this week in music

LADY DAY AT EMERSON’S BAR AND GRILL

Audra McDonald channels Billie Holiday in LADY DAY (photo by Evgenia Eliseeva)

Circle in the Square Theatre
1633 Broadway at 50th St.
Tuesday – Sunday through August 10, $97 – $252
www.ladydayonbroadway.com

Watching — nay, experiencing — the astonishing Audra MacDonald inhabit Billie Holiday in Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar & Grill, one might think that the show was created specifically for the five-time Tony winner. In fact, it’s been around since 1986, and earlier off-Broadway and out-of-town versions have featured such stars as Lonette McKee, Eartha Kitt, S. Epatha Merkerson, Loretta Divine, and Jackée Harry. Inspired by one of Holiday’s final performances, at a small club in South Philadelphia a few months before her death in 1959 at the age of forty-four, Lanie Robertson’s (Nasty Little Secrets) ninety-minute show focuses on a brittle but still immensely talented Holiday as she performs classic songs while sharing tales from her difficult life, which was riddled with physical and sexual abuse, failed marriages, rape, prostitution, and drug and alcohol addiction. Backed by Shelton Becton as pianist Jimmy Powers, George Farmer on bass, and Clayton Craddock on drums (get there early, as the trio starts performing well before curtain time), McDonald nails Holiday’s unique phrasing and thrilling voice on such numbers as “I Wonder Where Our Love Has Gone,” “Crazy He Calls Me,” and “Easy Living” as well as “God Bless the Child,” which she cowrote, “T’aint Nobody’s Business If I Do,” and “Strange Fruit,” giving them added emotional resonance in relation to Lady Day’s tragic downfall. The audience sits around the thrust stage on three sides, with a “Circle Club” section in the middle, where patrons sit at tables and drink during the show and Holiday occasionally stumbles through, slurring her words, needing help just to stay upright. Directed by Lonny Price, who previously worked with McDonald on 110 in the Shade, Lady Day is a poignant, passionate look at one of the greatest singers who ever lived, magnificently portrayed by one of Broadway’s very best.

VIDEO OF THE DAY: “DON’T MESS AROUND WITH MY BOY” BY THE DYSORDERLIES

Sunday is Easter and the sixth day of Passover, and New York City band the Dysorderlies will be celebrating both at a special afternoon show at 2:30 at Otto’s Shrunken Head. An indie group with an engaging sound that boasts roots in the ’60s and ’70s, the Dysorderlies perform socially conscious rock-and-roll that takes on such topics as bullying (“Don’t Mess Around with My Boy”) and homelessness (“Jerry”) without becoming didactic or overwrought. Other highlights include “One Love,” “Puppy,” and “Chance Meetings.” Founded in April 2013 by singer-guitarists Nikki Neretin, MD, and Chip Calcagni, the lineup will also include bassists Artie Greenidge and Peter Archer and guest drummer Matt Crawford, sitting in for Guillermo Garavito. The Dysorderlies will be followed at 4:00 by Yogurt Abusers, featuring a pair of fourteen-year-olds, trumpeter Sam Friedman and guitarist Henry Nelson. Neretin, who works as a director of homeless services in the city, requests that people bring pairs of socks that can be donated to her clients; in addition, she has promised that matzah and Easter eggs will be served.

SUPER SÁBADO: MAD ABOUT LIBROS

Angélica Negrón will be telling musical stories at free Super Sabado at El Museo del Barrio

Angélica Negrón will be telling musical stories at El Museo del Barrio for free Super Sabado celebration of books

FREE THIRD SATURDAYS
El Museo del Barrio
1230 Fifth Ave. at 104th St.
Saturday, April 19, free, 12 noon – 5:30 pm
212-831-7272
www.elmuseo.org

For the April edition of its free Super Sabado program, El Museo del Barrio celebrates the written word with “Mad About Libros.” From 12 noon to 3:00 on April 19, you can head over to the educational ArteXplorers Family Corner in the lobby or take part in a Manos a la Obra workshop where you can make your favorite book character. At noon and 2:00, in conjunction with Colorin Colorado, singer and actress Flor Bromley will be in the café, telling the stories of Librito and Juan Bobo and the Magic Book; composer and multi-instrumentalist Angélica Negrón will share the participatory musical tale of Amigos at 1:00 and 3:00. From noon to 4:00, there will be a book fair outside the museum. And at 4:30, Roger Cabán of Poetas con Café will host poetry readings by Myrna Nieves, Jesus Papoleto Meléndez, and others. In addition, you can check out the special exhibition “Museum Starter Kit: Open with Care” as well as “Presencia: Works from El Museo’s Permanent Collection,” featuring pieces by Luis Mendez, Shaun El C. Leonardo, Oscar Muñoz, Benvenuto Chavajay, Christian Cravo, Roberto Juárez, Fernando Salicrup, Rafael Tufiño, and more.

A TRIBUTE TO THE LATE GREAT CAROLINA SLIM

THE FRATERNAL ORDER OF SOCIETY BLUES
Littlefield
622 DeGraw St. between Third & Fourth Aves.
Saturday, April 19, $10, 8:00
www.littlefieldnyc.com

Brooklyn musician Jeremiah Lockwood has kept his feet wet with a steadily evolving cortege of musical projects over the past decade. Besides leading his acclaimed band the Sway Machinery, he’s embarked on adventures exploring musical forms from Mali and other parts of North Africa while integrating his upbringing, which was steeped in the nigunim of Jewish cantorial music. Lockwood got his start, though, playing in the New York City subways alongside his mentor, the Piedmont blues guitarist Carolina Slim. After meeting the musician as a fourteen-year-old, Lockwood took lessons from him, and what began as an apprenticeship seemingly dreamed up by a jaded screenwriter — the young white teen learning the ropes from the older African American traditionalist — evolved into a vital musical partnership. As Lockwood grew as a musician, the two accompanied each other for more than a decade, playing house parties, street fairs, and throughout the city’s transit system.

Jeremiah Lockwood and Carolina Slim back in 1993; Lockwood will pay tribute to the late blues great at special show at Littlefield on April 19

Born Elijah Staley, Slim hailed from South Carolina and made his home in New York for decades, teaching, composing, and performing in the venerable Piedmont style of blues that stretches back to the early twentieth century and counts such artists as Blind Willie McTell and the Rev. Gary Davis among its progenitors. Carolina Slim passed away this February at the age of eighty-seven, and, along with several other local musicians whom the older guitarist befriended and mentored, Lockwood has arranged a concert celebrating his career and life to be held at Brooklyn’s Littlefield venue. Under the banner of the Fraternal Order of Society Blues, the performers, including jazz percussionist Ricky Gordon, Brotherhood of the Jug’s Ernesto Gomez, and Slim friend Chris Cook, will be gathering for “A Tribute to the Late Great Carolina Slim” on April 19. Lockwood is calling the memorial a “séance of the spirits of American music”; the night should be filled with plentiful memories and great music paying respect to a true character in the long blues tradition.

RECORD STORE DAY 2014

Bruce Springsteen’s brand-new four-track EP will be released for Record Story Day on Saturday

Multiple locations
Saturday, April 19
www.recordstoreday.com

On April 19, music on vinyl will be celebrated at the eighth annual Record Store Day, when purveyors of music around the world will be selling seven-, ten-, and twelve-inch discs that have either been created exclusively for RSD, are special limited runs of previously available material, or are releasing that day. Participating stores in New York City include Rock and Soul Records, Permanent Records, Academy Records, Second Hand Rose Music, Captured Tracks, Rockit Scientist Records, Kim’s Video & Music, Disc-O-Rama, Turntable Lab, A-1, Good Records, Other Music, Record Runner, In Living Stereo, Downtown Music Gallery, Rebel Rebel, Generation Records, Rough Trade, Bleecker Street Records, and Village Music World. Not all releases are available at all locations, so you might want to call ahead to find out if a particular store has just what you’re looking for. The full list includes hundreds of singles, EPs, and LPs from multiple genres; below are some of our favorites.

Dave Alvin & Phil Alvin: Songs from Common Ground
The Animals: The Animals EP
Sam Cooke: Ain’t That Good News
Cut Copy: “In These Arms of Love” / “Like Any Other Day”
Deerhoof & Ceramic Dog: Deerhoof / Ceramic Dog split
Jerry Garcia: Garcia
Green Day: Demolicious
Gil Scott-Heron: Nothing New
Joan Jett and the Blackhearts: Glorious Results of a Misspent Youth
Joy Division: An Ideal for Living
The Julie Ruin: “Brightside” / “In the Picture”
Jon Langford & Skull Orchard: “Days and Nights” / “Here’s What We Have”
The Last Internationale: Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Indian Blood
Man Man: The Man in Turban with Blue Face
Nirvana: “Pennyroyal Tea” / “I Hate Myself and Want to Die”
The Pogues: Live with Joe Strummer
Public Enemy: Evil Empire of Everything
The Ramones: Meltdown with the Ramones
R.E.M.: Unplugged: The Complete 1991 and 2001 Sessions
School of Seven Bells: Put Your Sad Down
Ronnie Spector and the E Street Band: “Say Goodbye to Hollywood” / “Baby Please Don’t Go”
Bruce Springsteen: American Beauty
Harry Dean Stanton: Partly Fiction
Tame Impala: Live Versions
Xiu Xiu: Unclouded Sky
Frank Zappa: “Don’t Eat the Yellow Snow” / “Down in De Dew

VIDEO OF THE DAY: “DIFFERENT DAYS” BY THE MEN

Brooklyn by way of San Francisco quartet the Men have a special relationship with their fans. First, they turn to them to make a video for the second single from their latest album, Tomorrow’s Hits (Sacred Bones, March 2014), then they post on their blog that they are in need of a van to use for their spring tour, which takes them from Cleveland on April 10 to DC on June 7. “Do you have a dependable van for rent or for sale?” they ask, promising, “The Men will return your van in great shape.” Guitarists Marius Atherton and Alex Rather-Taylor, bassist Paul Hanna, and drummer Danny Kendrick certainly do a lot of hard driving on their fourth full-length, a collection of eight songs recorded live in a Brooklyn studio that would sound great blasting out of a van speeding down the highway. (You can currently stream the album, the follow-up to such earlier albums as We Are the Men and Le Bonheur, here.) On Tomorrow’s Hits, the band mixes surf pop, garage rock, psychedelia, and even a little country, evoking Neil Young and Crazy Horse (“Dark Waltz”), Jerry Garcia (“Sleepless”), a frantic Bob Dylan (“Pearly Gates”), and even the Traveling Wilburys with the Velvet Underground (“Settle Me Down”), while ramping up some horns on the wild and crazy “Another Night.” German photographer Helge Mundt won the “Different Days” video contest; you can see his prize-winning entry above. We don’t know what happened with the van. The Men, who sparkled at last summer’s 4Knots Music Festival at the South Street Seaport, will be playing the Wick in Brooklyn on May 10 with the Obits and Nude Beach.

LA SOIRÉE

English Gent Hamish McCann dazzles at LA SOIRÉE (photo by Carol Rosegg)

Union Square Theatre
100 East 17th St.
Thursday – Monday through June 1, $37.95 – $127.95
www.la-soiree.com

If you don’t like La Soirée, well, then you just don’t know how to have fun. The raunchy, risqué mixture of burlesque, cabaret, vaudeville, circus, and Coney Island sideshow that has been touring the world for the last several years — an earlier iteration called Absinthe ran in the Spiegeltent at the South Street Seaport back in 2006 — is playing at the misty Union Square Theatre, where the audience is seated in the round, centered by a small circular platform where most of the often mind-blowing action takes place. Hosted by emcee Aidan O’Shea (among others, depending on which night you go), the two-hour evening features a core group of performers along with special guests. Singer-comic Amy G gets intimate with audience members and uses an unusual part of her body to play an instrument. Rhythmic gymnastics champion Lea Hinz contorts her arms and legs while suspended in the air in a hoop. The self-deprecating Marcus Monroe juggles a home-made combination of dangerous items. Jeans-wearing Joren “Bath Boy” Dawson splashes plenty of water while engaging in acrobatics in and around a claw-footed tub.

LA SOIRÉE is a raunchy romp at the Union Square Theatre (photo by Carol Rosegg)

LA SOIRÉE is a deliciously twisted raunchy romp at the Union Square Theatre (photo by Carol Rosegg)

Marawa the Amazing shimmies with a vast array of Hula hoops. Scrawny, wild-haired Ringling Bros. Clown College graduate Manchego offers a different take on the male striptease. The English Gents (the dapperly dressed — and undressed — Denis Lock and Hamish McCann) dazzle with breathtaking feats of skill and strength, balancing on each other’s bodies; the highlight of the night might just be McCann’s gravity-defying one-man “Singing in the Rain” pole dance. Burlesque star Julie Atlas Muz somehow gets inside a large balloon bubble. Other performers you might catch at La Soirée, which was first presented by Brett Haylock, Mark Rubinstein, and Mick Perrin in London in 2010, include Bret Pfister, Scotty Blue Bunny, Miss Ekaterina, Mooky Cornish, Le Gâteau Chocolat, Ursula Martinez, Cabaret Decadanse, Meow Meow, Jess Love, Miss Behave, and Mario, Queen of the Circus. There’s also free popcorn, a bar that remains open throughout the show, lots of audience participation, and surprises galore in this randy, very adult romp that isn’t afraid to go too low, or too high, to get a laugh, a smile, a gasp, or even a groan.