Rock Picks: Everest, Mumiy Troll, Busta Rhymes
Also, Faun Fables, Chris Darrow tribute, Allen Toussaint and others
Also playing Monday:
SUMMER DARLING, THE HECTORS, WRITER, MONOLATORS at the Echo; NICO STAI, EASTERN CONFERENCE CHAMPIONS, POP NOIR, HESTA PRYNN at Spaceland; THE AMAZEMENTS, MICHAEL VIDAL (OF ABE VIGODA), PROTECTME at Pehrspace.
TUESDAY, MARCH 3
Allen Toussaint, Henry Butler, Jon Cleary & Absolute Monster at Cerritos Center for the performing arts
New Orleans pianist-producer Allen Toussaint has to be one of the heaviest talents that this remarkable city has ever spat forth. The Rock & Roll Hall of Famer also served in the crucial capacity of upholding the Crescent City’s postwar rumba-tinged, second-line R&B tradition — exporting it beyond Louisiana via national hits for local lights Ernie K-Doe and Irma Thomas — and later reaching out to stir it into the deep funk and soul explosion of the 1960s. This represents nothing less than a remarkable stewardship, and in the process, Toussaint expanded N.O.’s sound into wild new permutations — he’s the cat who mentored those rowdy Neville Brothers into the Meters, honing their spellbinding syncopation when they served as house band at Toussaint’s studio. His remarkable track record includes writing innumerable hits like “Workin’ in the Coal Mine” for Lee Dorsey to (say what?) Herb Alpert’s “Whipped Cream,” but don’t let all that overshadow Toussaint’s own gifts as a performer; he’s got way more tricks in his bag than “Southern Nights,” and this date should serve as a mind-rendingly comprehensive display of New Orleans’ most bewitching music. (Jonny Whiteside)
Also Playing Tuesday:
FUJIYA & MIYAGI, POP LEVI, PROJECT JENNY, PROJECT JAN at the Echoplex; LAURA GIBSON, TOM BROSSEAU, MUSEE MECANIQUE at Spaceland; LES BLANKS, DIRT DRESS, SHIRLEY ROLLS, HUNTING ACCIDENT at the Silverlake Lounge.
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 4
M. Ward at the Henry Fonda Theater
Chief among my professional regrets last year was that nobody asked me what my favorite 11 albums of 2008 were, which therefore limited the praise I had opportunity to shower upon Volume One by She & Him — M. Ward and Zooey Deschanel’s totally charming folk-pop duo. Fortunately, this year might provide a corrective, since Ward’s just-released Hold Time has already earned a provisional spot on my 2009 Top 10: Like the Ventura County native’s last several solo discs, Hold Time sounds like a reissue of a record that never actually existed in the first place; nobody swirls together country, soul and pop as effortlessly as Ward, whose superbusy session-dude schedule obviously hasn’t harmed the health of his own songwriting in the slightest. Ward’s handlers are campaigning for a mainstream breakthrough this time out — dig this month’s admiring features in both the New York and Los Angeles Times. Next time he’s here, the setting might not be so cozy. (Mikael Wood)
Also playing Wednesday:
JODECI at Club Nokia.
THURSDAY, MARCH 5
Mumiy Troll at the Roxy
Not only are Mumiy Troll a Russian band, but they’re from Vladivostok, on that country’s eastern coast, far, far away from the usual rock & roll pathways to success. They began as a genuinely underground garage-rock band back in 1983 and were viewed with suspicion by the Soviet government, which harassed them and jailed them several times. They took a long hiatus when lead singer Ilya Lagutenko had to serve in the Russian army, but they eventually re-emerged as one of the country’s most popular groups. Lagutenko croons in Russian and English with a distinctive style that combines his sandpaper-rough vocals with a breathy intimacy on slinky indie-rock songs like “Oh Paradiso,” from the band’s 2008 album, 8. What really distinguishes Mumiy (as in “Mummy”) Troll, though, are Lagutenko’s and Yuri Tsaler’s guitars, which circle majestically over “Oh Paradiso” like giant black vultures. On the moody ballad “Let It Burn,” the riffs uncoil with a languid spaciness that’s somewhere between post-punk iciness and power-pop melodicism. Even when Lagutenko sings in English, his lyrics are mysteriously poetic and impressionistic rather than literal, such as the strange tourism tale “Bermudas,” where he slips in cryptic references to malevolent angels, green dragons and “the night’s heavy blotter,” in the tight spaces between bassist Eugene Zvidionny’s and drummer Oleg Pungin’s jagged punk-funk rhythms. It’s all very weirdly exotic. Also Friday, March 6. (Falling James)
Lynda Carter at Catalina Bar & Grill
Back in the 1970s, it seemed like Lynda Carter could do anything. She saved the world at least once a week, flew through the air in an invisible jet and understood that the best way to get bad guys to confess their crimes was to encircle them with a magic golden lasso. (If only it were so simple nowadays.) Of course, she was Wonder Woman then, and her popularity even led to the release of an overlooked 1978 pop LP, Portrait. Despite a musical-theater background that predates the first time she donned Diana Prince’s shimmering satin tights, few people realize that her awesome superpowers include being a credible jazz chanteuse. Carter’s not the first actor to reinvent herself as a singer, but, unlike so many celebrity dilettantes, she actually has a beguiling voice, with a warm, velvety tone. Her version of jazz is fairly straightforward and mainstream rather than anything edgy or truly out there, but she’s nonetheless quite charismatic when delivering such standards as “God Bless the Child” and “Cry Me a River” with a rich, molasses purr. (Falling James)
Also playing Thursday:
PHAROAH SANDERS QUARTET at the Jazz Bakery; THE KLEZMATICS at Royce Hall; JIMMY EAT WORLD at Club Nokia.
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