Outpost Performance Space (210 Yale SE) takes up its 19th annual Summer Thursday Jazz Nights series on July 31 with a performance by Milton Villarrubia’s MV3 Jazz Project. Villarrubia is a longtime New Mexican jazz advocate and a percussionist with a deep commitment to the progress of jazz. His musical and intellectual contributions to the genre’s direction have included projects ranging from the New Orleans funk of Pollo Frito to the improvisational electronica of iNK oN pAPER to his latest ensemble. The MV3 Jazz Project approaches traditional jazz elements with a postmodern inflection that’s deconstructive but totally groovy and compellingly listenable. Homegrown master Transit Latin Jazz Ensemble is a quintet featuring local all-stars, and Transit has a thing for bossa nova and Afro-Cuban jazz, dig? Transit’s ensemble playing—from their rhythmic complexity to electronic influences and flirtatious sense of melody—ranges from memorably mellow to daringly danceable. Doors are at 7pm, and this hot ticket runs between 10 and 15 clams, a bargain for a moving experience.
Music To Your Ears Raise A Black Flag
Black Flag of the now
Devious Photography
On Saturday, Aug. 2, Sister (407 Central NW) raises a Black Flag in the middle of Downtown. Totally serious punk demiurge Greg Ginn and the latest incarnation of LA punk stalwart and SST veteran Black Flag will drop by to infect this town with a sound that’s primal in origin, brutally precise in execution and thrilling in its effect over human audiences. While other animals might be driven insane by Black Flag’s terrible beauty, members of the species H. sapiens have been drawn to the blisteringly anthemic atonality Ginn and company have generated since the before time. Works like Damaged and My War defined the West Coast punk scene of the early ’80s and are noticeably influential in recordings of 21st-century successors like FIDLAR. When the Henry Rollins era ended with an ironically succinct phone call in 1986, the band went through various configurations, acrimonious legal challenges and an intense onstage coup involving singers Ron Reyes and Mike Vallely, before resolving into the kickass touring act careening through the nation’s clubs in 2014. This 21-plus gig starts at 9pm, and tickets are 15 bones.
Music To Your Ears Sign Of The Horns
Black Label Society
Courtesy of artist
Besides the atomics at Kirtland, proof that Burque is a metal town will be ear-damagingly evident on Monday, Aug. 4, at Sunshine Theater (120 Central SW). That’s when Black Label Society, Wovenwar and The Ground Beneath reduce Downtown to an ashen but sated sonic scene dominated by blistering guitar solos, thundering rhythm sections and voices guaranteed to call up spirits from the vasty deep. With a tendency toward the burnt and seared, front man and lead guitarist Zakk Wylde will control the strings behind this particularly stygian ritual with occult aplomb; everything obsidian, grooved out and sludgy is possible when the Black Label Society meets. In contrast, San Diego headbangers Wovenwar have a speedy prog-metal sound augmented by Oh, Sleeper vet Shane Blay’s melodically edgy guitar and vocal style. In combination with the heavy aesthetic created by former members of As I Lay Dying, Wovenwar’s sound is set to stun. Wovenwar will be preceded onstage by The Ground Beneath, a local ensemble of take-no-prisoners metalheads led by electric guitarist/vocalist Steve Civerolo and featuring the insanely intense rhythmic stylings of drummer Dax Lujan and bassist Tim Garcia. This is an all-ages event, and you all can get in on it for just 29 Simoleons. The gates to Hell yawn wide at 7, and by 8pm, when the music starts, you’ll be glad you sold your soul after all.
