Our guide to pop and rock shows and the best of live jazz happening this weekend and in the week ahead.
Pop & Rock
BIG FREEDIA at Brooklyn Bowl (Oct. 31, 8 p.m.; Nov. 1, 11:30 p.m.). This longtime New Orleans legend has recently garnered national attention, much like the music she champions: bounce, the underground hip-hop subgenre that crept into the mainstream through its influence on chart toppers by the likes of Drake and N.E.R.D. Freedia’s ascent has been due in no small part to her prominence in Beyoncé’s explosive 2016 single “Formation,” as well as a reality series about Freedia’s life that aired on Fuse. Despite her high profile and longevity, her catalog is relatively trim. Nonetheless, expect high-octane performances, fueled by songs from her 2018 EP “3rd Ward Bounce” and signature tracks like “Azz Everywhere,” during her two-night engagement at Brooklyn Bowl.
718-963-3369, brooklynbowl.com
CATEGORY IS … SONIC SYNESTHESIA at Baby’s All Right (Oct. 30, 9:30 p.m.). Hosted by Pink Boot, a media outlet started this year to celebrate women and femmes of color, this showcase is headlined by the Canadian artist Tommy Genesis. Once a member of Atlanta’s bawdy Awful Records crew, this self-described “fetish rapper” delivers hard-charging, hypersexual bars in an unexpectedly soft, melodic croon on her self-titled debut, released last year. At this haunt in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, she will be joined by Mila J, an underrecognized industry vet who did a stint on the girl group circuit before venturing out on her own to make sultry, trap-tinged R&B.
718-599-5800, babysallright.com
DEAD & COMPANY at Madison Square Garden (Oct. 31-Nov. 1, 7 p.m.). Deadheads, bust out the tie-dye. The original jam band — or, at least, its most legitimate spinoff group — is headed to Manhattan. On the fourth anniversary of their first dates at the Garden, the band, which includes three out of the “core four” surviving Grateful Dead members, returns to deliver their psychedelic stylings across two nights at the storied arena. By including in their lineup the undeniably gifted, if chronically controversial, singer-guitarist John Mayer, who himself headlined the Garden back in July, Dead & Company have opened themselves up to a new generation of fans.
212-465-6000, msg.com
INGRID MICHAELSON at Webster Hall (Oct. 28-29, 7 p.m.). Over the course of her career, this singer-songwriter has evolved from indie darling into burgeoning pop phenom. While she found early success with tender, coffeehouse-ready gems like “Be OK” and “The Way I Am,” her more recent work, like the bright, brassy anthem “Girls Chase Boys,” has conspicuously aimed for Top 40 territory. Michaelson is currently on tour behind “Stranger Songs,” an oddball concept album inspired by the Netflix series “Stranger Things.” In concert, she’s a true entertainer whose comedic talents often share the stage with her musical gifts.
websterhall.com
NAI PALM at Brooklyn Bowl (Oct. 29, 8 p.m.). This singer-songwriter, born Naomi Saalfield, is often described as a neo-soul specialist, due in no small part to the airy vocal runs — reminiscent of Erykah Badu or Alicia Keys — that she doles out as the frontwoman of the Australian R&B group Hiatus Kaiyote. But her influences are far more expansive than that classification would suggest. “Needle Paw,” the stripped-back solo album she released in 2017, is informed by West African music as well as rock à la Radiohead and Jimi Hendrix (both of whom she covers on the record). On Tuesday, following Monday’s sold-out Hiatus Kaiyote show at Brooklyn Steel, Nai Palm will play a solo set at this nearby hot spot.
718-963-3369, brooklynbowl.com
[Read about the events that our other critics have chosen for the week ahead.]
NOISEY NIGHTS HALLOWEEN PARTY at Villain (Oct. 31, 8 p.m.). As usual, a predicament of choice is likely to strike New Yorkers in search of Halloween entertainment. Noisey, the Vice-owned music vertical, will host one of the night’s better offerings, headlined by the L.A.-based duo Ho99o9. Their jagged fusion of hardcore and hip-hop, which uses sonic violence to confront political violence, is suitably haunting for the occasion; “Master of Pain,” a cut from their latest EP that opens with a “Tales From the Crypt” sample, is particularly spooky. Anika, a mononymous singer of bleak art rock, will also perform at the event, which is free with advance registration.
eventbrite.com
OLIVIA HORN
Jazz
BRIC JAZZFEST at the BRIC House (through Oct. 26). This annual festival brings some of jazz’s greatest rising talents to Fort Greene, a Brooklyn neighborhood that’s rich with black musical history but no longer has any year-round jazz clubs. This year’s BRIC JazzFest Marathon, which takes place across three stages at BRIC’s headquarters, features performances on Thursday from the likes of Ravi Coltrane and Makaya McCraven, on Friday from Georgia Anne Muldrow and Joel Ross, and on Saturday from Louis Cole and Kassa Overall.
bricartsmedia.org
MARY HALVORSON AND JOHN DIETERICH at Roulette (Oct. 28, 8 p.m.). The jaggy, pent-up energy in Deerhoof’s caustic art rock owes a lot to Dieterich’s guitar playing. And his squirming style has a lot in common with that of Halvorson, the improvising guitarist (and all-purpose sound exploder) who was recently named a 2019 MacArthur fellow. At this show the pair will celebrate the release of their first duet album, “A Tangle of Stars,” laden with worried atmospheres, sour-toned touches and snarled lines.
917-267-0368, roulette.org
CRAIG HARRIS’S ‘FESTAC ’77’ at Tishman Auditorium (Oct. 25, 7:30 p.m.). In 1977, this trombonist — then in his mid-20s — traveled to Lagos, Nigeria, with the Sun Ra Arkestra to perform in the Second World Black and African Festival of Arts and Culture, known as FESTAC, a landmark gathering of people from across the African diaspora. The experience changed Harris’s life and cemented his path as both a musician and an organizer. Soon afterward he composed “FESTAC ’77,” a work for small chamber ensemble, which he went on to perform at Carnegie Hall and record (in part) on an album for Elektra. Now Harris, 66, will present the suite again for the first time in years as part of “Pan African Space Station,” a three-day installation mounted by Chimurenga, a Pan-African cultural organization based in South Africa.
events.newschool.edu
BILLY HART QUARTET at the Village Vanguard (through Oct. 27, 8:30 and 10:30 p.m.). In this quartet, which has been together for over a decade, Hart, 78, has found a healthy mix of late-career comfort and heady creative inspiration. One of the sturdiest outfits in jazz, it places his coolly understated style of drumming in an ever-evolving, ruminative conversation with three musicians a generation his junior: the tenor saxophonist Mark Turner, the pianist Ethan Iverson and the bassist Ben Street. The group performs semi-regularly at the Vanguard, where its full-blooded, quietly restrained music feels right at home.
212-255-4037, villagevanguard.com
CHRISTIAN SANDS HIGHWIRE TRIO at Jazz Standard (Oct. 25-27, 7:30 and 9:30 p.m.). Barely 30, Sands is already known as one of the most commanding pianists of jazz’s young generation, a gospel-infused technician with contemporary sensibilities and a deeply rhythmic approach. His most recent album, “Facing Dragons,” features eight original compositions ranging from muscly postbop to dreamy extrapolations on samba, plus one radically reconstructed Beatles cover. Sands is also the creative ambassador to the Erroll Garner Jazz Project, a nonprofit devoted to the legacy of that historic jazz pianist. Here he will perform music from Garner’s repertoire with his Highwire Trio, featuring the bassist Luques Curtis and the drummer Ulysses Owens Jr.
212-576-2232, jazzstandard.com
ELIO VILLAFRANCA QUINTET at Smoke (Oct. 24 and 27, 7 and 9 p.m.; Oct. 25-26, 7, 9 and 10:30 p.m.). This virtuoso pianist’s most recent album is “Cinque,” an expansive two-disc collection that explores the music of his native Cuba and other Caribbean islands through a jazz lens, as it celebrates the story of Joseph Cinque, who led a successful revolt in 1839 aboard the slave ship Amistad. The album puts Villafranca’s brightly evocative, harmonically layered pianism alongside his talents as a composer and arranger. He performs this weekend at Smoke with Bruce Harris on trumpet, Greg Tardy on tenor saxophone and clarinet, Gregg August on bass and Dion Parson on drums.
212-864-6662, smokejazz.com
GIOVANNI RUSSONELLO
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