Music Picks: Diana Krall, Concrete Blonde, Herbie Hancock
Also Echo Rising, Shlohmo, Divine Fits and others
fri 8/24
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HOLLYWOOD BOWL
The celebrated singer-pianist has a new album coming out in October, Glad Rag Doll, a rootsy, relatively bumptious collaboration with producer T Bone Burnett and some of his regular sidemen, including guitarist Marc Ribot and keyboardist Keefus Green. (It follows a pair of recent Burnett-helmed discs by Krall's husband, Elvis Costello.) That said, at the Bowl don't expect her to focus on that record. Here she'll team with the L.A. Phil for "an evening of jazz standards and beautiful ballads," as the official program notes put it. No quarrel with that here: Though she tends to drain the passion from the material she tackles, Krall does upmarket elegance as well as any mainstream jazz act working today. Also Saturday. —Mikael Wood
AM & Shawn Lee
THE SATELLITE
The bicontinental music marriage between Los Angeles' groovy soulboy AM and London's rhythmic funkmaster Shawn Lee has birthed the psychedelic Celestial Electric. This tropicalia-dipped love child easily could have been conceived in the '70s, yet it maintains an utterly modern edge. That's exemplified on the vibrating rhythms and contrasting temperate vocals of "Dark Into Light," while fluid synths drive the smooth falsetto tones on "Lonely Life." Both AM and Shawn Lee have coinciding solo works, the former previewing his upcoming album with a simmering cover of Harry Nilsson's "Me and My Arrow," the latter with an acid trip in album form, called Synthesizers in Space, as well as the multigenre, cinematic Reel to Reel, which he recorded as the all-instrumental Shawn Lee's Ping Pong Orchestra. Together or alone, these two bring style to pop sensibility. —Lily Moayeri
Friends of Friends
THE ECHOPLEX
L.A. lad Shlohmo brings sample-based, song-oriented R&B turntablism to his recent Bad Vibes full-length, sautéeing lo-fi, hip-hop, dubstep and beautifully odd sound design. As for Salva, he's been known to jack bassy, jungly warehouse and ethereal whimsy at the same time. He's also a free-thinking remixer of Shlohmo, Barford, Para One, the Glitch Mob, Beans, Rainbow Arabia and many relevant others. Along with Shlohmo, Friends of Friends features L.A./Montreal duo LOL Boys, who showcase their jazzed-out/house-style EP, Changes, with vocals courtesy of Heart Streets and Angelina Lucero. There's also a founding member of Shlohmo's Wedidit Collective, Groundislava, who offers his fresh Feel Me set, which features Baths and Clive Tanaka. Fans can also savor prime new cuts from FoF sister label Young Adults Recordings, featuring Dublab's Suzanne Kraft, LOL Boys & Grown Folk, Urulu and the Dead Rose Music Company. —John Payne
sat 8/25
Ana Tijoux and Nomadic Massive
TWO CALIFORNIA PLAZA
French/Chilean MC Ana Tijoux returns to L.A. for a free downtown concert to promote her latest album, La Bala, which she released through L.A.-based label Nacional Records. The female Zack de la Rocha was born to Chilean political exiles in France, where she befriended other children of South American exiles. Following her family's return to Chile, Tijoux made a career of her love for hip-hop and has been crafting politically conscious music ever since. Her latest single, "Shock," is a manifesto in support of Chile's student protesters. She'll share the stage with multilingual, multicultural, experimental hip-hop supergroup Nomadic Massive. It's all part of Grand Performances' mission to bring world music to Grand and Fourth. —Ivan Fernandez
Echo Park Rising
THE ECHO
Echo Park will rise again, although the hip, not-quite-on-the-Eastside neighborhood isn't exactly on the decline. (In fact, it's been notoriously fashionable for a long time.) Still, just in case you forgot, local businesses are celebrating with a daylong festival upstairs at the Echo, downstairs in the Echoplex and across the street at Taix. Starting at the un–rock & roll hour of 11 a.m., seemingly every indie-rock band from the area performs a free set, ranging from soul-garage pranksters Dante vs. Zombies and the urgently compelling post-punk throb of Gothic Tropic to charismatic new-wavy popsters Raw Geronimo and the timeless Americana keening of the Driftwood Singers. Buyepongo stir up buoyant cumbia, while Stones Throw and Dublab DJs exchange fusillades of brainy hip-hop and arty experimentation. Lavender Diamond's pure pop is aptly radiant and colorfully exuberant, and the folkies come in flavors both classically traditional (Ruthann Friedman) and endearingly offbeat (Amanda Jo Williams). You even get two kinds of lions: funky reggae (The Lions) and introspective alt-country (A House for Lions). —Falling James
The Woolly Bandits
HOLLYWOOD Studio BAR & GRILL
Decked out in mod mini-dresses, white go-go boots and kohl-slathered eyes, Christa Collins makes for a persuasively seductive '60s-style frontwoman, but her groovy image wouldn't mean anything if she couldn't also howl bittersweet tunes like "Midnight Movie" and "Woman of Mass Destruction" with a spitfire intensity. It helps that her guitarist-husband, Rik Collins, powers her garage-rock anthems along with a punk-rock fuzz and volume that keep the L.A. quintet from coming across as safely retro. So many modern garage bands act cheesy, but there's something deliciously sinister about The Woolly Bandits' tangle of spidery guitar riffs, ballpark-organ blasts and pleading vocals. For all the group's rock authenticity, though, it's a pity that Christa Collins has nabbed more attention recently for her stint as a contestant on televised cattle call The X Factor. —Falling James
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