Avant Music News

From DC’s Bohemian Caverns:

BRIAN SETTLES & CENTRAL UNION
$15
Sunday 7/01

DAVID MURRAY BLACK MUSIC INFINITY QUARTET
$25
Friday 7/13

From NYTimes.com:

Bargemusic (Friday, Saturday and Sunday) There’s a characteristic mix at the floating barge this week. Friday brings Rob Schwimmer playing new music for piano, theremin and continuum, Saturday has a tantalizing program of piano music by Liszt, Cage, Messiaen and Franco Donatoni (with Jeffrey Swann as soloist) and Sunday features music by Haydn, Schumann and Brahms for piano trio. At 8 p.m. on Friday and Saturday, 2 p.m. on Sunday, Bargemusic, Fulton Ferry Landing next to the Brooklyn Bridge, Brooklyn, (718) 624-2083, bargemusic.org; $25, $20 for 65+, $15 for students on Friday; $35, $30 for 65+, $15 for students on Saturday and Sunday. (Woolfe)

Darmstadt Institute 2012 (Friday) This lively, casual series ends with a bang — many bangs, actually — as John Colpitts, a k a Kid Millions, the drummer of the avant-rock band Oneida, presents the latest iteration of his Man Forever project, which combines the heady focus of early Minimalism, the exhilaration of free jazz and the chthonic force of punk rock. Mr. Colpitts will also present new works involving guitars and dance. At 8 p.m., Issue Project Room, 22 Boerum Place, at Livingston Street, downtown Brooklyn, (718) 330-0313, issueprojectroom.org; $15. (Steve Smith)

‘Empty Words’ (Saturday) John Cage reportedly sought to “demilitarize” language with “Empty Words,” a 12-hour recitation in which he wrested words by Thoreau loose from syntax, grammar and structure. Here, the John Cage Trust and the New Albion record label present a rare airing of a Cage recording of the work, with dusk and dawn music provided by Josh Quillen of So Percussion. At 7 p.m., the Spiegeltent at the Richard B. Fisher Center for the Performing Arts, Bard College, (845) 758-7948, fishercenter.bard.edu; sold out. (Smith)

English: Cindy Blackman plays at Willisau Jazz 2007, Switzerland (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

From NYTimes.com:

Jacob Fred Jazz Odyssey (Friday) This shrewdly inclusive outfit — part jam band, part jazz group and increasingly set apart by Chris Combs’s playing on lap steel guitar — recently released “The Race Riot Suite” (Kinnara/Royal Potato Family), a laudably ambitious effort to address a notorious series of events in the band’s hometown, Tulsa, Okla., in 1921. The album’s vibrant eclecticism should come off well in this late-night set, part of the Blue Note Jazz Festival. At 12:30 a.m., Blue Note, 131 West Third Street, Greenwich Village, (212) 475-8592 bluenote.net; $15 cover, with a $5 minimum. (Chinen)

Out of Your Head Brooklyn (Sunday) This biweekly series, an offshoot of a similar effort in Baltimore, assembles crews of young musicians for first-time spontaneous interplay. The first set, at 9:30 p.m., will include the saxophonists Nathaniel Morgan and Anna Webber, the keyboardists Jessie Stacken and Landon Knoblock, and the drummer Flin van Hemmen. The second set, at 11 p.m., will feature the guitarist Dustin Carlson, the bassist Will McEvoy and the drummer Booker Stardrum. At Freddy’s Bar, 627 Fifth Avenue, South Slope, (718) 768-0131, freddysbar.com, outofyourhead.org; free. (Chinen)

★ Marc Ribot Trio (through Sunday) Marc Ribot, whose persuasively prickly guitar playing has long been a protean feature of the downtown scene, leads the trio previously at the core of Spiritual Unity, his tribute to the free-jazz saxophonist Albert Ayler. The bassist is Henry Grimes, a survivor of the Ayler-era avant-garde; the drummer is Chad Taylor, who also works in the realm of experimental rock. It’s not a group one expects to see at the Village Vanguard, despite Ayler’s history there, so consider this a momentous incursion. At 9 and 11 p.m., Village Vanguard, 178 Seventh Avenue South, at 11th Street, West Village, (212) 255-4037, villagevanguard.com; $25, with a one-drink minimum. (Chinen)

★ Spectrum Road (Friday) On its new self-titled Palmetto debut, this jazz-rock supergroup — Jack Bruce on bass, Vernon Reid on guitar, John Medeski on organ and Mellotron and Cindy Blackman on drums — brings combustible intensity to the music of the Tony Williams Lifetime, its north star and repertory muse. The group has more than a passing claim to its chosen repertory: Mr. Bruce, best known as a member of Cream, recorded with the Tony Williams Lifetime in the early 1970s, and Ms. Blackman is Williams’s purest disciple on drums. This stand is part of the Blue Note Jazz Festival. At 8 p.m., B.B. King Blues Club & Grill, 237 West 42nd Street, Manhattan, (800) 745-3000, bbkingblues.com; $50. (Chinen)

Jesse Stacken Trio (Friday) The pianist Jesse Stacken applies an obsessive conceptual rigor to his new album, “Bagatelles for Trio” (Fresh Sound New Talent), which negotiates a balance between classical form and jazz improvisation, in ways that aren’t obvious or forced. His colleagues on the album, and in this concert, are the bassist Eivind Opsvik and the drummer Jeff Davis; they have constituted a working unit for much of the last decade, and it shows. At 8 p.m., Tenri Cultural Institute, 43A West 13th Street, Manhattan, (212) 645-2800, tenri.org; $15 in advance, $20 at the door. (Chinen)