Our guide to pop and rock shows and the best of live jazz happening this weekend and in the week ahead.
Pop & Rock
AVETT BROTHERS at Barclays Center (Oct. 5, 8 p.m.). For nearly two decades, this sibling duo has been riding a wave of folk-rock revivalism that swept them, along with bands like Mumford & Sons and Fleet Foxes, into the national spotlight. Together, Scott and Seth Avett write earnest, strummy odes to love, family and personal growth. With the five-piece soul band Lake Street Dive as a supporting act, the brothers will perform at Barclays Center a day after releasing their 10th studio album, “Closer Than Together.” Expect their best-known song, “I and Love and You,” with its repeated refrain of “Brooklyn, Brooklyn, take me in,” to have special resonance when performed on one of the biggest stages in the borough.
917-618-6100, barclayscenter.com
COMMON at the Apollo Theater (Oct. 8, 8 p.m.). Well known in the hip-hop world since the 1990s, this rapper’s talents have since seeped across genres and disciplines: He is an actor, writer and activist, a third of the jazz-rap supergroup August Greene and a Tony short of EGOT status. In August, Common released a new album, “Let Love.” Riffing on the title of his recent memoir, “Let Love Have the Last Word,” the album is a deeply personal set that builds lounge atmospherics into meditations on nurture, faith and love — self-love in particular. A thesis of sorts can be heard on “Good Morning Love”: “Taking care of self is the new black.” Jamila Woods will set the stage for his performance at the Apollo.
212-531-5305, apollotheater.org
SHEER MAG at Elsewhere (Oct. 9, 8 p.m.). If Tina Halladay ever gives up her career as one of rock’s most powerful frontwomen, she might consider leading the proletariat uprising. As the face of this Philadelphia-based four piece, she has already given voice to her revolutionary instincts: Songs like “Expect the Bayonet,” from the group’s 2017 debut, and “Steel Sharpens Steel,” from their recent album “A Distant Call,” promise retaliation for ongoing oppression. Sonically, the group clearly draws inspiration from 1970s rock, working with woolly guitar tones and scream-along choruses, but consciously remakes that era’s politics.
elsewherebrooklyn.com
SHOW UP FOR THE IMMIGRANT DEFENSE PROJECT at Baby’s All Right (Oct. 6, 7 p.m.). With the Trump administration’s crackdown on immigration, musicians and organizers are banding together to take a stand. In recent months, the city has seen a number of concerts championing immigrants’ rights, on scales both large (SummerStage’s Selena for Sanctuary event) and small (Union Pool’s Freedom for Immigrants benefit). On Sunday, this Brooklyn spot will follow suit with a lineup that includes the psychedelic soul singer Nick Hakim and the bedroom-pop singer-songwriter Sidney Gish. The show is organized by a nonprofit started by the sisters Julia and Rosie Sherman who through concerts and pie sales raise money for causes such as reproductive rights and disaster relief.
718-599-5800, babysallright.com
THRASHER X VANS DEATH MATCH NYC at Knockdown Center (Oct. 5-6, 3 p.m.). Warped Tour wrapped its multidecade run in the summer, and House of Vans, a concert hall and art space in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, closed its doors in August 2018. There’s a relatively new addition to Vans’ portfolio of branded music events, though: Death Match, a free concert series hosted with the skateboarding bible Thrasher. Born in Austin, Texas (and originally sponsored by Vans’ competitor Converse), with a Queens outpost that cropped up last year, the franchise brings together fans of punk, metal and rap. This year, the lineup on Saturday is especially stacked, with performances by the hardcore trio Show Me the Body, the bilingual confrontationists Downtown Boys and the post-punk quartet Protomartyr.
718-489-6285, knockdown.center
[Read about the events that our other critics have chosen for the week ahead.]
ZAZ at the Beacon Theater (Oct. 6, 7:30 p.m.). This singer from Tours, France, may not be a household name in the United States, but she has garnered a sizable European following ever since she broke out with “Je Veux,” a peppy rejection of material wealth that topped French charts in 2010. Over her career, Zaz, born Isabelle Geffroy, has released four albums’ worth of music ranging from Manouche-style jazz to electro-pop, all colored by her raspy yet powerful vocals and effusive delivery. Following a sold-out show at the Town Hall in April, she returns to Manhattan for an encore performance at the Beacon.
212-465-6000, beacontheatre.com
OLIVIA HORN
Jazz
FABIAN ALMAZAN TRIO at Jazz Gallery (Oct. 5, 7:30 and 9:30 p.m.). Among the most talented young pianists in jazz, Almazan has doubled for the past two years as an impresario — and tripled as an activist. His label, Biophilia Records, releases albums with an eye toward sustainability, and donates a portion of its proceeds to ecological causes. His most recent album, “This Land Abounds With Life,” featuring his trio, is a writhing, emotionally charged lament, full of some of the finest writing and playing of his blossoming career. Here Almazan appears with the bassist Linda May Han Oh (who was on the album) and the drummer Rudy Royston.
646-494-3625, jazzgallery.nyc
ART BLAKEY CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION at Dizzy’s Club (Oct. 7-12, 7:30 and 9:30 p.m.). Blakey is remembered equally for the thunderous power of his drumming and for his influence on future generations; for over three decades, his Jazz Messengers remained a proving ground for premier young musicians. In recognition of what would have been Blakey’s 100th birthday on Oct. 11, Jazz at Lincoln Center has assembled a six-night celebration of his legacy, starting on Monday with a performance by the drummer and Jazz Messengers alum Ralph Peterson, who now pays Blakey’s legacy forward as the leader of his own Gen-Next Big Band. On Tuesday and Wednesday, the all-star sextet One for All will play a selection of tunes from the Messengers’ songbook, and for the remaining nights the trumpeter Valery Ponomarev, a veteran of the Messengers, will lead tributes to Blakey (with his Our Father Who Art Blakey Big Band on Oct. 10, and then in a smaller group on Oct. 11 and 12).
212-258-9595, jazz.org/dizzys
FLY at the Village Vanguard (Oct. 8-13, 8:30 and 10:30 p.m.). The early 2000s were lean years on the New York jazz scene, but this trio marked a bright spot. Most groups with their instrumentation — tenor saxophone, bass and drums — would clearly spotlight the horn player, but Fly followed something like the model set in the late 1950s and early ’60s by Bill Evans’s piano trio and the Jimmy Giuffre 3, in which each band member played an equally liberated role, and the entire group thrived between a low and medium boil. The tenor saxophonist Mark Turner, the bassist Larry Grenadier and the drummer Jeff Ballard, all in their 50s, lead busy careers outside of Fly these days, but the band returns occasionally to the Vanguard, an old stomping ground.
212-255-4037, villagevanguard.com
SULLIVAN FORTNER TRIO at Jazz Standard (Oct. 3-6, 7:30 and 9:30 p.m.). At just 32, this dazzling New Orleanian pianist has already been handsomely decorated: He’s won the Leonore Annenberg Arts Fellowship, the American Pianists Association’s 2015 Cole Porter Fellowship and the 2016 Lincoln Center Award for Emerging Artists. And he’s caught the ears of many elder musicians. Here he performs with the bassist John Patitucci and the drummer Nasheet Waits, both a generation above him and among jazz’s most respected rhythm-section players.
212-576-2232, jazzstandard.com
ROBERT GLASPER at the Blue Note (Oct. 3-Nov. 3, 8 and 10:30 p.m.). Probably the most influential pianist and keyboardist of the past 20 years, Glasper has set himself a goal: to make blues tradition-based, improvised music that’s easy for the average listener to love. If it weren’t already clear that he’s succeeding, take as evidence the fact that he’s been invited back to the Blue Note for a rare monthlong residency, for the second year in a row. He will perform with the rapper and singer Yasiin Bey from Thursday to Sunday, his acoustic trio from Tuesday to Oct. 13, and the bassist and vocalist Esperanza Spalding on Oct. 15 and 16, among other guests. Throughout the residency Glasper will perform six days a week, taking Monday evenings off.
212-475-8592, bluenote.net
THANDISWA MAZWAI at the Schomburg Center (Oct. 8, 7 p.m.). One of the most famous musicians in South Africa, Mazwai jump-started her career as a vocalist for the band Bongo Maffin, which helped pioneer kwaito, a genre of South African house music. Since then she has established herself as a belter of clatteringly rhythmic, galvanizing songs about love, resistance and African identity (typically sung in Xhosa) — as well as a thrilling bandleader. This concert is presented in partnership with Carnegie Hall Citywide.
212-491-2040, schomburgcenter.org
GIOVANNI RUSSONELLO
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