TAREQ ABBOUSHI & SHUSMO Palestinian buzuq player Tareq Abboushi formed this New York-based band to bridge the gap between Arabic pop, with its glitzy surfaces and jacked-up club beats, and Arabic classical music. On Shusmo's new self-released album, Mumtastic, stately compositions, traditional instruments, and buoyant, backbeat-driven rhythms collide to create elastic, heavily acoustic music with a strong jazz-fusion feel. Abboushi and Palestinian percussionist Zafer Tawil are part of a pan-Arabic musical community in New York whose members use improvisation to stitch together disparate international styles, and both have worked with folks like Iraqi-American trumpeter Amir ElSaffar and Syrian singer Gaida Hinnawi. (Shusmo's five-piece lineup also includes Greek clarinetist and zurna player Lefteris Bournias, Peruvian percussionist Hector Morales, and American electric bassist Dave Phillips.) Though the band's recordings are a little on the slick side, its heady improvisations and fluid, hard-hitting grooves borrow an impressive range of ideas from around the globe. —Peter Margasak 8:30 PM, Old Town School of Folk Music, $5 suggested donation.