thursday6
Thursday6
Slaid CleavesRudresh Mahanthappa’s Chicago Legacy Ensemble Featuring Bunky GreenWarlocks
Friday7
Bobby Broom TrioDepeche ModeGrant Park OrchestraBrad PaisleyWarlocksZap Mama
Saturday8
Bobby Broom TrioGrant Park OrchestraThe Low Anthem
Sunday9
Bat for LashesDarren JohnstonMisfits
Wednesday12
Darren Johnston
RUDRESH MAHANTHAPPA’S CHICAGO LEGACY ENSEMBLE FEATURING BUNKY GREEN Alto saxophonist Rudresh Mahanthappa is part of a new class of artists—alongside pianist Vijay Iyer and trumpeter Amir ElSaffar, both of whom have worked with him—who’ve found meaningful ways to combine jazz with the traditional music of their heritages. He’s had a banner year, earning effusive praise for his 2008 albums Kinsmen (Pi) and Apti (Innova), which marry heady postbop and Indian classical music in sophisticated, focused, and distinctly different ways. But Mahanthappa was blowing killer postbop long before he developed this fusion, and that’s the tradition he’ll emphasize at this special concert. When he studied at DePaul in the mid-90s, he played with most of the musicians in what he’s calling his Chicago Legacy Ensemble—bass trumpeter Ryan Schultz, trumpeter Tito Carrillo, pianist Ron Perrillo, and drummer Eric Montzka. (Bassist Francois Moutin, born in France and based in New York, is a member of Mahanthappa’s regular quartet.) The real treat is the presence of alto saxophonist Bunky Green, 74, a Milwaukee native who made his name in Chicago during the 60s and now teaches in Florida. He was one of Mahanthappa’s early influences, and you can still hear similarities in their styles: the bright, biting tone, the relentless energy, the harmonic sophistication, the inventive skeins of melody. The group will play tunes Mahanthappa wrote for the occasion, plus one or two by Green. 6:30 PM, Pritzker Pavilion, Millennium Park, Michigan and Randolph, 312-742-1168. —Peter Margasak
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WARLOCKS Ten years in, these Velvet Underground worshippers are still working their own niche—the Warlocks aren’t so much shoegazers as pointy black boot gazers. But as is often the case with bands who stare at their footwear, on occasion they’ve failed to watch where they were going: on 2005’s Surgery they got mired in soppy pop, and on 2007’s Heavy Deavy Skull Lover they just sounded like they were trying too hard to convince us they were evil. But their fifth full-length, The Mirror Explodes (Tee Pee), strikes just the right balance between those two kinds of self-indulgence. They absolutely should be self-indulgent—that’s a cornerstone of the genre—so the only real question is how. On Mirror, they’ve slimmed down to a five-piece and ditched the second drummer, but they still manage to shape their drony waves of sound in such a way that they seem substantial enough to splash around in—which they do, soaking one another in guitar fuzz as though it were muddy water. They’re still metaphorically standing with their backs to the audience, but I get the feeling that’s because we’re not supposed to see how much fun they’re having—they’ve got a facade of cool, nihilist detachment to maintain, after all. See also Friday. The Morning After Girls, Gliss, and Sadhu Sadhu open. 9 PM, Empty Bottle, 1035 N. Western, 773-276-3600 or 866-468-3401, $10. —Monica Kendrick
BOBBY BROOM TRIO Arguably the finest mainstream jazz combo in town, the trio led by guitarist Bobby Broom used its two most recent studio albums—Stand! (2001) and Song and Dance (2007)—to make a case for modern pop songs as worthy material for an improvising band. The new Bobby Broom Plays for Monk (Origin), on the other hand, is devoted to tunes either written by or associated with one of the most influential and important figures in jazz, and Broom, bassist Dennis Carroll, and drummer Kobie Watkins tackle the pianist’s hallowed compositions without changing their band’s lean sound. Broom doesn’t attempt to precisely emulate the jagged rhythms and tangled melodies of Monk’s own performances, instead conveying the essence of each song in a new form that’s subtly transformed by his velvety fluidity and grace. Carroll and Watkins lubricate “In Walked Bud” with a sly, unobtrusive funk groove, allowing Broom’s blues-touched lines to glide elegantly over the top; in their hands the midtempo hard-bop workout “Ask Me Now” becomes a sophisticated ballad. These veteran players have no need to prove themselves fluent in the canon, and indeed they’re doing something quite a bit more impressive with this album—they manage to put an individual stamp on Monk’s ubiquitous and instantly recognizable tunes without wrecking their unique beauty. See also Saturday. 9 PM, Green Mill, 4802 N. Broadway, 773-878-5552, $12. —Peter Margasak
ZAP MAMA On her latest album as Zap Mama, ReCreation (Heads Up International), Marie Daulne both revisits her past—”Singing Sisters” features Sylvie Nawasadio and Sabine Kabongo, who were both part of Zap Mama when it was an a cappella quintet—and continues to add depth and richness to the cosmopolitan strain of R & B she’s settled into over the past decade. Though Zap Mama was originally inspired by the densely contrapuntal communal vocal music of Congolese Pygmies, these days Daulne applies her elastic voice to sultry balladry, French chanson, rafter-raising soul, and Bjork-like wordless abstraction; four tracks on the new disc were cut in Brazil with Alexandre Kassin and two of his steady collaborators in the +2 groups, Pedro Sa and Berna Ceppas, and others were recorded in New York with top-flight jazz and funk players like drummer Karriem Riggins and bassist Anthony Tidd. Guest vocalists include Bilal, G. Love, and French actor Vincent Cassel, and the lyrics are in several languages, but Daulne animates her songs with an aesthetic vision strong enough to help all this variety cohere into a surprisingly singular sound. This set is part of Lollapalooza. 1 PM, Grant Park, Columbus and Jackson, lollapalooza.com or 888-512-7469, $80 (three-day pass $250). —Peter Margasak
GRANT PARK ORCHESTRA See Friday. A pre-performance talk begins at 6:15 PM. 7:30 PM, Harris Theater, Millennium Park, 205 E. Randolph, 312-334-7777.
