Music listings – 12/5 through 12/11

1. Rez Abbasi: INVOCATION

Date: Tuesday & Wednesday, December 6 – 7, 2011
Time: 7:30 & 9:30 pm
Venue: JAZZ STANDARD  (116 East 27th Street, New York, NY 10016-8942, 212-576-2232)
Ticket: $20
Genre: Nu Jazz

Born in Karachi, Pakistan, raised in Southern California, and a New Yorker for the past 18 years, Rez Abbasi has been hailed as one of the most talented and adventurous guitarists in jazz today. As a sideman, he has performed with American artists ranging from Ruth Brown to Marilyn Crispell, and with such major Indian musicians as Pandit Kadri Gopalnath and Pandit Vishwa Mohan Bhatt. This much-anticipated JAZZ STANDARD appearance celebrates the 11/8 release of Invocation (Enja Records),the artist’s 8th career album as a leader; and the show features the disc’s all–star cast including alto saxophonist Rudresh Mahanthappa, pianist Vijay Iyer, and drummer Dan Weiss. “Coltrane, Ellington and Gillespie all immersed themselves into music from around the world and then brought it back home,” says Rez Abbasi. “If I can have that kind of unifying affect, I’ve succeeded!”

Rez Abbasi – guitar
Rudresh Mahanthappa – alto saxophone
Vijay Iyer – piano
Johannes Weidenmueller – bass
Dan Weiss – drums

2. Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings w. The Sugarman 3

Date: Wednesday, December 6, 2011
Time: 9pm
Venue: Music Hall of Williamsburg (66 North 6th St., Brooklyn, NY 11211)
Ticket: $25
Genre: old school Soul/60′s Soul

Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings are already well known as one of the most exciting acts in the nation for both their explosive live shows and their prolific output of gritty studio recordings. Their breakout release, 100 Days, 100 Nights, sold over 150,000 copies worldwide. On April 6th, 2010 the band will release I Learned the Hard Way, their fourth full-length on Brooklyn’s independent Daptone Records. The record marks a bold step forward for a band who almost singlehandedly stewarded today’s return of soul music to its more traditional sound.
I Learned the Hard Way was produced by Bosco Mann and recorded on an Ampex eight-track tape machine by Gabriel Roth in Daptone Records’ House of Soul studios, the record drips with a warmth and spontaneity rarely found since the golden days of Muscle Shoals and Stax. Sharon’s raw power, rhythmic swagger, moaning soulfulness, and melodic command set her firmly alongside Tina Turner, James Brown, Mavis Staples, and Aretha as a fixture in the canon of soul music. From the lush Philly-Soul fanfare that ushers in “The Game Gets Old” at the top of the record, to the stripped down Sam Cooke-style “Mama Don’t Like My Man” at the tail, the Dap-Kings dance seamlessly through both the most crafted and simple arrangements with subtlety and discipline. I Learned the Hard Way is the “Daptone Sound” at its finest.

3. Ches Smith and These Arches

Date: Thursday, December 8, 2011
Time: 8pm
Venue: The Stone (is located at the corner of Avenue C and 2nd Street)
Ticket: $10
Genre: nu Jazz/improve

Tony Malaby (tenor sax), Tim Berne (alto sax), Andrea Parkins (accordion) and Ches Smith (drums, percussion)
An alternate line up of the band explores timbre-centric composition and improvisation.

4. Tori Ensemble

Date: Friday & Saturday, December 9 & 10, 2011
Time:  8pm
Venue: The Roulette (509 Atlantic Ave, Brooklyn, NY 11217)
Ticket: $15
Genre: fusion of Korean traditional & Jazz/contemporary

Tori Ensemble is a world music ensemble featuring Korean traditional artists and American free jazz artists – transcending musical borders through a mingling of jazz, new music, and Korean influences. “Arirang” is a song of love and longing, an ancient Korean folk music taking on various different musical interpretations in each of Korea’s diverse local regions. Tonight’s performance will show the most basic, instinctive beauty of Arirang, with the unique melodies and rhythms of versions from Gangwon (East), Sangju (South), Wonsan (North), and Seoul (West) fusing seamlessly with the modern sound of the Tori Project. Each of the seven performers move freely between solo and ensemble performances, eliminating the boundaries imposed between instruments and in music.

Featuring HEO Yoon-jeong (geomun-go), KANG Kwon-soon (jeongga), MIN Young-chi (daegum & janggu), LEE Suk-joo (piri), Ned Rothenberg (clarinet & saxophone), Satoshi Takeishi (percussion), Erik Friedlander (cello)

5. Club d’Elf with John Medeski

Date: Sunday, December 12, 2011
Time: 10pm
Venue:  Le Poisson Rouge  (158 Bleecker Street, New York, NY 10012, ph: 212- 505-3474)
Ticket: $18
Genre:  funk, North African trance, and electronic/trip-hop

Club d’Elf w/ John Medeski – Club d’Elf’s music has been called “Moroccan-dosed dub-trance-jazz”, and draws upon electronica, Moroccan Gnawa music, dub, free jazz, hip-hop & funk to create a heady, danceable mix. The band convened for the first time in 1998, spearheaded and fronted by bassist/composer Mike Rivard, a busy session player who has recorded & performed with Morphine, Jon Brion, Aimee Mann, G Love & Jonatha Brooke, amongst others. Rivard drew from the players in the myriad of bands he worked with to fill out the ranks of D’Elf, creating an incredibly diverse rotating cast. Formed around a core rhythm section with the addition of different special guests for each show, the idea was to remix Rivard’s groove-based compositions differently for each performance. Guests over the years have included John Medeski & Billy Martin (MMW), DJ Logic, Marc Ribot, Skerik, and Marco Benevento (Benevento / Russo Duo), with jambands.com describing the situation thusly: “Club d’Elf consists of Mike Rivard and any cohorts who decide to embark with him into perilous sonic chimeras.”