From top to bottom, this evening's lineup is stacked with nimbly sophisticated musicians who all share the ability to play a dizzying variety of music styles. Michael Franti & Spearhead’s new Anti- Records CD, All Rebel Rockers, which was produced by the legendary duo Sly & Robbie and recorded in Jamaica, is — not surprisingly — heavily steeped in reggae and dub, but the earnest leftist activists are also deft with hip-hop, funk, rock and folk styles. Ozomatli, meanwhile, cook up a percolating gumbo spiced with borderless world-music influences; they seem determined to compose the kind of L.A.-centric anthems that truly define the neighborhoods and cultures overlooked in Randy Newman's "I Love L.A."

The real star of the bill, however, might be the ever-charismatic Oaxacan-American chanteuse Lila Downs (pictured), whose wide-ranging new 16-song CD, Shake Away (Blue Note), ranges from traditional Mixtec, Zapotec and Mayan folk to rock, jazz and unclassifiable exotica. She poignantly empathizes with immigrant workers on the dusty blues shuffle “Minimum Wage,” transforms Peter Green’s standard “Black Magic Woman” with a primal heartbeat, and sings two introspective versions (in Spanish and English) of Lucinda Williams' "I Envy the Wind." Fantastic and captivating.

September 21, 2008, 7 pm

By Falling James