ROCK AND POP

Musicians and night-club proprietors live complicated lives; it’s advisable to check in advance to confirm engagements.

 

BOWERY BALLROOM

6 Delancey St. (212-533-2111)—Jan. 7: The funky belter Lee Fields, who is also known as Little J.B. Jan. 8: The endearing local soprano Sharon Van Etten recently released her second album, “Epic,” on which she fills out her instrumentation with full-band arrangements. She’s gone from playing small outer-borough spots to headlining this downtown venue, a stepping stone to even larger rooms.

 

CITY WINERY

155 Varick St. (212-608-0555)—Jan. 8: As front man for the Grammy-winning act Men at Work, Colin Hay helped that band’s wry brand of Antipodean pop dominate the charts in the early eighties. After three records, however, the Men stopped working, and Hay pursued a comparatively reserved solo career. Several albums later, he performs songs both from his days with Men at Work and from his more recent solo material, which dabbles in country and blues. He’s here with Katie Herzig, Cheryl Wheeler, Po’Girl, and the Ryan Montbleau Band. Jan. 10-12: The Oy!hoo Festival, a music series associated with Schmooze ’11, a conference of about two hundred Jewish arts programmers and producers from some fifteen different counties. The first night features Achinoam Nini (Noa), one of Israel’s top singer-songwriters; the second includes the Klezmatics, Joshua Nelson, and the duo Good for the Jews; and the third features a solo piano performance by the Israeli pop sensation Rami Kleinstein.

 

DROM

85 Avenue A, between 5th and 6th Sts. (212-777-1157)—Jan. 8: A Barbès Records showcase, with Les Chauds Lapins, a ukulele-and-banjo vocal duo (which will be backed by a string trio); Pierre De Gaillande, who sings the songs of Georges Brassens; Hazmat Modine, a harmonica-and-tuba-powered outfit; Chicha Libra, which traffics in Peruvian psychedelic cumbias; and Brooklyn Qawwali Party, an eleven-piece ensemble that reworks the music of Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan.

 

GLOBALFEST

Jan. 9: This annual gathering brings a baker’s dozen of the world’s top acts to the same stage. This year features two U.S. débuts (Ballaké Sissoko & Vincent Segal and Yoro Ndiaye) and one New York début (Kaumakaiwa Kanaka’ole, from Hawaii). (Webster Hall, 125 E. 11th St. For more information, visit globalfest-ny.org.)

 

HIRO BALLROOM

371 W. 16th St. (866-468-7623)—Jan. 10: Huun-Huur-Tu, Red Baraat, and other acts whose music comes from the far corners of the globe.

 

JOE’S PUB

425 Lafayette St. (212-539-8777)—Jan. 6: Chicha Libre (see Drom). Jan. 7: It was one door down, at the Public Theatre, that Stew and his collaborator Heidi Rodewald had a successful run of their show “Passing Strange,” which went on to Broadway, won a Tony for Best Book of a Musical, and was captured on film by Spike Lee. Before all that success, there was the Negro Problem, their L.A. band, which dates back to the early nineties. Recently, Stew and Heidi wrote new material and have brought the band out of mothballs.

 

LET’S ZYDECO

Jan. 9: The concert series dedicated to the indigenous sounds of Louisiana brings Jeffery Broussard & the Creole Cowboys to Connolly’s, an Irish pub in midtown with a fine wooden dance floor. Broussard began his musical career drumming in the band led by his father, the legendary Louisiana accordionist Delton Broussard. He then strapped on the squeezebox himself, becoming the front man for Zydeco Force, and now he’s leading his own band. As a singer and a player, Broussard adds a healthy dose of soul to rollicking Creole rhythms. (121 W. 45th St. For more information, call 212-685-7597 or visit letszydeco.com.)

 

THE ROCK SHOP

249 Fourth Ave., Brooklyn (718-230-5740)—Jan. 8: The excellent Brooklyn band Grooms (mercifully no longer known as the Muggabears) sputter and start through guitar-driven alternative rock of a nineties vintage. But don’t expect the hackneyed nostalgia that generally accompanies such throwbacks; the front man, Travis Johnson, has an offhand demeanor that does little to mask his disarming vulnerability or his songwriting chops. The group’s much anticipated new record was originally slated for release this past October on Kanine Records. It was postponed, but the current live show highlights the band’s new material, as well as choice cuts from its 2009 début.

 

TERRA BLUES

149 Bleecker St. (212-777-7776)—Jan. 7 and Jan. 10: In 1968, at age sixteen, the Bayonne-born Michael Powers met the venerable blues musician Jimmy Reed. Reed passed some tips about his distinctive bar-chording technique on to Powers, who made good use of the lesson. With his band Frequency (featuring Barry Harrison on drums and Billy Cristiani on bass), Powers delivers straight-ahead, high-energy electric blues. Jan. 8 and Jan. 11: For most of the past decade, Slam Allen has been the lead guitarist and singer in the James Cotton blues band. When he steps out on his own, Allen favors a particularly hearty version of rhythm and blues.

 

UNION POOL

484 Union Ave., Brooklyn (718-609-0484)—This converted pool-supply store hosts a release party on Jan. 8 for two rising psychedelic solo artists. Matthew Mondanile is best known for his work with the feel-good Jersey fuzz-poppers Real Estate; his bedroom lo-fi project, Ducktails, has developed tangentially, with an interest in sun-drenched slacker psych. Ducktails’ new record is “Ducktails III: Arcade Dynamics.” Especially exciting is an appearance by the reclusive sonic draftsman Gary War. An inexplicably underrated figure of the New York underground, War cut his teeth with Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti but left before the band’s recent success. In November, the voguish imprint Sacred Bones Records released War’s tertiary solo effort, “Police Water.” A welcome shift toward more focussed material, the layered songs are icy, synthetic drones propelled by boxy drum machines and frantically arpeggiating keyboards.

JAZZ AND STANDARDS

 

ALGONQUIN HOTEL

59 W. 44th St. (212-840-6800)—Jan. 4-15: The husband-and-wife team of Eric Comstock and Barbara Fasano send a valentine to the Big Apple, with a program of songs about New York City.

 

BIRDLAND

315 W. 44th St. (212-581-3080)—Jan. 5-9: The Overtone Quartet, featuring the bassist Dave Holland, the saxophonist Chris Potter, the pianist Jason Moran, and the drummer Eric Harland, is an authentic jazz supergroup.

 

BLUE NOTE

131 W. 3rd St. (212-475-8592)—Jan. 6-9: Cassandra Wilson is the most influential and captivating singer of her generation. Her latest album is “Silver Pony.” Jan. 10: An odd but potentially satisfying double bill pairs the idiosyncratic vocalist Kurt Elling, here taking on the work of Frank Sinatra, and the quartet of the questing saxophonist Ravi Coltrane.

 

CAFÉ CARLYLE

Carlyle Hotel, Madison Ave. at 76th St. (212-744-1600)—Starting Jan. 11: The sizeable talents of the Broadway star Christine Ebersole get support from the esteemed musical director John Oddo.

 

DIZZY’S CLUB COCA-COLA

33 W. 60th St. (212-258-9595)—Jan. 4-9: The saxophonist Walter Blanding teams up with another Wynton Marsalis associate, the trumpeter Marcus Printup, as well the singer Audrey Shakir and others.

 

FEINSTEIN’S AT LOEWS REGENCY

540 Park Ave., at 61st St. (212-339-4095)—Jan. 4-9: Lorna Luft, in “Songs My Mother Taught Me: The Judy Garland Songbook.” Luft, Liza Minnelli’s half sister, shares the family gift for theatrical flair.

 

IRIDIUM

1650 Broadway, at 51st St. (212-582-2121)—Jan. 10: The guitarist Jim Hall, who recently turned eighty, still towers above his six-string compatriots, no matter their age. A familiar face, the vibrant saxophonist Greg Osby, joins him.

 

JAZZ STANDARD

116 E. 27th St. (212-576-2232)—Jan. 5-9: A shining light of the jazz renaissance of the eighties, the trumpeter Terence Blanchard (whose fame as a film composer may be eclipsing that of his other distinctive talents) continues his musical evolution.

 

NEW YORK WINTER JAZZ FEST

The little festival that could—now in its seventh year—judiciously avoids the mainstream through a smart mix of forward-thinking artists and still vital veterans. Sprawling through five West Village venues and swinging until four in the morning, the festival features more than sixty artists, including Robert Glasper, Steve Coleman, Anat Cohen, Charles Gayle, Shane Endsley, Nels Cline, and Abdoulaye Diabaté. (Jan. 7-8. For more information, visit winterjazzfest.com.)

 

PUPPET’S JAZZ BAR

481 Fifth Ave., between 11th and 12th Sts., Brooklyn (718-499-2622)—Jan. 8: The bassist Ron Carter and his trio-mate Russell Malone, on guitar, perform duets at this intimate club.

 

SMALLS

183 W. 10th St. (No phone)—Jan. 6-8: A contemporary jazz-organ trio featuring frequent collaborators: the guitarist Peter Bernstein, the drummer Bill Stewart, and the keyboardist Larry Goldings.

 

VILLAGE VANGUARD

178 Seventh Ave. S., at 11th St. (212-255-4037)—Jan. 4-9: Although the guitarist Kurt Rosenwinkel’s recent ambitious recording, “Our Secret World,” found him collaborating with the Portuguese big band Orquestra Jazz de Matosinhos, here he scales down the original material for a lean quartet featuring the pianist Aaron Parks