1. Nels Cline and Yuka C. Honda Present: Floored by Four, Miho and Yuka cover Cibo Matto 

Date: Monday, December 6, 2010
Time: 8pm
Venue: Le Poisson Rouge (158 Bleecker Street, New York, NY 10012, ph: 212- 505-3474  
Ticket: $15
Genre: avant-pop/electronics

Floored By Four is the eponymous debut from Mike Watt’s “New York project,” a quartet of renowned musicians comprising Dougie Bowne on drums, guitarist Nels Cline, Yuka C. Honda on keys, and bass, spiel and compositions by Watt. 

Artists performing include: Nels Cline, Mike Watt, Miho Hatori, Dougie Bowne, Thomas Bartlett, Doug Wieselman and
Yuka C.Honda.

2. Los Van Van

Date: Monday, Tuesday & Wednesday, December 6, 7 & 8, 2010
Time: 9pm
Venue: S.O.B.’s (204 Varick St., New York, NY 10014)
Ticket: advanced $55
Genre: Cuban style of Salsa

‘The Rolling Stones of Salsa’, Los Van Van, come to SOB’s for two nights. Charismatic leader, Juan Formell always puts on a memorable show and the only way to see this group is up close and personal. Van Van are innovators of the Cuban style of Salsa, known as Songo and the band commits itself not just to entertaining fans but also producing vibrant music that breaks new ground with unique melodies. The band combines Afro-Cuban, Rock, Hip-hop, funk, and disco to create the novel genre of Songo. Since its founding in 1969, the band has maintained its position as one of the top bands in Cuba through its fresh material. Juan Formell, band leader and composer of Van Van, is one of the most important keys to the group’s success; with his poignant lyrics and story-telling ability. The band’s extraordinary talent led them to win a Latin Grammy in 2000.

3. Hal Linton, Tamika Jones, Showtufli and Omar Wilson

Date: Tuesday, December 7, 2010
Time:  9pm
Venue: Drom (85 Avenue A, N, NY 10009, 212- 777-1157)
Ticket: $10
Genre: R&B/Soul

TSJ Music Group presents Holiday Showcase: Hal Linton, Tamika Jones, Showtufli and Omar Wilson

4. Niels Lan Doky Trio

Date: Tuesday, December 7, 2010
Time:  7:30pm
Venue: JAZZ STANDARD (116 East 27th Street, New York, NY 10016-8942, (212) 576-2232)
Ticket: $20
Genre: Jazz

Niels Lan Doky is the first Danish jazz musician since the late great bassist Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen to attain international recognition and critical acclaim. At age 15, he was the protégé of American jazz legends Thad Jones and Ernie Wilkins; after moving to the US in 1981, he gigged and recorded with Joe Henderson, Clark Terry, David Sanborn, and Woody Shaw, among many other leaders. Niels released his debut album in 1986, and has since appeared on more than 30 recordings as a leader, sideman, and/or producer. His new CD is called Return to Denmark (Bro Recordings), and is a tribute to his motherland. A published writer and a skilled director (with his third film now in production), Niels Lan Doky is “a pianist of many parts,” wrote Richard Palmer in UK Jazz Journal. “He can be spicily laconic, appropriately rhapsodic, and fiercely muscular.”

• Niels Lan Doky – piano
  Larry Grenadier – bass
  Jeff “Tain” Watts – drums

5. The Mandingo Ambassadors

Date: Wednesday, December 8, 2010
Time: 10pm
Venue: Barbes (376 9th Street, Brooklyn, NY)
Ticket: $10
Genre: African Pop

The Mandingo Ambassadors’ regular show at Barbes. In the 1960’s and 1970’s, the government of Guinea engaged in a campaign known as Authenticité. It was a drive to create a new musical movement that would be specifically Guinean, but would include the modern wonders that were the electric guitar, the electric bass and the drumset. Musicians were given instruments and orchestras were formed. Surprisingly, the results proved mesmerizing and a myriad new bands were born. Many of them would go on to have a profound and lasting impact on African music. Mamady Kouyate was one of those pioneers. He played in various bands – his own band, Les Ambassadeurs du Mandingue, being one of them – but is probably best known as the guitarist in the the classic Bembeya Jazz National. Kouyate, who now lives in NY, has reformed the Mandingo Ambassadors, updating the sound of his youth, but keeping it very close to the standard of Authenticité. The new All-Star band includ es Ismael Kouyate – vocals; Mamady Kourouma – guitar; Oran Etkin – tenor sax & clarinets; Sylvain Leroux – flute, tambin and alto sax; Andy Algire – drums; Nick Cudahy – bass and Mamady Kouyate – guitar. “dazzling vocal and guitar patterns over a rhythm section that is like a perfect system” Ben Ratliff, NY Times.

6. Yacouba Sissoko

Date: Thursday, December 9, 2010
Time: 6-7:30pm
Venue: Harlem Library (9 W 124 St. NY) map
Ticket: t.b.a.
Genre: Kora music

The kora is a 21-string harp-lute made from a calabash gourd and used in West Africian songs of praise, ritual, and oral history for centuries. Musician Yacouba Sissoko is a kora master from Mali who has played with jazz, Latin and R & B bands as well as traditional African ceremonies.

7. Shreenath Enterprise proudly presents Shaam-E-Ghazal with Ghazal price Jaswinder Singh

Date: Friday, December 10. 2010
Time: 8pm
Venue: The Cordon Bleu Banquet Hall (96-01 Jamaica Avenue, Woodhaven, NY 11421, Tel: 718-805-8300)
More info call: Suhag Mehta: 347-8526 or email: suhagmehta@aol.com or janewaheed@hotmail.com.
Ticket: $50
Genre: Indian classical music

Jaswinder Singh obtained his initial music training from his father, before joining the Gandharva Mahavidyalaya.  At a very young age, he took to listening and learning from masters such as Mehdi Hassan, Ghulam Ali and Jagjit Singh. Jaswinder’s favourite singer was Jagjit Singh, and in due course he became a part of the Jagjit Singh gharana. Jaswinder is not only a talented singer but also a versatile composer.
In 2000, Jagjit presented Jaswinder’s first ghazal album titled “Aage Aage Dekhiye” which was released by HMV. 
The second ghazal album “Tamanna” composed and sung by Jaswinder demonstrates his coming of age as a consummate practician of the art. This album features melodies written by Nadeem Parmar, Farhat Shehzad, Rajinder Singh Jolly and others.

8. “IS AMERICA PART OF THE WORLD?”

 “IS AMERICA PART OF THE WORLD?” – Continues with Third Installment at Littlefields.

Four acts will present an eclectic night of dance, beats and sounds of the East, West, North & South. Nation Beat serve their Brazilian Carnival-meets-New Orleans Mardi Gras cocktail, while eleven-piece eclectic jazz orchestra Brooklyn Qawwali Party bring out the thunderous Qawwali songs and Tall Tall Trees hold it down with their banjo-driven folk rock for fans of indie rock and world music alike. One of New York’s finest mixocologist DJ Turmix  provides the funky Soul, Brazilian, Nu-jazz, Breaks and Boogaloo tunes.

9. RED BARAAT

Date: Friday, December 10, 2010
Time: 10pm
Venue: Barbes (376 9th Street, Brooklyn, NY)
Ticket: $10
Genre:  dhol ‘n’ brass band/Bhangra with brass funk

RED BARAAT. Led by drummer Sunny Jain, Red Baraat is the first and only dhol ‘n’ brass band of its kind in the States, melding the infectious North Indian rhythm Bhangra with brass funk and expressing the human spirit through improvisation and a powerful live sound. Comprised of dhol (double-sided, barrel-shaped North Indian drum slung over one shoulder), drumset, percussion, sousaphone, horns, and various vocalese, this NYC-based group plays fresh originals and Bollywood classics with an explosive stage performance and presence. In the short time since their inception, the group has delivered blistering performances at such varied places as the Montreal Jazz Festival, Chicago World Music Festival, Lincoln Center, the Pori Jazz Festival (Finland) and India Independence Day Parade.

10. Mountain Man / John Shade  

Date: Saturday, December 11, 2010
Time: 9pm
Venue: 92YTribeca (200 Hudson Street, ground floor, NY, NY 10013, 212-601-1000)
Ticket: $10
Genre: American Folk

The music of Mountain Man is nestled in the tradition of American folk, but shoots like diamond dust out of the nest into the high, wide atmosphere. Their songs are shaped by three searching voices, encompassing harmonies and a shared belief in and love of the world. Mountain Man’s members—Molly Erin Sarle, Alexandra Sauser-Monnig and Amelia Randall Meath—are mutually moved to sing by their love for people and for trees, birds and mountains, the ocean, the night, the moon and being a woman. Recorded in an old ice cream parlor from the turn of the 20th century, each track of the debut album Made the Harbor is imbued with the likes of warm breaths, creaking of floors, soft thumping of hands against their bodies, the clearing of their throats, or the false start of a tune, evoking the feeling of being in the room with the band as the record plays: demand for intimacy between the art and its listener.

John Shade’s debut album All You Love Is Need was recorded in 2009 (at Bon Iver’s studio in Wisconsin). Over the past year he has played to a growing fan base around the Boston area and has taken up residence in Brooklyn as of October 2010. Billboard calls his songs “literate and heartstring-tugging” and the Boston Globe calls the album “sublime”.

11. Cidinho Teixeira & Friends