri, and low-register avant noise maven Eli Keszler at Pioneer Works, $25 adv tix rec

3/29, 7:30 PM drummer Dan Pugach’s Nonet with firebrand chanteuse Nicole Zuraitis out front at Smalls, $25

3/30, 1;30 PM, repeating 3/31 at 8 the 8 PM, repeating 12/8 at 3 the NJ Symphony Orchestra play the Faure Requiem plus works by George Walker and Ravel at NJPAC in Newark, $25 tix avail

3/30, 7 PM 20-string koto player Yumi Kurosawa leads her quintet playing the album release show for her new one at Joe’s Pub, $25

3/30, 7:30 PM drony, pounding psychedelic stadium rock with King Buffalo at the Lincoln Center Atrium, free, early arrival advised

3/30, 7:30 PM pianist Eliza Garth leads a string ensemble playing works by Judith Weir, Mario Davidovsky and others at Merkin Concert Hall, $25

3/30, 8 PM brilliant swing jazz/oldtime Americana chanteuse Samoa Wilson at St. Mazie’s

3/30, 8 PM Random Access Music feat. Thomas Piercy, clarinet | Sabina Torosjan, violin | Daniel Hass, cello | Marina Iwao, piano play adventurous new works for winds, strings and piano by Margaret Brouwer, Seth Boustead, Gilbert Galindo, Masatora Goya, and Daniel Hass at First Presbyterian Church of Forest Hills, 70-35 112th St, Forest Hills, free. The program repeats 4/1, 8 PM at the National Opera Center, 330 7th Ave, $20

3/30, 9 PM  iconic Afro-Cuban percussionist/bandleader Pedrito Martinez at Drom, $25.

3/31, 8 PM hauntingly cinematic Lynchian/southwestern gothic instrumentalists Suss at Culture Lab, $24

3/31, 8 PM  catchy, slinky psychedelic funk/punk band Eliza & the Organix  at Bar Freda,$10

3/31, 8 PM Korean oboeist/flutist Gamin and ensemble at Roulette, $30 adv tix rec

3/31, 9 PM  powerpop band Giftshop– the missing link between Blondie and the Distillers – at the small room at the Rockwood

3/31, 9 PM psychedelic jazz multi-instrumentalist D. Treut leads an amazing band with Jon Goldberger on guitar, Paul Jost on bass, others at Main Drag Music, 50 S 1st St, Williamsburg

4/2, 3 PM fiery Spanish sounds with Cuadro Flamenco at the Triad Theatre, 158 W 72nd St (Bwy/Amsterdam), $25

4/2, 7 PM iconic, hilariously charismatic Americana songstress Amy Allison at Pangea, $25

4/14, 9:30 PM Americana songstress Karen Hudson and and her band play Linda Ronstadt’s 1978 album Living In the USA all the way through at the Triad Theatre, 158 W 72nd St (Bwy/Amsterdam), $15

4/15, 8 PM the NY Scandia Symphony play dynamic Nordic works by Hugo Alfven, Friedrich Kuhlau, Carl Nielsen, Jean Sibelius at Alice Tully Hall, $25 tix avail

4/24, 7:30 PM the Catalyst Quartet play African American spirituals, Florence Price’s Piano Quintet in E Minor (with Aaron Wunsch) and a new setting of Langston Hughes’s poem, Kids Who Die, for soprano, piano, and string quartet – how appropriate for 2023! at Music Mondays, Advent Church, northwest corner of 93rd and Broadway, free

Best Ever Playlist on this Page?

It’s been a month since there’s been a playlist of singles on this page, and this might be the best of them all. As usual, click on artist names for their webpages, click on titles for audio, video or just a good visual joke (if there’s no title link, just click on the artist).

Here’s something beautiful and brilliant to inspire you: a 12-year-old British girl absolutely destroys the WEF’s 15-minute city prison concept. Scroll down to the last video, via Tessa Lena‘s must-read investigative and philosophical Substack.

Tessa is also a brilliant and haunting singer, and she’s finally released a new single, Hovin Mernem, an old Armenian folk song on a familiar theme of missing someone who’s gone over the mountains, maybe never to be seen again (scroll down to the bottom of the page).

It’s amazing how much good music you find in random moments on the web. This nameless Australian choir turns in a heartwarming version of the Staples Singers’ Just Another Soldier in the Army of Love.

Strong early contender for best song of 2023: Balcony, by moody, jangly, coldly new wave-flavored Brooklyn band Nostranders.

You have to watch Pussy Riot‘s new single Putin’s Ashes closely to appreciate this stately chorale. Rough translation: “Sharpening a knife for Putin, I will not forgive your evil.”

The Oracle Sisters’ Tramp Like You is surreal Lynchian glam-soul; if Bowie did a song for Blue Velvet, it might have sounded like this

Ladytron‘s new single City of Angels features chill robotic vocals over a surprisingly warmly orchestrated backdrop

A clear voice searching for more clarity in a hypnotic, slide guitar-driven Americana anthem: Megan Brickwood‘s Trinity River Blues

Novelist and mighty memestress Amy Sukwan shares California license plate 3JOH22A (scroll midway down the page)

This video by Japanese folk-punk duo Ki & Ki has been around awhile, but it’s a good segue, an otherworldly and rather stern march played in perfect sync on twin shamisen lutes.

Now, because music doesn’t exist in a vacuum, things are going to get dark, but everything ends on a positive note. First, Texas Lindsay shows how Japanese excess mortality correlates to Covid injection uptake, over a shamanic taiko drum rhythm. 1 minute 15 second video via freedom fighter Super Sally in the Philippines (scroll down to middle of the page)

Here’s an eerily prophetic hip-hop joint from 2012: Dr. Creep‘s Pandemic (via Lioness of Judah‘s excellent daily news feed)

Begin life in a lab in the first war of vaccines
Million die in the first week in the pandemic dreams…
Flu-shot propaganda for all population and troops
Avoid the plague; it might have seeped into the room….
This isn’t past tense or the plague of Athens
Couldn’t be eradicated like smallpox in action
Avian influenza in the jetstream is how it happens
2020 combined with coronavirus, bodies stacking

Scott Ralley gives us Freedom, his latest reggae-rap protest song via novelist Margaret Anna Alice‘s brilliant piece on fence-riders

Speaking of riding the fence and jersey-switching, cartoonist Anne Gibbons asks “How do we get you back onboard,” via Dr. Meryl Nass (who is doing a hilariously acerbic liveblog of this week’s ACIP meetings)

Let’s end this on a redemptive and unselfconsciously funny note with Naomi Wolf’s venomous response to the recent New York Times attempt to slowly backwalk their longtime and ludicrous Covid fearmongering. Anyone who was banned from a bar or any other venue, or lost their job because of lockdown restrictions will relish this. Start this video excerpt from her latest book The Bodies of Others at 3:49:

“Closing restaurants and bars was strategic. The goal of these oligarchs who wanted to make war on humanity especially want to make war on community. People can communicate and share and compare their truths and experiences when they’re in a bar or a restaurant….and learn for themselves that there was a life to be had outside of lockdowns and outside of Covid hysteria, which turned out to be predicated on pretty much no solid evidence, as this book demonstrates. The New York Times killed people, they were driven to lives of despair…they crushed the dreams of a hundred thousand restaurant owners…They killed cultures, they killed neighborhoods, and all on the basis of a lie.”

Electrifying New Sounds in Balkan and Turkish Music at an Unexpected Brooklyn Spot

Lots of positive developments in this city lately. Lethal injection requirements, which were illegal on face value, are being dropped as pressure on the Mayor’s office increases. Of course, odious WEF puppet Eric Adams had to stick to the script and hint that more lockdowns will be coming whenever the monsters pulling Bill Gates’ strings give the sign. That’s where our resistance has to be fierce and decisive.

In the meantime, another sign that we are headed in the right direction is that new bands are springing up: who would have thought, thirty-five months ago? One of the most interesting and unorthodox of the bunch is the Sedi Donka Balkan Band, who with two electric guitars, two violins, bass and percussion, put an electric edge on an eclectic mix of tunes from Eastern Europe and the Near East. Their arrangements sometimes reflect the group’s members’ background in Romany swing music. Their next gig is on Feb 17 at 10 PM at St. Mazie’s, the shi-shi oldtimey-themed Williamsburg bar/restaurant that took over the old Rose Bar space where Grand Street deadends over the BQE. It’s a pass-the-bucket situation; the venue is about equidistant from the L at Bedford and the J/M at Marcy.

The band – violinists Adrien Chevalier and Antoine Thouvenin, guitarists Michael Valeanu and Taulant Mehmeti, bassist Julian Smith and percussionist Nezih Antakli – don’t have any albums out yet, but they have a handful of tracks up at their youtube channel. Some of this material is brass-band or clarinet music, so these new versions are fresh and counterintuitive.

The first of the youtube clips is a precise, swaying romp through Turkish star Selim Sesler’s deliciously chromatic Kasap Havasi. The next tune is a surreal, harmonically shapeshifting Romanian tune, Hora Stoican, by Ion Petre Stoican.

Brilliant accordionist Vitor Gonzalves joins them on a blast through the trickily rhythmic Bulgarian tune Gankino Oro. The violinists kick off the traditional dance Makedonsko Devojče with some icepick pizzicato before launching into the tightly interwoven harmonies.

The last of the clips is a vintage tune by Romanian accordion legend Marcel Budală, Hora de la Urziceni, the group joining forces seamlessly throughout the song’s shivery minor-key riffage. Let’s hope we get more from this innovative new crew in the months ahead.

Live Music Calendar for New York City and Brooklyn For February 2023

All these concerts are free of restrictions on entry. Weekly events first followed by the daily calendar. If a venue is unfamiliar, look for it on the old guide to NYC music venues here, which is more of a worksheet now, but it has links to most of the places on this calendar.

Tuesdays in February, Inspired, latin-influenced postbop trombonist Conrad Herwig and his septet at the Django, $25.

Thursdays in February, 5 PM poignantly lyrical, eclectic pianist Marta Sanchez at Bar Bayeux. 2/28 at 7:30 PM she leads a trio at Mezzrow, $25

Sundays at around 8 PM trumpeter Jon Kellso and (frequently) guitarist Matt Munisteri lead the Ear-Regulars in NYC’s only remaining weekly hot jazz jam session at the Ear Inn

2/1, 7 PM crystalline-voiced noir Americana songwriter Jessie Kilguss, leads an acoustic evening of some eclectically excellent songwriters: Lizzie Edwards of fiery, psychedelically bluesy oldschool soul/roadhouse jamband Lizzie & the Makers. Dave Derby of allstar 90s lit-rock crew Gramercy Arms, badass cellist Patricia Santos of the Whiskey Girls; and others at Branded Saloon

2/1, 7 PM riveting, charismatic, intuitive pianist Karine Poghosyan plays the album release show for her new one with works by Coleridge-Taylor, Grieg, Komitas and Liszt at Weill Hall at Carnegie Hall, $35 tix avail

2/1, 7:30 PM  the best singing pianist (and the best piano-playing singer) in jazz, Champian Fulton at the Django, $25

2/1, 7:30 PM  eclectic, witty, paradigm-shifting B3 jazz organist Brian Charette at Mezzrow, $25 2/15, 10:30 PM he’s at the Django, $25

2/1, 8/9:30 PM  Transylvanian pianist Lucian Ban with viola sorcerer Mat Maneri at Bar Bayeux. Ban is at Bar Lunatico on 2/7 at 9 PM

2/1, 8:30 PM throwback powerhouse blues belter Shemekia Copeland at City Winery, $20 adm avail

2/1, 8:30 PM loop-driven art-rock instrumentalists Thee Reps at Sisters Brooklyn, 900 Fulton at Washington, A/C to Clinton-Washington, $10

2/2, 7 PM fiery Bollywood and art-rock violinist Rini and Shakthi a.k.a. Bollywood chanteuse Shakthisree Gopalan front their own bands and then join forces for a set at Drom, $20 adv tix avail

2/2, 7 PM entrancing singer Treya Lam – who blends psychedelia, art-rock and oldschool soul – at Joe;s Pub, $15

2/2, 7:30 PM brilliant baritone saxophonist Lauren Sevian leads a quartet at the Django, $25, followed at 10:30 by noir-inspired alto saxophonist/composer Nick Hempton, He’s also at Smalls on 2/12

2/2, 7:30 PM wryly witty, sophisticated art-rock keyboardist and theatrical composer Greta Gertler Gold at the Lincoln Center Atrium, free

2/2, 8 PM ex-Brain Cloud frontwoman Tamar Korn‘s charming torch-swing band Kornucopia at at St. Mazie’s

2/2, 8 PM eclectic pan-Middle Eastern chanteuse Zahra Alzubaidi and surrealist art-song bandleader Leila Adu  at the Owl, $20 sug don

2/2, 8:30 PM ferociously dynamic, tuneful, female-fronted art-rock power trio Castle Black at the Windjammer, 552 Grandview Ave, Ridgewood, $12

2/3, 7 PM punk-jazz guitar cult hero Jack Martin’s Deathwatch at TV Eye, $10

2/3, 7:30 PM sizzling postbop saxophonist Mike DiRubbo’s quartet  at the Django, $25

2/3, 7:30 cynical, amusing, cinematic synthpunk band Marottes play the album release show for their new one at the Parkside

2/3-4, 7:30 PM  tenor sax improv titan George Garzone leads a quartet at Smalls, $25

2/3, 9 PM tuneful, first-class Kenyan reggae crooner Nixon Omollo at Shrine. If you love classic 70s roots reggae, don’t miss this guy.

2/3, 9 PM iconic klemer trumpeter Frank London’s Spiritual Quartet at Bar Lunatico

2/3, 10:30 PM  picturesque jazz pianist Michael Weiss leads a trio the Django, $25

2/3,11 PM iconic Afro-Cuban percussionist/bandleader Pedrito Martinez at Drom, $25. He’s back on 2/23 at 9 PM

2/4, 7 PM a battle-of-the-bands lineup including a showdown between slinky Afrobeat-influenced band Deep Sea Peach Tree vs. catchy powerpop/dreampop band Royal Blush at Our Wicked Lady, $15. Apples and oranges: they’re both good. Noisy lo-fi soul-punk band Hypemom will dispose of their execrable math-rock competitors

2/4, 7 PM the world’s most unpredictably brilliant cinematic guitarist, Steve Ulrich plays his original scores from This American Life with a string quartet followed by a set by his iconic film noir trio Big Lazy at the Sultan Room, $26

2/4. 7 PM darkly torchy southwestern gothic/Europolitan songwriter/guitarist Miwa Gemini, at the downstairs room at the Rockwood, $10

2/4 and 2/9, 7:30 PM bhangra trumpet mastermind Sunny Jain and band at Symphony Space, $35/$25 30 and under

2/4, 8 PM vicious noiserock jamband the the Skull Practitioners– led by Steve Wynn sparring partner/genius guitarist Jason Victor and perennially entertaining punk-soul cult figure Jon Spencer & the Hitmakers at TV Eye, $20

2/4, 8 PM perennially acerbic violin duo String Noise join in an audiovisual performance based on traditional Norwegian knitting patterns with sound artists Stine Janvin and Cory Arcangel at the Clementa Soto Velez auditorium, 107 Suffolk off Rivington, $20

2/4, 9:30 PM  hard-hitting, reverb-iced surf band Strange but Surf, and slinky, Middle Eastern-tinged Pontic surf band the Byzan-tones  at 11 at Otto’s

2/4, 11 PM  80s dancehall reggae hitmaker Sister Nancy  at the Market Hotel, $20

2/5, half past noon/2L390 PM hot 20s jazz trumpeter Jason Prover and band at the Blue Note, $26

2/5, 11 AM chamber jazz  cellist Marika Hughes with eclectic, ambient-tinged guitarist Kyle Sanna  at the Museum of Art & Design, 2 Columbus Cir., $25, coffee/breakfast snacks included

2/5, 2 PM Irish musicians Sean and Deirdre Murtha lead a sea chantey singalong at the South St. Seaport Museum, 12 Fulton St north of the water, free

2/5, 4 PM front porch folk banjo player Allison Kelley – of the Johnson Girls – with her band – at Skinny Dennis

2/5, 5 PM spiky strings galore: Yacouba Sissoko, kora; John Hadfield, percussion; Bridget Kibbey, harp at Our Saviour’s Atonement Lutheran Church, 178 Bennett Avenue at 189th, Washington Heights, $25

2/5, 8 PM sets from ambient, percussive composer Qasim Naqvi, + MIROVAYA LINIYA (Julia Pello & Heinrich Mueller’s Heisenberg Principle-influenced duo) as well as a video installation by Peter Burr at Roulette, $25 adv tix rec

2/5, 8 PM cheery, kinetic 20s hot jazz crew Baby Soda Band at St. Mazie’s. They’re back on 2/12 and 2/26.

2/5, 9 PM choral quartet Agrol Agra sing Bartok works followed by trumpeter Frank London’s ¡No Pasarán! brass band at the Owl, $12 sug don

2/6-7. 7:30 PM alto saxophonist Jesse Davis makes a rare 2-night NYC stand at Smalls with a quartet, $25. He’s also at Mezzrow on 2/10-11

2/6, 8 PM Trio Casals play works by Mozart and Piazzolla at Weill Hall at Carnegie Hall, $34 tix avail

2/6, 9 PM unorthodox hot 20s swing string band the Buck and a Quartet Quartet at Skinny Dennis

2/7, 7 PM  funk-jazz crew the Silver Arrow Band at Drom, free. They’re back on  2/22

2/7, 8 PM intense janglerock/Americana/soul songwriter Matt Keating and guitarist Steve Mayone’s catchy project the Bastards of Fine Arts at the small room at the Rockwood

2/8, 9 AM, not a music event but important: thousands of New Yorkers, many of them city workers, are still out of a job after being fired for not taking the lethal Covid injections. Show up and show your support at the rally at Foley Square, downtown across from the courthouse

2/8, 7:30 PM  snidely satirical new wave/80s rock spoofers Office Culture and  hauntingly cinematic Lynchian/southwestern gothic instrumentalists Suss at Public Records, $24

2/8, 8 PM Filharmonie Brno play works by Martinu, Janacek and the New York premiere of Philip Glass’ Symphony No. 12, at Stern Auditorium at Carnegie Hall, $34 tix avail

2/8, 10:30 PM  lyrical, thoughtful tenor saxophonist Eric Alexander leads a quartet at the Django, $25

2/9, 7 PM carnivalesque Balkan punk monstrosity Funkrust Brass Band and wild, hilarious klezmer punks Golem at Union Pool, $19

2/9, 7:30 PM  tuneful oldschool soul/jazz trombonist Dave Gibson leads a quartet followed by  purist oldschool tenor sax player Craig Handy at the Django, $25

2/9, 7:30 PM  tenor saxophonist Tim Ries and his quartet play Sonny Rollins at Drom, $20 adv tix rec

2/9, 7:30 PM soulful pan-Latin jazz chanteuse Claudia Acuña at the Lincoln Center Atrium, free

2/9, 9 PM relentless noiserock duo the Venus Twins and explosive, theatrical, phantasmagorical indie/metal band A Deer A Horse at TV Eye, $12

2/9, 9 PM edgy, hypnotic harpist/singer Kitba at the Owl

2/10, 10 PM punk night at the small room at the Rockwood – no joke. Fire Is Murder at 10 and then the reliably hilarious Car Bomb Parade. Desperate times, desperate measures.

2/11-12, sets at 10:30., 11:30 AM and 1:30. & 2:30 PM  Metropolis Ensemble play Ricardo Romaneiro’s mutimedia Biophony SoundGarden in sync with plant-generated soundscapes at the Steinhardt Conservatory at Brooklyn Botanic Garden, $18

2/11, 6 PM potentially mesmerizing improvisation: James Ilgenfritz – bass / Sandy Ewen – guitar / Michael Foster – saxes
  at Downtown Music Gallery

2/11, 7 PM dark psychedelic acoustic blues/klezmer/reggae/soca jamband Hazmat Modine at Terra Blues.

2/11, 7:30 PM distinctively intricate, vivid composer/singer/viollinist Caroline Shaw plays Caroline Shaw at Merkin Concert Hall $30

2/11, 8 PM trumpeter Kenny Warren leads an interesting trio with cellist Christopher Hoffman and drummer Nathan Ellman-Bell at Bar Bayeux

2/11, 8 PM the Met Orchestra play Bartok’s Concerto for Orchestra, Stravinsky’s Firebird and Moussorgsky’s Dances of Death, yikes, at Stern Auditorium at Carnegie Hall, $28 tix avail

2/11, 9 PM fiery electric bluegrass and C&W with Demolition String Band at Skinny Dennis  They’re back on 2/27

2/11, 9 PM Innov Gnawa‘s star Moroccan sintir player Samir Langus at Bar Lunatico

2/11, 10:30 PM  fiery, latin-inspired trombonist Mariel Bildstein leads her septet at the Django, $25

2/12, 4 PM the  Harlem Chamber Players play works by Valerie Coleman, Tania León, Frederick Tillis and George Walker’s String Quartet No. 1 at the Dreck Center at the Brooklyn Public Library, free, no under-sixes.

2/12, 9 PM pastoral gothic accordion bandleader Sam Reider with the Jimi Hendrix of the cuatro, Jorge Glem at Bar Lunatico

2/13, 7 PM the New York Composers Circle play new small ensemble music: David Picton’s Piano Sonata No. 1, Kevin McCarter’s Responding Variations for oboe and viola, Tamara Cashour’s This Is Not a Reimagining for piccolo and contrabassoon, and Timothy L. Miller’s Two Settings of Ogden Nash Poems for narrator and piano, U.S. premieres of Ukrainian composer Olga Victorova’s Magic Birds Phung Hoan, Andrei Bandura’s Sonata for Violin and Piano and the New York premiere of David Mecionis’s Trio in Two Parts with an Interval Between, Natalia Medvedovskaya’s Ragtimes for piano solo and Debra Kaye’s Submarine Dreams for bass flute and double bass at the National Opera Center, $20

2/13, 7:30 PM  energetic ragtime/Romany swing guitarist Felix Slim at Cowgirl Seahorse. 2/22 at 8 he’s at St. Mazie’s

2/13, 8 PM the Toronto Symphony play Samy Moussa’s Symphony No. 2, Lalo’s Symphonie espagnole and Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet Suite at Stern Auditorium at Carnegie Hall, $34 tix avail

2/13, 10:30 PM smartly impressionistic postbop pianist Miki Yamanaka at Smalls. She’s back on 2/27

2/14, half past noon, Italian organist Francesco Bongiorno plays a program tba at Central Synagogue, 54th/Lex, free

2/14, 7 PM jazz vocalist/comedian Eleonor England‘s annual Stabby Valentine’s Day “featuring tunes where someone is betrayed, neglected, forgotten, jilted, left, abandoned, denied, or (in a perfect world) stabbed by their lover at Don’t Tell Mama’s 343 W 46th St between 8th and 9th Ave, $20

2/15, 8 PM the S.E.M. Ensemble play new small-scale orchestral works by Lydia Brindamour, Jordan Dykstra, Jakub Polaczyk, Teodora Stepančić, and Jiaqi Wang at Willow Place Auditorium, 26 Willow Place, Brooklyn Heights, free

2/15, 8 PM lyrical, cerebral pianist Matt Mitchell leads a great trio with Kim Cass on bass and Kate Gentile on drums at Bar Bayeux

2/15, 8 PM violist Miranda Sielaff performs work by Telemann, Ligeti and Stravinsky followed by the Argus Quartet playing Theofanidis works at Seeds

2/15, 9 PM iconic, slinky film noir guitar instrumental jamband Big Lazy at Bar Lunatico

2/16, 7 PM powerful, dynamic clarinetist/composer Michael Winograd leads a killer klezmer band playing a live concert recording of his Tanz album at the Manhattan JCC, $10

2/16, 8ish haunting folk noir/Americana songwriter Emily Frembgen followed eventually at around 11 by powerpop/busker icon Patti Rothberg at Otto’s

2/16, 9 PM intriguingly moody, coldly jangly, female-fronted new wave band Nostranders at Our Wicked Lady, $14. They’re at the small room at the Rockwood on 2/26 at 10 for the tip jar

2/16, 8 PM the Czech National Orchestra play works by Dvorak, Brahms and Beethoven’s Symphony No, 3 at Stern Auditorium at Carnegie Hall, $34 tix avail

2/16, 8 PM keyboardists Marcia Basssett and Ted Gordon improvise as a duo on the Buchla Music Easel at the Old Stone House in Park Slope, $20

2/17, 7:30 PM merengue band Afro Dominicano at the Lincoln Center Atrium, free

2/17, 7:30 PM rising star trumpeter Adam O’Farrill‘s Stranger Days quintet at Seeds

2/17, 8 PM sound artists Thomas Ankersmit and Dani Dobkin play a 1973 Serge Modular synthesizer at Brooklyn Music School, 126 St. Felix St, $20, any train to Atlantic Ave or G to Fulton

2/17, 8 PM intense, ecstatic oldschool soul band Empire Beats at Silvana

2/17, 10 PM the oud-fueled Sedi Donka Balkan Band at St. Mazie’s

2/18, 5:30 PM a free screening of Dan Geller and Dayna Goldfine’s Leonard Cohen documentary Hallelujah at the Dreck Center at the Brooklyn Public Library, free

2/18, 7:30 smart, terse guitarist Mike Moreno leads his quartet at Smalls, $25

2/18, 8 PM  luminous latin-inspired jazz chanteuse Marianne Solivan leads her quartet at Bar Bayeux

2/18. 9 PM brilliant, fearlessly political B3 organist Greg Lewis does his Organ Monk thing at Bar Lunatico

2/19, 11 AM: early music at an early hour, Twelfth Night Ensemble plays a medieval program TBA at the Museum of Art & Design, 2 Columbus Cir., $25, coffee/breakfast snacks included

2/19, 3 PM Ronn McFarlane, lute; Carolyn Surrick, viola da gamba; Yousif Sheronick, percussion play works by Dowland, Purcell, the Allman Bros., English folk tunes and hymns at Concerts on the Slope, St. John’s Episcopal Church, 139 St. John’s Place downhill from 7th Ave,, $25

2/19, 3 PM the New York Virtuoso Singers perform American works including world premieres by Anthony Davis, Peter Zummo, Elena Ruehr, and William McClelland; New York premieres by Tania León, David Patterson, and Edie Hill as well as works by Florence Price, Annea Lockwood, Jessie Montgomery, Mari Esabel Valverde, and Nancy Wertsch, and 18th, 19th and 20th century choral works by William Billings, Charles Ives, at Christ & St Stephen’s Church. 120 W 69th St (bet Broadway and Columbus) $20. 2/25 at 7:30 they sing the choral movements from Bach’s Cantatas 148 through 177, with piano accompanist Will Healy at Merkin Concert Hall, $30

2/19, 5 PM classically-inspired jazz pianist Jason Yeager in a rare duo show with saxophonist Gottfried Stöger at the lounge at Hudson View Gardens, 116 Pinehurst Ave, Washington Heights, A to 181st St., $15

2/19, 6 PM the Sylvan Winds play works by Mario Davidovsky, Kinan Azmeh, Allison Loggins-Hull and Svjetlana Bukvich: at Opera America, 330 7th Ave, $25 adv tix rec

2/19, 9 PM 90s allstar janglerock collective Gramercy Arms play the album release show for their new one at the big room at the Rockwood

2/19, 8 PM edgy jazz cellist Hank Roberts at the Owl. 2/20, 9 PM he’s with Aruan Ortiz on piano and Matt Wilson on drums at Bar Lunatico, wow.

2/21, 6:30 PM a wild night of improvisation: drummer Nick Fraser, viola wizard Mat Maneri and bassist Brandon Lopez,  followed at 7:30 by guitarist Aaron Rubenstein solo  and then at 8:30: Active Field with Nana Futagawa on shamisen, Evan Caplinger on cello, Joe Jordan on oboe, Izzy Tanashian on synth and Orchid McRae on drums, wow   at Downtown Music Gallery

2/21, 7 PM sludgy stoner metal band Reverend Mother, thorny heavy psych band Bone Church and killer heavy psych/stoner boogie band El Perro at St. Vitus, $16

2/21, 7:30 charismatic, adventurous postbop/avant garde trombonist/crooner Frank Lacy at Smalls, $25

2/21, 8 PM Mohamed Araki – keyboard Dave Adewumi – trumpet Gideon Forbes – nay Sami Abu Shumays – violin Sarah Mueller – violin Josh Farrar – electric guitar Marwan Allam – bass Johnny Farraj – percussion Philip Mayer – percussion play a tribute to paradigm-shiffting Egyptian keyboardist Hany Mehanna at Sisters Brooklyn, 900 Fulton at Washington, A/C to Clinton-Washington, $20

2/21, 9 PM cinematic, classically-tinged improvisational pianist Miss Kerosene at the small room at the Rockwood

2/22, 8 PMish Mykal Rose, former frontman of roots reggae legends Black Uhuru at SOB’s, $30

2/22, midnight boisterously funny oldschool 60s C&W and brooding southwestern gothic with Jack Grace at the Ear Inn

2/22, 10:30 PM purist postbop saxophonist TK Blue leads a quartet at the Django, $25

2/23, 7 PM  pianist Per Tengstrand and a string ensemble play the Grieg Piano Concerto at Scandinavia House, $30

2/23, 7 PM  rustic Piedmont-style blues guitar duo Gordon Lockwood at Terra Blues

2/23. 7:30 PM Dorit Chrysler and her theremin orchestra play her new Alexander Calder-inspired suite at E-Flux, 172 Classon Ave (Myrtle/Park), Bed-Stuy, G to Myrtle-Willoughby, $15

2/23, 7:30 PM the Experiental Orchestra play string quartets and other works by Michelle Ross, Jessie Montgomery and Jessica Meyer at Church of the Advent Hope, 111 E 87th St east of Park, $29/$18 stud

2/23 8 PM Judith Hamann plays works for solo cello by microtonal composer Pascale Criton at the Dreck Center at the Brooklyn Public Library, free, no under-sixes.

2/23, 8 PM the North/South Chamber Orchestra under the direction of Max Lifchitz performs recent works by living composers Richard Heller, Xuesi Xu, Sheli Nan and Waiting for Godot (Pandemic Meditations) by Turkish-American composer Münir Beken at Christ & St Stephen’s Church (120 W 69th St – between Broadway and Columbus), free

2/23, 10 PM counterintuitive, whirling, string-driven chamber pop/art-rock band Gadadu at the Owl

2/24-25, 6 PM brilliantly relevant oldtime gospel/Africana music maven Vienna Carroll at the balcony bar at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, free w adm

2/24-25, 7:30 PM cutting-edge B3 organ grooves with the Jared Gold quartet at Smalls, $25

2/24, 7:30 PM purist postbop jazz guitarist Ed Cherry and band followed at 10:30 by clever, purist B3 jazz organist Akiko Tsuruga at the Django, $25

2/24, 9ish ex-Chicha Libre keyboard sorcerer Josh Camp’s wryly psychedelic cumbia/tropicalia/dub band Locobeach at Bar Freda, $10

2/24, 10:30 PM pyrotechnic clarinetist Ismail Lumanovski’s ferociously kinetic NY Gypsy All-Stars at Drom, $20 adv tix rec

2/25, 8 PM world-class jazz for the tip jar: revered saxophonist Ravi Coltrane leading a quartet with Luis Perdomo, Drew Gress, EJ Strickland at Bar Bayeux

2/25, 10:30 PM  the great unsung NYC hero of darkly purposeful, noir-tinged jazz guitar, Saul Rubin at Smalls, $25

2/26, 3 PM the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra play Beethoven’s 9th Symphony at Stern Auditorium at Carnegie Hall, $18 tix avail

2/26, 7:30 PM pianist Illia Ovcharenko plays works by Liszt, Scarlatti, Revutsky and Silvestrov at Zankel Hall at Carnegie Hall, $18 tix avail

2/26, 8 PM classical chorale the Downtown Voices sing Caroline Shaw’s “To the Hands” at St. Paul’s Chapel downtown, free

2/26, 10:30 PM energetic, inventive, gospel-inspired jazz pianist Pete Malinverni leads his trio at the Django, $25

2/27, 8 PM brilliant keyboard-driven doom metal/heavy psych band Early Moods at St. Vitus, $20

2/28. 6:30 PM Gutbucket’s edgy, klezmer-influenced guitarist Ty Citerman with Jen Baker on trombone and Shayna Dunkelman on bass followed by bassist Kyle Motl solo and then the Harmolodics with Ben Green on trumept, Ben Wood on bass and David Ward on drums at Downtown Music Gallery

2/28, 7 PM wildfire polymath violist Stephanie Griffin of the Momenta Quartet leads a different quartet playing her new suite for voice, viola, clarinet, and piano at the Americas Society, 680 Park Ave, free,

2/28, 9 PM singer Veronica Davila’s twangy, Bakersfield-flavored hard honkytonk band Low Roller at Skinny Dennis

Live Music Calendar for New York City and Brooklyn For January 2023

All these concerts are free of restrictions on entry. Weekly events first followed by the daily calendar. If a venue is unfamiliar, look for it on the old guide to NYC music venues here, which is more of a worksheet now, but it has links to most of the places on this calendar.

Three nights in January: 1/17, 1/24 and 1/31, 7:30 PM Inspired, latin-influenced postbop trombonist Conrad Herwig at the Django, $25.

Thursdays in January, 5 PM poignantly lyrical, eclectic pianist Marta Sanchez at Bar Bayeux

Sundays at around 8 PM trumpeter Jon Kellso and (frequently) guitarist Matt Munisteri lead the Ear-Regulars in NYC’s only remaining weekly hot jazz jam session at the Ear Inn

Nothing happening on January 1, what a great way to start the year….

1/2, 8 PM  noir-inspired honkytonk crooner Sean Kershaw at Cowgirl Seahorse

1/2, 9 PM trumpeter Wayne Tucker – who veers between sunny postbop jazz, Afrobeat and goofy vocal shtick – at Bar Lunatico. He’s at Smalls on 1/12 at 7:30 for $25

1/3, 7:30/9 PM noir-inspired pianist  Frank Carlberg plays the album release show for this haunting new Monk trio record with bassist John Hebert and drummer Dan Weiss at Mezzrow, $25

1/3, 10:30 PM Los Hacheros, who play fiery electric tres-driven Cuban sounds at the Django, $25

1/4, 7 PM improvisational alchemy: the Karen Borca Trio: Karen Borca – bassoon / Hilliard Greene – bass / Warren Smith – vibes’ at 8:30 Fred Moten does spoken word with bassist Brandon Lopez, and then at 9 FREE: brilliant saxophonist James Brandon Lewis with William Parker – bass / Melanie Dyer – viola / Juan Pablo Carletti – percussion at the Gene Frankel Theater, 24 Bond St off Bwy, R to 8th St., $25 adv tix rec

1/4, 8 PM the inspired, careening New York Ska – Jazz Ensemble at City Winery, $15 standing room avail

1/4, 8 PM state-of-the-art postbop alto saxophonist Jaleel Shaw  with his Trio, Dezron Douglas and EJ Strickland at Bar Bayeux

1/4, 8:30/9:30 PM  jazz guitar and loopmusic icon Bill Frisell with Tony Scherr on bass and Kenny Wollesen on drums at Bar Lunatico, note $25 cover per set

1/4, 9 PM oldschool-style high plains C&W singer Hope Debates & North 40 at Skinny Dennis

1/4, 10:30 PM  lyrical, thoughtful tenor saxophonist Eric Alexander leads a trio at the Django, $25

1/5, 7 PM dynamic jazz improvisation: the Cooper-Moore Trio: Cooper-Moore – diddley bow, etc. / Melanie Dyer – viola / Brian Price – reeds; at 8:30pm Ahmed Abdullah on trumpet and Monique Ngozi Nri doing poetry and at 9  lyrical, politically fearless alto saxophonist Isaiah Collier with Antoine Roney – sax / Tchesser Holmes – percussion at the Gene Frankel Theater, 24 Bond St off Bwy, R to 8th St., $25 adv tix rec

1/5, 7:30 PM Rolling Stones tenor saxophonist Tim Ries at the Django, $25. He’s at Drom on the 19th at 8 for ten bucks less in advance

1/5, 9 PM front porch folk banjo player Allison Kelley – of the Johnson Girls – with her band at Radegast Hall. 1/9 at 9 she’s at at Skinny Dennis

1/5, 9:30 PM ramshackle, entertaining newgrass jamband the Breakneck Boys at the big room at the Rockwood, free, Downstairs psychedelic jazz multi-instrumentalist D. Treut plays the album release show for his new one, also free

1/6, 7 PM free jazz with words: the Isaiah Barr Trio – Isaiah Barr – sax / Sadaf – violin, vocals followed at 8:30 by poet Anne Waldman with Devin Waldman on sax and at 9 ubiquitous bassist  William Parker with dancer wife Patricia Nicholson -Ellen Christi – vocals / Jason Kao Hwang – violin at the Gene Frankel Theater, 24 Bond St off Bwy, R to 8th St., $25 adv tix rec

1/6, 8 PM kinetic jazz vibraphonista Yuhan Su leads her trio at Bar Bayeux. She’s at Smalls on 1/18 at 7:30 for $25

1/6, 10:30 PM fiery, latin-inspired trombonist Mariel Bildstein at the Django, $25

1/6, midnight intense Indian-influenced psych-folk songwriter Larkin Grimm at Bar Freda

1/7, 4 PM  Sarah Durning plays twangy oldschool-style original honkytonk at  at Skinny Dennis

1/7, 6 PM  great vibraphonist with a noir streak – Joe Locke leads his trio at Bethany Baptist Church, 275 W Market Street, Newark, free

1/7, 7:30 PM tuneful oldschool soul/jazz trombonist Dave Gibson leads his quartet at the Django, $25

1/7, 8 PM elegant folk noir songwriter Jean Rohe and  lustrously tuneful percussionist James Shipp at the Owl

1/7,  monthly surf rock extravaganza at Otto’s begins at 8 PM with jangly New York original surf rock cult heroes the Supertones, at 9:30 guitar mastermind Mike Rosado’s volcanic, pounding Dick Dale-influenced surf band 9th Wave and then at 11  darkly cinematic, ornate instrumentalists the TarantinosNYC

1/7, 8 PM the  NJ Symphony Orchestra with pianist Danil Trifonov play Strauss’ Don Juan and Rosenkavelier suite plus Brahms Piano Concerto No. 2 at NJPAC in Newark, $25 tix avail

1/8, 3 PM a rapturous free jazz afternoon: Melanie Dyer We Free Strings: Melanie Dyer – viola / Charles Burnham, Gwen Laster – violin / Alex Waterman – cello / Rahsaan Carter – bass / Newman Taylor Baker – percussion followed at 4:30 by Ensemble Rivbea Revisited:  William Parker – bass, composition / Juma Sultan – perc. / Joseph Daley – tuba, piano / Ted Daniel – trumpet / Ingrid Laubrock – sax / Brandon Lopez – bass at the Gene Frankel Theater, 24 Bond St off Bwy, R to 8th St., $25 adv tix rec

1/8, 3 PM violinist Kae Nakano leads a trio playing works by Haydn, Chausson and Lewis Spratlan  at Concerts on the Slope, St. John’s Episcopal Church, 139 St. John’s Place downhill from 7th Ave,, $25

1/9, 7 PM sharp, not a music event but intriguing Eugene Ionesco’s surreal, quirky, classic existentialist play Rhinoceros directed by Chris Noth and Ken Cheeseman at the Cutting Room, $20 sug don

1/9, 10 PM crooner Kevin Harris with jazz organ paradigm-shifter Brian Charette at the Ear Inn

1/10, time tba, cornetist Stephen Haynes and guitarist Joe Morris,  with a string quartet at Zurcher Gallery, $20

1/10, half past noon, Sicilian organist Diego Cannizzarro plays a program tba at Central Synagogue, 54th/Lex, free

1/10, 7:30 PM houghtful, dynamic pianist Manuel Valera & New Cuban Express followed at 10:30 PM by oldschool salsa dura band Sonido Costeño at the Django, $25

1/10, 8 PM  funk-jazz crew the Silver Arrow Band at Drom, free. They’re back on 1/24

1/11, 7:30 PM haunting French-Tunisian saxophonist Yacine Boulares at the Lincoln Center Atrium, free

1/12, 7 PM African-American string band polymath Rhiannon Giddens, pianist Howard Watkins and a cast of singers celebrate the 30K slaves who ran away from their captors prior to the Civil War, at the Rogers Auditorium at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, $35 tix avail

1/12, 7:30 PM smartly impressionistic postbop pianist Miki Yamanaka at the Django, $25. She’s at Smalls on 1/23 and 1/30 at 10:30 for the same deal

1/12, 8 PM Maria Brea, soprano; Arthur Moeller, violin; Odaline de la Martinez & Max Lifchitz, conductor the North/South Chamber Orchestra performing latin-inspired works by Lifchitz, de la Martinez, Carmel Curiel and Federico Ermirio at Christ & St Stephen’s Church. 120 W 69th St (bet Broadway and Columbus), free

1/12, 9 PM the fiery Catalan-flavored Balkan Paradise Orchestra followed by psychedelic latin rockers Battle of Santiago – the missing link between Willie Colon and Pink Floyd – at Drom, $15 adv tix rec\

1/13 day one of the NY Jazz Piano Festival at Klavierhaus, 790 11th Ave, Ground Fl at 54th St. Solo sets, $30 per set. Today’s lineup is colorful klezmer-inspired Uri Caine at noon, postbop stalwart Miki Yamanaka at 3, Yayoi Ikawa at 4;30, Dave Burrell at 6 and latin big band jazz maven Arturo O’Farrill at 7:30.

1/13, 9 PM eclectic pan-latin and Middle Eastern-inflected acoustic songwriter Miriam Elhajli  at the Owl

1/13, 10 PM long-running, wickedly jangly, tuneful Americana rockers the Sloe Guns at Connolly’s

1/13, 10:30 PM jazz organist Ty Bailie leads his trio at the Django, $25

1/14 day two of the NY Jazz Piano Festival at Klavierhaus, 790 11th Ave, Ground Fl at 54th St. Solo sets, $30 per set. Highlights: brilliant latin jazz player Aruan Ortiz at 4:30, epic third-stream improviser Jean-Michel Pilc at 7:30, the more tersely improvisational Rachel Z and group tba at 9

1/14, 7 PM dark psychedelic acoustic blues/klezmer/reggae/soca jamband Hazmat Modine at Terra Blues. They’re also here on the 28th

1/14, 7:30 PM Greek surf band Habbina Habbina, psychedelic cumbia crew La Banda Chuska, – who are NYC’s answer to Los Bel-Kings –  clever, fiery, eclectic ten-piece Balkan/hip-hop/funk brass maniacs Slavic Soul Party, Red Baraat’s bhangra soul trumpeter Sonny Singh, Mafer Bandola playing Venezuelan Joropo Llanero, Iranian violinist and bandleader Mehrnam Rastegari, and electroacoustic drummer Ravish Momin’s Sunken Cages, at Drom, $20

1/14, 8 PM Live Skull in their only third Brooklyn performance since 1985 at St. Vitus, $20,. If Sonic Youth were the noiserock Beatles (ok, they weren’t, just making an analogy here), Live Skull were the Stones

1/14, 10 PM Certain General guitarslinger Phil Gammage plays his dark Americana and blues at Shrine

1/14,10:30 PM ferociously tuneful, kinetic merengue/tropical psychedelic Dominican guitarist Yasser Tejeda & Pelotre at  at the big room at the Rockwood, $10

1/15, day three of the NY Jazz Piano Festival at Klavierhaus, 790 11th Ave, Ground Fl at 54th St. Solo sets, $30 per set. The increasingly haunting Laszlo Gardony at noon, postbop star Orrin Evans at 3, symphonic latin jazz player Dayramir Gonzalez at 4:30, Jean-Michel Pilc at 6, and lyrical Marc Cary at 8.

1/15. 5 PM the orchestrally cinematic Heart of Afghanistan at Drom, $20 adv tix rec. Followed at 8:30 PM by  iconic Afro-Cuban percussionist/bandleader Pedrito Martine‘s Echoes of Africa project, $25 separate adv adm

1/15, 7:30 PM singer Hilary Gardner leads a western swing quartet at Mezzrow, $25

1/15, 9 PM shapeshifting klezmer trumpeter Frank London‘s Spiritual Quartet with Anthony Coleman on piano at Bar Lunatico

1/16, day four of the NY Jazz Piano Festival at Klavierhaus, 790 11th Ave, Ground Fl at 54th St. Solo sets, $30 per set. Brilliant latin player Luis Perdomo at noon, the similar Benito Gonzalez at 1:30, the more kinetic Cuban Elio Villafranca at 3, shapeshifting Aaron Parks at 4:30, trad latin jazz pianist Edsel Gomez and Clifton Anderson at 6.

1/16, 7:30 PM the NYChillharmonic – who play lushly intricate art-rock with big band jazz orchestration – at City Winery, $25 gen adm

1/16. 8 PM mystically haunting Iranian singer/bandleader Mahsa Vahdat at City Winery, $20 gen adm

1/16, 9 PM original blue-eyed soul chanteuse Miss Tess at Skinny Dennis

1/17, 2 PM bassist Kebra-Seyoun Charles plays original works plus pieces by Bach, Mozart and John Hedges at Merkin Concert Hall, $25

1/17, 6:30 PM uneasy multi-reedman Norman Westberg of the Swans solo then at 8 bassist Marc Sloan with Gregor Kitsis from Bowie’s band on strings playing the album release show for their new vinyl record at Downtown Music Gallery

1/17, 8ish lush, hypnotic slowcore/postrockers Bing & Ruth at Union Pool, free

1/19, 7 PM organist Gail Archer plays a concert for peace for Russia and Ukraine with works by composers from both countries at St. Patrick’s Cathedral, free. She really knows this organ and can make it sing

1/19, 7 PM the rustic Piedmont-style blues guitar duo Gordon Lockwood at Terra Blues

1/19, 7:30 PM  entertaining cumbia jazz accordionist/crooner Gregorio Uribe at the Lincoln Center Atrium, free

1/19, 8 PM rising star trumpeter Adam O’Farrill‘s colorful, cinematic quartet at Seeds

1/19-21, 8 PM John Zorn and a ten-piece ensemble pay homage to legendary, noisy avant garde guitarist Derek Bailey at Roulette, $25 adv tix rec. 1/19 with Laurie Anderson; 1/20 with Matana Roberts; 1/21 with Amir ElSaffar and others

1/19, 8:30ish the perennially intense, tuneful godfather of edgy, lyrical, anthemic downtown NYC rock, Willie Nile plays his album American Ride at City Winery, $28 standing room avail

1/20, 7:30 PM salsa dura legend Jimmy “El Trombon Criollo” Bosch and the Salsa Masters Orchestra at the Lincoln Center Atrium, free

1/20-21, 8 PM incisive, latin-inspired sax improviser Maria Grand,at Seeds, $10. 1/20 she plays a duo set with pianist Maya Keren; 1/21 she leads a chordless trio

1/20, 8 PM haunting Middle Eastern jazz violinist Layale Chaker at the Owl

1/20, 8 PM Palestinian chanteuse and songwriter Mona Miari at Drom $25 adv tix rec

1/20, 8 PM ska-punks Skappository followed by the excellent, eclectic, noir-inspired ska/surf band Drop Party at Otto’s

1/20, 9 PM jazz crooner Richard Julian sings Mose Allison with John Chin on piano at Bar Lunatico

1/20, 9 PM twangy altcountryAmericana/psychedelic crew American String Conspiracy at Freddy’s

1/20, 10:30 PM  clever, purist B3 jazz organist Akiko Tsuruga at the Django, $25

1/21, 4 PM  energetic ragtime/Romany swing guitarist Felix Slim followed eventually at 9 by fiery electric bluegrass and C&W with Demolition String Band at Skinny Dennis

1/21, 6 PM versatile Nashville gothic/Americana/psychedelic band the Whiskey Charmers at the small room at the Rockwood

1/21, 9 PM slinky psychedelic Afrobeat band Super Yamba at Bar Lunatico

1/21, 10:30 PM noir-inspired alto saxophonist/composer Nick Hempton with his quartet at the Django, $25

1/22, 11 AM the Brentano String Quartet play a program tba at the Museum of Arts and Design, 2 Columbus Circle, $25, adm incl coffee/breakfast snacks

1/22, 7 PM jangly New York original surf rock cult heroes the Supertones, followed by darkly cinematic, ornate instrumentalists the TarantinosNYC at Otto’s

1/22, 7:30 PM the Iraqi-inspired Moneka Arabic Jazz at Drom, $20 adv tix rec

1/23-24, 8/10:30 PM iconic bassist Ron Carter leads a quartet with Renee Roses, Payton Crossley, Jimmy Greene at the Blue Note, $34

1/23, 9 PM wildfire guitarist Brandon Seabrook with Tony Scherr on bass and Kenny Wollesen on drums at Bar Lunatico\

1/24, 8 PM bassist Michael Formanek’s Drome Trio featuring special guest pianist Angelica Sanchez at Roulette, $25 adv tix rec

1/25, 7 PM the Brooklyn Raga Massive – a rotating cast of A-list Indian, jazz and rock musicians who love to jam out classic Indian themes from over the centuries to the present day – back where they started at Branded Saloon

1/25, 7 PM elegantly lyrical Slavic jazz guitarist Martina Fiserova at the downstairs room at the Rockwood, free

1/25, 7:30 PM guitarist William Tyler and ubiquitous harpist Mary Lattimore play a live score to the documentary film Electric Appalachia at the World Financial Center, free

1/25, 7:30 PM sizzling postbop saxophonist Mike DiRubbo’s quartet followed by the somewhat calmer saxophonist TK Blue leading his at 10:30 at the Django, $25

1/25, 7:30 PM sharply lyrical, cinematic alto saxophonist Dave Pietro leads a quartet at Smalls, $25

1/25-28 8 PM  wildfire vibraphonist Joel Ross makes a live recording with a series of ensembles at Seeds, $10.

1/25, 8 PM colorful harpist Parker Ramsay improvises with Arnie Tanimoto on viola da gamba at Zurcher Gallery, $20

1/25, 9 PM  intense, charismatic oldschool soul belter Sami Stevens  with a string section at Bar Lunatico

1/26, 7 PM dark folk songwriter DW Hunter followed by brilliant psychedelic Great Plains gothic songstress Rose Thomas Bannister at Union Pool, $19

1/26, 7:30 PM Gabriel Martins, cello & Wynona Wang, piano play Saint-Saens’ iconic horror film theme The Swan plus works by Bach, Beethoven and Brahms at Merkin Concert Hall, $30

1/26, 8 PM  intense, fearlessly relevant Middle Eastern clarinetist Kinan Azmeh‘s City band at Drom, $15 adv tix re

1/26, 8 PM epic jazz guitarist Joel Harrison and the Alta String Quartet play the the premiere of his new suite Breath—a requiem but also an affirmation of “anima,” the essence of life, for choir and 15 piece jazz band – at Roulette, $25 adv tix rec

1/26, 8 PM Bhutanese guitarist and improviser Tashi Dorji  with muti-instrumentalist Alex Zhang Hungtai, assaultively amusing avant garde singer/composer C. Spencer Yeh and Kwami Winfield, and electroacoustic singer Ka Baird solo at First Unitarian Congregational Church, 119-121 Pierrepont St, downtown Brooklyn, any train to Borough Hall, $20

1/27, 7:30 PM the best singing pianist (and the best piano-playing singer) in jazz, Champian Fulton  followed at 10:30 by New Orleans reedman Craig Handy at the Django, $25

1/27-28. 7:30 PM incisive, bluesy jazz guitarist Dave Stryker leads his organ trio with Jared Gold on B3 at Smalls, $25

1/27, 7 PM moody, cinematic jazz singer Erika Matsuo and her band at the downstairs room at the Rockwood,$10

1/27, 8 PM tenor sax improv titan George Garzone at Bar Bayeux

1/27, 8 PM anthemic newgrass band Rachel Sumner & Traveling Light at the Owl

1/28. 7:30 PM edgy, versatile bassist Max Johnson  leads his trio at the Django, $25

1/28, 8:30 PM twangy Americana band Southpaw and highway rocker Dan Reardon at Hill Country, $26

1/28, 10 PM playful, sly retro 60s psych-pop band Cupid’s Nemesis followed by math-metal band Absurd Condition at the small room at the Rockwood

1/29, half past noon/2:30 PM clever, entertaining, cinematic saxophonist Daniel Bennett with his group at the Blue Note, $23

1/29, 3 PM the NJ Symphony Orchestra with violinist Hilary Hahn play works by Sibelius, Samuel Coleridge-Taylor and Prokofiev’s Symphony No. 5 at NJPAC in Newark, $25 tix avail

1/29, 3:30 PM the L Train Brass Band – which was out of service for a long time but is back in action – at Culture Lab, free

1/29, 9 PM a rare Brooklyn small club gig by paradigm-shifting pan Middle Eastern trumpeter/santoorist Amir Elsaffar at the Owl

1/30, 7:30 PM classy, cinematic, purist NZ jazz pianist Alan Broadbent  leads a trio at Mezzrow, $25

1/30, 8 PM legendary John Prine-esque urban country band Maynard & the Musties at Cowgirl Seahorse

1/30, 9 PM King Kozy with colorful tenor saxophonist Michael Blake guitarist Ed Cherry, drummer Allan Mednard, and bassist Tony Scherr at Bar Lunatico

1/30, 9 PM boisterously funny oldschool 60s C&W and brooding southwestern gothic with the Jack Grace Band at Skinny Dennis

1/31, 9 PM singer Veronica Davila’s twangy, Bakersfield-flavored hard honkytonk band Low Roller at Skinny Dennis

2/1, 8:30 PM loop-driven art-rock instrumentalists Thee Reps at Sisters Brooklyn, 900 Fulton at Washington, A/C to Clinton-Washington, $10

2/4, 7 PM the world’s most unpredictably brilliant cinematic guitarist, Steve Ulrich plays his original scores from This American Life with a quartet followed by a set by his iconic film noir trio Big Lazy at the Sultan Room, $26

2/5, 2 PM Irish musicians Sean and Deirdre Murtha lead a sea chantey singalong at the South St. Seaport Museum, 12 Fulton St north of the water, free

2/13, 7 PM the New York Composers Circle play new small ensemble music: David Picton’s Piano Sonata No. 1, Kevin McCarter’s Responding Variations for oboe and viola, Tamara Cashour’s This Is Not a Reimagining for piccolo and contrabassoon, and Timothy L. Miller’s Two Settings of Ogden Nash Poems for narrator and piano, U.S. premieres of Ukrainian composer Olga Victorova’s Magic Birds Phung Hoan, Andrei Bandura’s Sonata for Violin and Piano and the New York premiere of David Mecionis’s Trio in Two Parts with an Interval Between, Natalia Medvedovskaya’s Ragtimes for piano solo and Debra Kaye’s Submarine Dreams for bass flute and double bass at the National Opera Center, $20

2/14, half past noon, Italian organist Francesco Bongiorno plays a program tba at Central Synagogue, 54th/Lex, free

2/19, 3 PM the New York Virtuoso Singers perform American works including world premieres by Anthony Davis, Peter Zummo, Elena Ruehr, and William McClelland; New York premieres by Tania León, David Patterson, and Edie Hill as well as works by Florence Price, Annea Lockwood, Jessie Montgomery, Mari Esabel Valverde, and Nancy Wertsch, and 18th, 19th and 20th century choral works by William Billings, Charles Ives, at Christ & St Stephen’s Church. 120 W 69th St (bet Broadway and Columbus) $20. 2/25 at 7:30 they sing the choral movements from J.S. Bach’s Cantatas 148 through 177, with piano accompanist Will Healy at Merkin Concert Hall, $30

Celebrating a Passionate Underground Brooklyn Jewish Tradition

A hundred years ago, some of the biggest rockstars in the world sang in synagogues.

They were competitive. Many of them went on concert tour. A global audience bought their 78 RPM records. Yet those cantors weren’t just raising their voices in stock renditions of centuries-old repertoire, otherworldly and inspiring as many of those songs are. Pre-WWII artists like Gershon Sirota, Zawel Kwartin and Yossele Rosenblatt energized their fan bases with their unique interpretations of ancient traditions.

While cantorial performance has tragically fallen into a steep decline in recent decades, a new generation centered around a mostly underground performance scene in Brooklyn is bringing it back. The new vinyl record Golden Ages: Brooklyn Chassidic Cantorial Revival Today – streaming at Bandcamp – focuses on six cantors leading the way.

As you would expect, vocals are front and center in this collection: the musical backdrop is typically limited to spare, resonant organ, played by David Reich and Jeremiah Lockwood (better known as the firebrand guitarist in the Sway Machinery). First on the mic is Yanky Lemmer of Lincoln Square Synagogue on the Upper West Side, who takes his time through a soaring, impassioned, dynamically shifting version of the imploring Yom Kippur nigun Shomea Kol Bichiyos.

Shimmi Miller, of Temple Beth El in Borough Park, contributes his own mystical, melismatic anthem for the blessing of the new moon, Yehi Rotzon, anchored by Reich’s low-key but emphatic piano and a rousing choir of his fellow cantors.

Yossi Pomerantz sings a calmly determined version of V’aly y’dey Avodecha, a declaration of faith by legendary cantor Sholom Katz, who sang his way out of being murdered by the Nazis during the Holocaust.

Yoel Kohn takes over for a soulful performance of the Shabbat theme Kulam Ahuvim over Reich’s spacious piano. Lemmer returns to the mic for an insistent, breathtaking performance Moron D’vishmayo, a global hit for Kwartin. Then Kohn takes over again, rising to a gripping falsetto for the album’s most vast, spacious number, L’olam Yehey Odom, from the catalog of the great Hungarian cantor and Holocaust survivor Yehoshua Wieder.

Yoel Pollack delivers an expressive, thoughtful, operatically-tinged recording of Yossele Rosenblatt’s somber 1920 hit Shomer Yisroel, a requiem for the victims of World War I with Reich on harmony vocals. Then the pianist moves to the mic for Eso Eynay, a triumphant setting of Psalm 121.

Miller’s second song is a pensive version of the Rosh Hashanah song Habeyn Yakir Li. Lemmer closes the record with a fervent, viscerally angry a-cappella take of Tiher Rabi Yishmael, a Yom Kippur tribute to martyrs.

It’s also worth remembering that today we are on the brink of this year’s Hanukah celebration. But the annual Festival of Lights is not just about piety: it’s a celebration of transgression, a single night’s worth of lamp oil divinely multiplied to last for eight days of defiance in the face of tyranny. As that story goes, there is divinity in noncompliance. On this particular evening, Jews and non-Jews alike would do well to give that some thought.

Live Music Calendar for New York City and Brooklyn For December 2022

All these concerts are free of restrictions on entry. Weekly events first followed by the daily calendar. If a venue is unfamiliar, look for it on the old guide to NYC music venues here, which is more of a worksheet now, but it has links to most of the places on this calendar.

Thursdays in December, 5 PM poignantly lyrical, eclectic pianist Marta Sanchez at Bar Bayeux

Sundays at around 8 PM trumpeter Jon Kellso and (frequently) guitarist Matt Munisteri lead the Ear-Regulars in NYC’s only remaining weekly hot jazz jam session at the Ear Inn

12/1, 7:30 PM pianist Boris Berman plays a one-night-only concert of music by Ukrainian composer Valentin Silvestrov, at the Baryshnikov Arts Center 450 W 37th St just east of the DiMenna Ctr., $25

12/1, 7:30 PM atmospheric vocal soundscaper Antonina Nowacka and Ego Death the duo of instrument builder Aho Ssan (aka Niamké Désiré) and haunting, atmospheric Polish composer/cellist Resina (aka Karolina Rec) at the Lincoln Center Atrium, free

12/1, 7:30 PM the Concert Chorale and Winter Festival Orchestra sing Vvaldi’s Gloria and Timothy Amukele’s What Sweeter Music at Merkin Concert Hall, $25

12/1, 8 PM pyrotechnic clarinetist Ismail Lumanovski’s ferociously kinetic NY Gypsy All-Stars at Drom, $15

12/1, 8 PM catchy guy/girl folk duo First Crush and eclectic noiserock/dreampop/new wave band Percocet and minimalist shoegazers To the Wedding at Bar Freda, $10

12/1, 8/10:30 PM jazz guitar and loopmusic icon Bill Frisell  solo at the Blue Note. 12/2-4 he leads a series of quartets, $35

12/1, 8 PM pianist Helene Grimaud plays works by Chopin, Debussy, Satie, Schumann and Valentin Silvestrov at Stern Auditorium at Carnegie Hall, $35.50 tix avail

12/2, 7 PM epic, haunting, searingly lyrical art-rock songwriter and baritone crooner Spottiswoode at the downstairs room at the Rockwood, $20

12/2, 7 PM  uneful oldschool soul/jazz trombonist Dave Gibson leads his Organ Quartet followed at 11:30 by smartly impressionistic postbop pianist Miki Yamanaka at Cellar Dog. She’s at Smalls on 12/5 and 12/26 at 10:30 for $25; he’s there on 12/17

12/2, 7 PM gorgeously jangly Northern Gothic band the Sadies – minus the late great Dallas Good – at Union Pool, $25

12/2, 7:30 PM brilliant baritone saxophonist Lauren Sevian leads a quaret at the Django, $25

12/2-3, 7:30/9 PM acerbic tenor saxophonist Rich Perry leads a quartet with Gary Versace on piano

12/2, 7:30 PM guzheng player Yang Yi leads an ensemble performing Angel Lam‘s song cycle Lost Shanghai (what a timely theme, huh?) at Merkin Concert Hall, $25/$20 srs/$10 stud

12/2, 10:30ish catchy, fun guy/girl indie soul band Sunshine Nights at Freddy’s

12/2-3, 8 PM powerhouse reedwoman Anna Webber’s Shimmer Wince with Adam O’Farrill on trumpet and Mariel Roberts on cello at Seeds

12/2, 8 PM roots reggae bandleader Nixon Omolla at Silvana

12/2, 8 PM  ambitious postbop saxophonist: Kyle Nasser and singer Simona Premazzi lead a quartet at Bar Bayeux

12/2, 9 PM  clever, fiery, eclectic ten-piece Balkan/hip-hop/funk brass maniacs Slavic Soul Party at BAM Cafe

12/3, 2 PM clarinetist Matthew Fontana leads a trio playing works by Bach, Bruch, Mozart and Schumann at the Brooklyn Heights Library, 286 Cadman Plaza W, free

12/3, 3 PM the Momenta Quartet and bassist Hilliard Greene celebrate Meredith Monk’s 80th birthday with a house concert of her music for strings, free, email for deets/NYC location 

12/3, 7 PM dark psychedelic acoustic blues/klezmer/reggae/soca jamband Hazmat Modine at Terra Blues. They’re also here on 12/17

12/3, 7 PM twangy altcountryAmericana/psychedelic crew American String Conspiracy at Freddy’s

12/3, 7:30 PM rising star Snehesh Nag on sitar with Aditya Phatak on tabla at the Chhandayan Center For Indian Music, $25

12/3, 7:30 PM the rousingly soulful Harlem Gospel Travelers at City Winery, $15 standing room avail

12/3, 8 PM enveloping, cinematic black metal band Antimony at Lucky 13 Saloon, $12

12/3, 8 PM a 50th anniversary celebration of Lou Reed’s Transformer album with Joe Hurley & the Gents with Eugene Hutz of Gogol Bordello and members of Bob Dylan’s band, the Ian Hunter Band, Roxy Music, Sonic Youth, with Edward Rogers, Mary Lee Kortes, Ellen Foley, Don Fleming, Tish & Snooky, Richard Barone, Eamon Rush, Roger Clark, Screaming Orphans, Michael Tee, Jesse Bates at City Winery,$30 standing room avail

12/3, 8 PM  evocative alto saxophonist Dmitri Baevsky and his quartet at the Django, $25

12/3, 8 PM  eclectic cosmopolitan jazz singer Sivan Arbell followed by pianist James Carney with Ravi Coltrane, sax; Dezron Douglas, bass; and Tom Rainey, drums.at the Owl

12/3, 8 PM surf night at Otto’s starting with surfed-out tv themes from Commercial Interruption, at 9:30 the alternately jangly and immersive Blue Wave Theory and at 11 cover group Band of Others

12/3, 8 PM new wave/powerpopstress Kira Metcalf followed eventually at 10 by blue-eyed soul guy Ben Pagano at Bar Freda, $10. Avoid the dorky 9 PM act in between

12/3, 9 PM ex-Chicha Libre keyboard sorcerer Josh Camp’s wryly psychedelic cumbia/tropicalia/dub band Locobeach at BAM Cafe

12/3, 11 PM sharply lyrical southwestern gothic/Americana songwriter Tom Shaner at LIC Bar. He’s also here New Years Eve at around the same time

12/4 3 PM iconic, tuneful Jamaican jazz pianist Monty Alexander leads his trio at Trinity Church, free

12/4. 8 PM trombonist Joe Moffet jams with saxophonist Sam Decker followed by trumpeter Kenny Warren’s invigoratingly noisy Sweet World trio with Christopher Hoffman on cello and Nathan Ellman-Bell on drums. at the Owl

12/4. 8 PM Korean oboeist/flutist Gamin leads her ensemble at Roulette, $25 adv tix rec

12/4, 9 PM deviously entertaining western swing chanteuse Sweet Megg Farrellt at Skinny Dennis

12/5, 6 PM Dervisi feat. psychedelic guitarist George Sempepos play an acoustic set of haunting 1930s Greek underground anthems and hash-smoking tunes followed by a free screening of Mary Zournazi’s film My Remebetiko Blues at the Opening Gallery, 42 Walker St. (Tribeca), free

12/5, 8 PM catchy female-fronted powerpop band Cool Dead Woman at Our Wicked Lady, $14

12/5, 9 PM expert, extrovert rockabilly/retro rock bassist Eugene Chrysler and band at Skinny Dennis

12/6 Taraf de Chicago at Merkin Concert Hall are sold out

12/6, 7:30 PM vivid pianist Manuel Valera & New Cuban Express at the Django, $25

12/6, 8 PM cellist Amanda Gookin plays solo electroacoustic works by Pamela Z, Jessie Montgomery, Sarah Hennies, Camila Agosto, Seong Ae Kim at Roulette, $25 adv tix rec

12/6, 8:30 PM intriguing, atmospheric chamber pop/shoegaze band Year of the Hare at Bar Freda, $10

12/6, 9 PM acerbic, versatile tenor saxophonist Julieta Eugenio leads a chordless trio at Bar Lunatico

12/7 1 PM purist oldschool jazz guitarist Bill Wurtzel with bassist Jay Leonhart at the American Folk Art Museum.

12/7, 7 PM clever, purist B3 jazz organist Akiko Tsuruga at Cellar Dog

12/8, 7 PM eclectic 21st century composition specialists NOW Ensemble play a program tba at the Brooklyn Public Library Grand Army Plaza branch

12/8, 8 PM a screening of FW Murnau’s classic silent film Nosferatu with live score by creepy classical ensemble the Flushing Remonstrance at Lucky 13 Saloon, $12

12/7, 7:30 PM salsa/tropicalia cantante Mireya Ramos at the Lincoln Center Atrium, free

12/8, 7 PM Gangspil, featuring Sonnich Lydom on accordion and harmonica and Kristian Bugge on fiddle play rarely heard ancient Danish folk songs and dance tunes at Scandinavia House, $15

12/8, 7:30 PM the Korean-inspired Rin Seo Big Band at Culture Lab, $25

12/8, 7:30 PM Colombian vallenato accordionist/singer Diana Burco at the Lincoln Center Atrium, free

12/8, 8 PM performance poet Rena Anakwe followed by a rare improvisational showdown with Mary Margaret O’Hara & cellist Peggy Lee at First Unitarian Church, 116 Pierrepont St, downtown Brooklyn, $30, any train to Borough Hall

12/8, 8 PM  Certain General guitarslinger Phil Gammage plays his dark Americana and blues at 11th St Bar. 12/12, 7:30 PM he’s at Cowgirl Seahorse

12/8, 8 PM tenor sax improv titan George Garzone leads his band at Bar Bayeux

12/9, 6:30 PM an ambient set by soundscaper Robert Aiki Aubrey Lowe at FLAG, 545 W 25th St, 9th Fl, free, rsvp reqd

12/9, 7 PM  sweepingly intense, smartly lyrical art-rock songwriter Victoria Langford at the downstairs room at the Rockwood, $12

12/9, 7 PM soprano Aliana de la Guardia and a sextet perform Gabriel Bouche Caro’s new song cycle on themes of Puerto Rican identity at the Americas Society, 680 Park Ave, free

12/9-10, 7:30/9 PM  tuneful, refreshingly edgy pianist Rachel Z leads a quartet  at Smalls, $25

12/9. 8 PM state-of-the-art trumpeter Dave Douglas‘ Quintet with Jon Irabagon, Matt Mitchell, Matt Penman, Rudy Royston play two sets, the second backing brilliant Elysian Fields guitarist Oren Bloedow at the Owl, $20

12/9, 8:30 PM disquieting Elliott Smith-esque band Horror Movie Marathon at Bar Freda, $10

12/10, 4 PM multi-reedman JD Parran leads an ensemble playing classic ragtime and early jazz by James Reese Europe and the Harlem Hellfighters 369th Infantry, then plays his own adventurous stuff with a quartet at All Saints Episcopal Church, 728 7th Ave., south Park Slope, R to Prospect Ave.,

12/10. 6 PM Nora Stanley on sax, Victor Tsilimparis on keys and Eliza Salem on drums jam out at Downtown Music Gallery

12/10, 7:30 PM edgy, versatile bassist Max Johnson  leads his trio at the Django, $25

12/10, 9 PM  fiery electric bluegrass and C&W with Demolition String Band at Skinny Dennis

12/10, 10:30 PM  jazz nonet Small Kingdom with powerhouse singer Melanie Scholtz at the downstairs room at the Rockwood, $15

12/11, 3 PM cellist Benjamin Larsen leads a trio playing music by Haydn, Chausson and Lewis Spratlin at Concerts on the Slope, St. John’s Episcopal Church, 139 St. John’s Place downhill from 7th Ave,, $25

12/11, 5 PM brilliantly adventurous harpist Bridget Kibbey and the Calidore String Quartet plays works by Debussy and Caplet’s “Masque of the Red Death” at Our Saviour’s Atonement Lutheran Church 178 Bennett Avenue at 189th St, free

12/11. 6 PM Random Access Music, led by brilliant clarinetist Thomas Piercy, play rarely performed works by 20th century Japanese avant-garde composers Yoshio Hachimura, Toru Takemitsu, and Joji Yuasa plus world premieres composed for the same instrumentation by NYC-based RAM composers Gilbert Galindo, Masatora Goya, and Frances White at Martha Graham Studio One, 55 Bethune St in the West Village, $25

12/11, 8 PM the ageless, legendary band who started the klezmer revival, the Klezmatics at Drom, expensive, $35 standing room avail

12/11, 9 PM  elegant folk noir songwriter Jean Rohe at the Owl

12/12,7 PM postbop jazz supergroup the Cookers – Billy Harper, Cecil McBee, George Cables, Eddie Henderson, and Billy Hart – at the Schomburg Center, 135th/Malcolm X Blvd, RSVP required:

12/12, 7 PM innovative, atmospheric bassist Brandi Disterheft leads her quartet at Cellar Dog

12/12, 7:30 PM the best singing pianist (and the best piano-playing singer) in jazz, Champian Fulton at the Django, $25

12/12, 8 PM funk-jazz crew the Silver Arrow Band at Drom, free.

12/12, 9 PM Jazz Passengers sax legend Roy Nathanson with trombonist Curtis Fowlkes and Deidre Rodman at Bar Lunatico

12/12, 10 PM boisterously funny oldschool 60s C&W and brooding southwestern gothic with the Jack Grace Band  at the Ear Inn

12/13 half past noon organist Paolo Bougeat plays a program tba at Central Synagogue, 54th/Lex, free

12/13, 6:30 PM guitarist Ben Tyree with drummer Sameer Gupta followed by Abacoa with bassist Kenneth Jimenez, Hery Paz on sax and Willy Rodriguez on drums, then at 8:30 the Mahakala trio with Chad Fowler, Dave Sewelson on bari sax and Steve Hirsh on drums and at 9:30 noir-inspired low-register reedman Ben Goldberg leading a trio at Downtown Music Gallery

12/13, 7:30/9 PM  sweeping, swinging vibraphonist Behn Gillece leads a trio at Mezzrow, $25

12/13, 8 PM  intense janglerock/Americana/soul songwriter Matt Keating and guitarist Steve Mayone’s catchy project the Bastards of Fine Arts at  at the small room at the Rockwood

12/14, 7:30 PM lyrical, thoughtful tenor saxophonist Eric Alexander leads a quartet at the Django, $25

12/14, 8 PM eclectic bassist Nick Dunston’s trio with trombonist Kalia Vandever and DoYeon Kim on gayageum, wow, at Roulette, $25 adv tix rec

12/14, 9 PM reliably powerful tenor saxophonist Stacy Dillard leads a chordless trio at Bar Lunatico

12/15, 7 PM the New York Composers Circle presents world premieres of vocal and chamber music by Peter Kelsh, Scott D. Miller, Kevin McCarter, David Mecionis. Emiko Hayashi. Anthony Izzo, Sergey Oskolov and Patrick Andrew Thompson at Church of the Transfiguration, 1 E 29th St, $15

12/15, 8 PM pianist Eva Polgar plays an all-Hungarian program of music by Kodaly, Dubrovay and Kharitonov at Weill Hall at Carnegie Hall, $35 tix avail

12/15, 8 PM the Bergamot Quartet play a program of 21st century music tba at the Owl

12/15. 9 PM haunting, reverb guitar-driven noir cinematic instrumentalists Big Lazy at Bar Lunatico

12/15, 9 PM  iconic Afro-Cuban percussionist/bandleader Pedrito Martinez at Drom, $30 standing room avail

12/16-17, 7 PM politically fearless visionary/tenor sax improviser Matana Roberts solo and klezmer band Black Ox Orkestar at Union Pool, $25

12/16, 7:30 all-female Colombian salsa band Lulada Club at the Lincoln Center Atrium, free

12/16, 7:30 PM  jazz organist Mike LeDonne leads a trio at at the Django, $25 12/18. 7 PM he’s at Cellar Dog

12/16-17, 7:30/9 PM  erudite tenor saxophonist Wayne Escoffery leads a quartet at Smalls, $25

12/16, 8 PM Changing Modes– NYC’s funnest, most unpredictable, sharply lyrical new wave art-rock band – at Hart Bar, 538 Hart St
 (Bushwick/Evergreen), Bushwick, J to Myrtle Ave, $12

12/16, 10 PM fiery, psychedelically bluesy oldschool soul/roadhouse jamband Lizzie & the Makers at the small room at the Rockwood. 12/30 at 8 they’re at Sunny’s

12/16, 11:30 PM a rare NYC appearance by brooding Turkish songwriter Niyazi Koyuncu at Drom, $30 standing room avail

12/17, 7 PM an intimate performance of Randall Woolf and Alex Baxter electroacoustic works and improvisations with Nick Didkovsky-guitar, Emily Duncan-flute, Lynn Bechtold-violin, Tessa Brinckman on flutes and Kathy Supove on piano, at 10 Bleecker St, 7C, west of Broadway, free, early arrival advised..

12/17, 7:30 PM rising star Indian carnatic singer Rucha Jambekar leads her trio with Aditya Phatak on tabla and Anish Dharam on harmonium at the Chhandayan Center For Indian Music, $25

12/17, 8 PM downtown sax vet Marty Ehrlich leads his group at Bar Bayeux

12/17, 9 PM Irish party band the Narrowbacks at Connolly’s, $5ba

12/17, 10:30 PM  noir-inspired alto saxophonist/composer Nick Hempton  at the Django, $25

12/18, 4 PM  oldschool-style high plains C&W singer Hope Debates & North 40 at Skinny Dennis

12/18, 7:30 PM colorful,  eclectic, paradigm-shifting B3 jazz organist Brian Charette leads a trio at the Django, $25

12/18, 8 PM double jazz bass improvisation: William Parker and saxophonist Lotte Anker with Brandon Lopez at Fridman Gallery, 169 Bowery, $20

12/18, 10 PM uneasily vivid bedroom pop songwriter Allegra Krieger at the Owl

12/19. 7 PM purist postbop jazz guitarist Ed Cherry leads a trio at Cellar Dog

12/19, 8 PM a new music extravaganza: Either/Or Ensemble performs works by Talib Rasul Hakim, Jō Kondō, James Díaz, and Katherine Young. Drew Wesely presents a solo prepared guitar performance in celebration of the release of their album and media book Blank Body. 4tet2duos (Katie Porter, Lucie Vítková, James Ilgenfritz, Teerapat Parnmongkol) presents an extended structured work for improvisers. Eli Wallace celebrates the release of his new album of solo prepared piano music. Ghost Ensemble presents the premiere of Ben Richter’s Rewild.at Roulette, $25 adv tix rec

12/19, 9 PM alto saxophonist Caroline Davis’ ambitious Portals quintet at Bar Lunatico

12/19. 10:30 PM cinematically tuneful jazz pianist Steven Feifke’s Big Band at the Django, $25

12/21, 7 PM irrepressible, ebullient Brain Cloud jazz chanteuse/tapdancer Tamar Korn leads her band at Cellar Dog

12/22, 6 PM terse, intense, individualistic, often hypnotic acoustic songwriter Kalyani Singh at the small room at the Rockwood

12/22, 7 PM fiery klezmer fiddler and brilliant composer Alicia Svigals and pianist Donald Sosin play a live score to the 1992 arthouse silent thriller Man Without a World, at the Museum of Jewish Heritage, 36 Battery Pl, 1 to Bowling Green, $23

12/22, 8 PM gritty downtown rocker Diane Gentile, dark blues/folk noir/oldschool soul songwriter Kelley Swindall and well-liked, fearlessly political LES soul-rock songwriter/chanteuse Dina Regine at 11th St Bar

12/23, 7 PMcharismatic, adventurous postbop/avant garde trombonist/crooner Frank Lacy leads a quartet followed at 11:30 by deviously entertaining pianist Jinjoo Yoo at Cellar Dog He’s at Smalls on 12/27 at 7:30 for $25

12/23-24, 7:30/9 PM popular lyrical postbop trumpeter Jeremy Pelt leads a trio at Mezzrow, $25

12/24, 7 PM the NY String Orchestra play works by Mozart, Tschaikovsky and others at Stern Auditorium at Carnegie Hall, $21 tix avail. The program repeats on 12/28 at 8.

12/24, 8 PM a rare NYC appearance by versatile Turkish chanteuse Zuleyha Ortak – who ranges from haunting folk tunes to slick Anatolian disco – at Drom, $30 standing room avail

12/26, 7:30/9 PM classy, cinematic, purist NZ jazz pianist Alan Broadbent  leads a trio at Mezzrow, $25

12/27,8 PM plaintive Yorkshire/Appalachian singer Jan Bell –whose gloomy chronicles of Brooklyn gentrification are spot-on – with bassist Tina Lama at Sunny’s

12/29, 8:30 PM deviously theatrical oldschool C&W/rockabilly parodists Susquehanna Industrial Tool & Die Co.at Otto’s

12/30 7 PM purist postbop guitarist Sheryl Bailey leads her quartet followed at 11:30 by innovative, individualistic jazz organist Jared Gold and his trio at Cellar Dog

12/31, 9 PM the Binky Griptite Orchestra (formerly Sharon Jones’ brilliant oldschool soul backing band) at Bar Lunatico, $20 cover

12/31, 11 PM perennially popular Boston 4th-gen garage rockers Muck & the Mires at Otto’s

1/12, 8 PM Maria Brea, soprano; Arthur Moeller, violin; Odaline de la Martinez & Max Lifchitz, conductor the North/South Chamber Orchestra performing latin-inspired works by Lifchitz, de la Martinez, Carmel Curiel and Federico Ermirio at Christ & St Stephen’s Church. 120 W 69th St (bet Broadway and Columbus), free

2/4/23, 7 PM the world’s most unpredictably brilliant cinematic guitarist, Steve Ulrich plays his original scores from This American Life with a quartet followed by a set by his iconic film noir trio Big Lazy at the Sultan Room, $26