Music Picks: Roberta Flack, Summer Twins, John Cage Centenary Festival

Also playing:

LAURYN HILL at Hollywood Palladium; MARTINA MCBRIDE at Nokia Theatre; LENI STERN at Blue Whale; BOBBI PAGE'S DREAM STREET at Vitello's.

Syl Johnson: See Saturday.

Location Info

Map

Roxy Theatre

9009 Sunset Blvd.
West Hollywood, CA 90069

Category: Bars/Clubs

Region: West Hollywood

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The Conga Room

800 W. Olympic Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90015

Category: Bars/Clubs

Region: Downtown

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The Smell

247 S. Main St.
Los Angeles, CA 90012

Category: Bars/Clubs

Region: Downtown

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The Echoplex

1154 Glendale Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90026

Category: Bars/Clubs

Region: Out of Town

Photos

Bootleg Theater

2200 Beverly Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90057

Category: Bars/Clubs

Region: Out of Town

Photos

The Troubadour

9081 Santa Monica Blvd.
West Hollywood, CA 90069

Category: Bars/Clubs

Region: West Hollywood

Photos

REDCAT: Roy and Edna Disney/CalArts Theater

631 W. Second St.
Los Angeles, CA 90012

Category: Bars/Clubs

Region: Downtown

Photos

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wed 2/15

John Cage Centenary Festival

REDCAT

Alongside all his chart-topping megahits, new-music visionary John Cage composed many lesser-heard and equally notable pieces. In celebration of the 100th anniversary of Cage's birth, REDCAT offers two nights of this rarely played stuff remade/remodeled by CalArts' new music ensemble, the New Century Players, and the CalArts Orchestra. Tonight brings a sampling of Cage's more epic-scale items, including Dance/4Orchestras, Ryoanji and Renga. Tomorrow night centers on Fontana Mix, Cage's crucial "indeterminacy" piece; the original Fontana Mix tape montage is woven into ensemble works composed using its score by James Tenney, David Behrman, Cornelius Cardew and others. By the way, the original title of Fontana Mix was Performance Mix, but during its preparation Cage renamed it after his Milanese landlady, Signora Fontana. —John Payne

Also playing:

BOMBAY BICYCLE CLUB at El Rey Theatre; WALE, MIGUEL at Key Club; DAVID NAIL at Troubadour; WAHID at Blue Whale; JERRY VIVINO at the Baked Potato; EMIL RICHARDS QUARTET at Vitello's; ANVIL at Whisky A Go Go.

thu 2/16

Lenny Kravitz, Raphael Saadiq

NOKIA THEATRE

The kids today probably know him better from his role in the upcoming Hunger Games movie, but Lenny Kravitz is still making records, good ones. Last year's Black and White America found the retro-rock fashion plate in as funky a mode as we've heard him since Are You Gonna Go My Way. The album's title track (about Kravitz's parents' experience as a biracial couple in the mid-'60s) rides a sweet groove that totally redeems dude's occasional wardrobe malfunctions. Give Kravitz extra credit for being brave enough to ask Raphael Saadiq to open his current tour. This L.A.-based soul whiz (a former member of Tony! Toni! Toné! and Lucy Pearl) has been known to put less-than-lively headliners to shame. —Mikael Wood

Chucho Valdes and the Afro-Cuban Messengers, Poncho Sanchez & His Latin Jazz Band with Terence Blanchard

WALT DISNEY CONCERT HALL

If the 70-year-old Cuban pianist were to perform magic instead of music, Valdes would draw comparisons to Merlin, Gandalf and Dumbledore. The old wizard of Latin jazz still commands the piano with thundering power and shimmering virtuosity, conjuring Art Tatum, McCoy Tyner, Horowitz and even Franz Liszt, but none of those guys could salsa. Valdes and his Art Blakey–inspired band won a Grammy in 2010 (his eighth) for the sparkling Chucho's Steps. Also on the bill is another Grammy winner, Poncho Sanchez and his band, with jazz trumpet giant Terence Blanchard to display their latest release, Chano y Dizzy, honoring the respective titans on conga and trumpet, Chano Pozo and Dizzy Gillespie. It's a lot of deadly serious musicians having a lot of fun, all fireworks and no bloodshed, and of course plenty of dancing. —Gary Fukushima

Howlin Rain, Allah-Las

The Echo

These days, uber-producer Rick Rubin has his hand on so many dials there's naturally some skepticism whenever the Zen master touts his next "discovery." But Bay Area riff-rockers Howlin Rain, signed to the bearded industry titan's own American Recordings label, re-energize dude with some serious A&R cred. On their debut album, The Russian Wilds — which drops on Valentine's Day, and blends Springsteen-ian lyrical brashness with classic rock-guitar freak-outs — the quintet, fronted by Chris Robinson–esque yelping singer-guitarist Ethan Miller, cranks out flavor-soaked bruisers (see album opener "Self Made Man") with deliciously reckless abandon. They do tone it down at times; expect some piano-twinkling soul shiners ("Dark Night") thrown into the mix. But these up-and-coming gents' tunes are best served sizzling. They're joined at the Echo by the Americana ramble of L.A.'s Allah-Las. —Dan Hyman

Flesh-N-Bone, The FountNHead

WHISKY A GO GO

While knowing that the FountNHead take their name from Ayn Rand's famous paean to nonconformity certainly prepares one to expect the unexpected from this Atlanta rap outfit, their reality still feels like a fiction dreamed up in a distant utopia. Owing equally to the hippie politics of Arrested Development, the DIY ethos of the Sex Pistols and the hybridized noise-pop of Linkin Park, these four kids play all their own instruments while rapping and crooning blue-collar concerns. Their video for the upbeat "Free and Flowing" features a knit-capped, multi-culti crew partying in the woods, urging others to "go naked" and busting up a laptop with the word WORK scrawled on it. Join hands and happily rage against the machine with the FountNHead before indulging in the malt liquor–smooth triple-time raps of the fifth Bone Thug, Flesh-N-Bone. —Chris Martins

Chad Wackerman Group

THE BAKED POTATO

Longtime Frank Zappa drummer Chad Wackerman reunites with guitar god Allan Holdsworth, sublime bassist Jimmy Johnson and keyboardist Jim Cox for a two-night (Thursday-Friday) album release event. Nine years in the making, Wackerman's Dreams Nightmares and Improvisations features Holdsworth, Johnson and Cox on an album Wackerman is genuinely excited to finally get out there. It also marks the first time the four have recorded together since Wackerman's original two solo albums from the '90s, the excellent Forty Reasons and The View. Mega drum skills run in the family: Bad Religion's Brooks Wackerman is Chad's youngest brother. Much like the late Tony Williams, with whom Chad shared drum tracks on Holdsworth's now-classic album Atavachron more than two decades ago, Wackerman proves to be a drummer fully capable of both composing and playing world-class music. —Tom Meek

Also playing:

THAVIUS BECK at Little Temple; DON CARLOS at Key Club; MY BRIGHTEST DIAMOND, LAVENDER DIAMOND at Troubadour; G. LOVE at House of Blues; MACHINE HEAD at Avalon.