Musicians and night-club proprietors live complicated lives; it rsquo;s advisable to call ahead to confirm engagements.
237 W. 42nd St. (212-997-4144) mdash;Jan.
10: Dark Funeral, a loud, scary, and silly death-metal band from Sweden, traffics in blasphemy, Satanism, and other traditional themes. The opening act is Enslaved, from Norway. Jan.
11: The blues-harmonica master James Cotton. Jan. 12: The Radiators, the ne plus ultra of bar bands, hail from New Orleans, the ne plus ultra of party cities.
Jan. 13: With a love of power pop and a talent for New Wave and Brill Building songwriting, the Smithereens were once, during a brief eighties chart run, the pride of their native New Jersey.
Broadway at 74th St.
(212-307-7171) mdash;Jan. 11: The Canadian pop star Bryan Adams, who has been a presence on the charts since the early eighties, when songs like ldquo;Cuts Like a Knife, rdquo; ldquo;Straight from the Heart, rdquo; and ldquo;Run to You rdquo; first made him a household name.
6 Delancey St.
(212-533-2111) mdash;Jan. 10: Kill Hannah sounds like it should be a misogynistic metal band, but it is not. Rather, it is a slick glam-goth rock group from Chicago that draws on a number of musical styles (such as hardcore and dream pop) for its teen-friendly music.
With the Pink Spiders, a Nashville trio that delivers unabashedly retro garage punk with cartoonish aplomb. Jan. 12: The singer-songwriter Ron Sexsmith.
Jan. 13: Back in the eighties, the dB rsquo;s played jangly power pop. The band called it quits near the end of that decade, but its original members are touring again.
425 Lafayette St. (212-539-8777) mdash;Jan. 16: The Holmes Brothers have been delivering blues, soul, gospel, and R.
B. for decades, and their time has been well spent. They remain capable of awesome achievements: they can make even Cheap Trick sound holy, as they do with their inspired cover of ldquo;I Want You to Want Me, rdquo; on their new album, ldquo;State of Grace.
rdquo;
Seventh Ave. at 33rd St. (212-307-7171) mdash;Jan.
16-18: From his humble beginnings as Bette Midler rsquo;s accompanist in piano bars and bathhouses, Barry Manilow has become an adult-contemporary balladeer par excellence.
217 E. Houston St.
(212-260-4700) mdash;Jan. 11: Looker, a local band with three girls and a guy, celebrates the release of its self-produced d e but, ldquo;Born Too Late, rdquo; a collection of pure-hearted garage rock. Jan.
13: Georgie James. Recently, the drummer John Davis, formerly of the band Q and Not U, teamed up with the vocalist Laura Burhenn and a few other backing musicians to experiment with some organ-fuelled indie rock. Jan.
14: The New York City outfit 24-7 Spyz, peers and late-eighties Black Rock Coalition compatriots of Vernon Reid rsquo;s band Living Colour, were pioneers in mixing soul, funk, and hardcore styles, paving the way for the likes of Korn and Limp Bizkit.
158 Ludlow St. (212-505-3733) mdash;Jan.
10: The Cold War Kids, a quartet of young men from Los Angeles, play rock songs full of chiming guitar work, jittery drumming, and barroom piano playing. The front man, Nathan Willet, yowls like a preacher (the band members met in an evangelical college), spinning stories of alcoholic desperation, petty criminality, and other downbeat subjects. The music, though, is anything but.
The Kids are in the midst of a bicoastal residency, playing Wednesday nights at venues in N.Y.C.
and Fridays in their home town.
Jan. 12-13: The legendary country-music outlaw Willie Nelson sings the blues, something he rsquo;s learned about firsthand (that little dispute with the I.
R.S. back in the early nineties comes to mind), joined by the trumpeter Wynton Marsalis and others.
(Allen Room, Jazz at Lincoln Center, Broadway at 60th St. 212-721-6500.)
Jan.
13: Hassan Hakmoun, a native of Marrakech, plays Gnawa trance music, a genre created by black Muslim slaves who were brought to Morocco from West and Central Africa, most likely in the late sixteenth century. Considered a chosen people of sorts within Islam, the Gnawa adopted as their forefather Bilal, the Prophet Muhammad rsquo;s first muezzin. Hakmoun, who rsquo;s lived in the U.
S. since 1987, has recorded on Peter Gabriel rsquo;s Real World label and performed with the Kronos Quartet and DJ Spooky. His main instrument is a three-stringed bass lute known as a sintir, and here he rsquo;ll be joined by his brother, the vocalist and dancer Abdu Rrahim Hakmoun, and the guitarist and percussionist Brahim Fribgane.
The program opens with Berber music performed by Fribgane and Abderahim Boutat. (Symphony Space, Broadway at 95th St. For more information, call 212-545-7536.
)
315 W. 44th St. (212-581-3080) mdash;Jan.
10-13: Jason Moran and the Bandwagon, which is Tarus Mateen, on bass, and Nasheet Waits, on drums. Moran shakes up the traditional concept of the piano trio by incorporating hip-hop rhythms, recorded samples, and other postmodern ploys and embracing a repertoire that ranges from the stride pianist James P. Johnson to the Russian composer Sergei Prokofiev.
131 W. 3rd St., near Sixth Ave.
(212-475-8592) mdash; Jan. 9-14: The Crusaders, one of the original bands to score with a jazz-plus-funk formula. These days, the founding members, Joe Sample, on keyboards, and Wilton Felder, on saxophone, are backed by fully seasoned players including the session superstar Steve Gadd, on drums, and Ray Parker, Jr.
, of ldquo;Ghostbusters rdquo; fame, on guitar.
Madison Ave. at 76th St.
(212-744-1600) mdash;The Caf e Carlyle, a snug, windowless enclave in the doorman district, features discreet waiters, wraparound murals, and, starting Jan. 16, the stage and screen legend Rita Moreno, who has a Tony, an Emmy, a Grammy, and an Oscar to her credit.
Broadway at 60th St.
(212-258-9595) mdash;Jan. 9-14: A frequent presence as sideman for leaders who crave bebop drumming in its most polished state, Lewis Nash takes the reins of his own small group, which includes the saxophonist Jimmy Greene, the trumpeter Jeremy Pelt, the pianist Renee Rosnes, and the bassist Peter Washington. Jan.
15: The New Jazz Composers Octet celebrates Martin Luther King, Jr., Day by premi ring a new composition written in honor of the late civil-rights leader. They rsquo;ll joined by the saxophonist Billy Harper, a sixties-era heavyweight who is still going strong.
1650 Broadway, at 51st St. (212-582-2121) mdash;Jan. 10-14: Nicholas Payton, a trumpeter with a huge sound and an expansive temperament that embraces the traditional and the contemporary, leads a compact ensemble.
Mondays belong to the electric-guitar innovator Les Paul. The Mingus Big Band takes over on Tuesdays.
116 E.
27th St. (212-576-2232) mdash;The noble independent label Maxjazz presents a week of its standout mainstream artists, including the vocalist Nancy King, on Jan. 10, who will be accompanied by the pianist Geoffrey Keezer and his trio; the saxophonist Steve Wilson and his quartet, on Jan.
11; the pianist Eric Reed rsquo;s quartet, on Jan. 12; and the trumpeter Terell Stafford rsquo;s quintet, on Jan. 13.
425 Lafayette St. (212-539-8777) mdash;Jan. 10: The lithe Canadian chanteuse Holly Cole makes a rare appearance.
Jan. 11: The trumpeter Terence Blanchard may be best known as the composer for Spike Lee rsquo;s films, but he remains an agile post-bop soloist whose commanding tone determines the mood of his tensile bands. Later on Jan.
11: Burnt Sugar, the expansive improvisational ensemble conducted by the music journalist Greg Tate. Jan. 12: A triple-threat talent, the Cameroon native Richard Bona sings, composes, and, as he rsquo;s proved from his work with such artists as Joe Zawinul and Mike Stern, plays a mean electric bass.
178 Seventh Ave. S., at 11th St.
(212-255-4037) mdash;Jan. 9-14: Fly, a trio consisting of the saxophonist Mark Turner, the bassist Larry Grenadier, and the drummer Jeff Ballard, keeps the action as democratic as possible. One refreshing result is that group interaction tends to trump solo improvisation.
The Vanguard Jazz Orchestra holds sway on Mondays.
News RSS