Carnival of Soul

Our guide to pop and rock shows and the best of live jazz happening this weekend and in the week ahead.

DE LA SOUL at the Rooftop at Pier 17 (July 13, 8 p.m.). This trio of hometown heroes returns for a sundown show on this open roof deck at South Street Seaport. As members of the Native Tongues collective, De La Soul made a profound impact on hip-hop in the late 1980s and ’90s with their kaleidoscopic, sample-scrambling sound and rascally rap verses. After a fallow period, the group has been riding high since the release of its 2016 album, the rock-infused “And the Anonymous Nobody.” At Pier 17, De La Soul share the bill with D.J. Sam Cannon.
pier17ny.com

JEAN GRAE at Joe’s Pub (July 11-13, 7 p.m.). Few rappers exude the casual self-assurance and cheeky street smarts of New York City better than Grae. Born to two South African jazz greats, she grew up in the Chelsea Hotel and came of age in the 1990s on Brooklyn’s left-field hip-hop scene. Today she keeps its spirit alive on records like the boom-bappy “Everything’s Fine” (2018), made in collaboration with Quelle Chris, and ventures further afield: Many of her more recent releases — like the irreverent “That’s Not How You Do That Either” (2015) and the woozy, atmospheric “Sevvin” (2016) — are far from rap music, per se. At Joe’s Pub, Grae has promised to display the full scope of her artistry in the program “Jeanius.”
212-967-7555, joespub.org

CARLY RAE JEPSEN at the Hammerstein Ballroom (July 17-18, 8 p.m.). In an age of maximalism and overexposure, Carly Rae Jepsen oozes earnestness and small-grain sentimentality. These qualities are not the stock in trade for your average star these days, but they have made her one of the most versatile — and seemingly guileless — figures in pop music. At the Hammerstein she celebrates the release of “Dedicated,” her fourth album, which shows that she’s only broadened her scope since its widely acclaimed predecessor, “Emotion” (2015). On the new record, she ranges from lovesick electro-soul (“Julien”) to singalong, reverb-drenched splendor (“Want You in My Room”).
646-293-1089, mc34.com

BETTYE LAVETTE at City Winery (July 15, 8 p.m.). LaVette can straight-talk her way through a crooked tale: With a common-sense delivery and a crinkly-voiced Midwestern air, she injects a sense of tensile restraint into almost every song. You get the sense that she ought to be reading you the riot act but just can’t be bothered to make time. LaVette scored a few hits on the R&B charts in the 1960s and early ’70s, but her career went into a lull until the mid-2000s, when a run of strong records on the Anti- label put her back in the spotlight. And her success continues today: LaVette’s most recent record, “Things Have Changed,” is a collection of stone-cold Dylan covers, and it’s a winner.
212-608-0555, citywinery.com/newyork

[Read about the events that our other critics have chosen for the week ahead.]

LYNYRD SKYNYRD WITH HANK WILLIAMS JR. at Forest Hills Stadium (July 14, 6 p.m.). Talk of retirement seems to have given way to talk of a new album, and the sense that this free bird might just keep on flapping. Skynyrd has gone from concerts in the early 1970s speckled with Confederate flags to, well, strikingly similar-feeling concerts speckled with the Stars and Stripes today. In addition to the songs you know, like “Sweet Home Alabama” and “Simple Man,” the band’s repertoire now includes tunes like “Red, White and Blue (Love It or Leave It)” and “Gimme Back My Bullets” — both of which were featured on their 2018 album, “Live in Atlantic City.” Currently fronted by Johnny Van Zant, a younger brother of the original singer Ronnie Van Zant, Skynyrd appear here with Hank Williams Jr., another legacy figure in Southern rock.
foresthillsstadium.com

MONO/POLY at Baby’s All Right (July 12, 11 p.m.). This Los Angeles-based producer and beat maker spent years in the prospects-to-watch column before finally releasing “Golden Skies” (2014), his first album for Flying Lotus’s Brainfeeder label and a good representation of his vertiginous versatility. He’s fond of glitch and swoop and ooze, but also of rugged, crooked hip-hop beats. If his jump cuts and hard left turns can sometimes feel bemusing, well, maybe that’s the point.
718-599-5800, babysallright.com

SISTER NANCY at El Cortez (July 18, 7 p.m.). A pioneer of the male-dominated Jamaican dancehall genre, Sister Nancy entered international consciousness in the early 1980s with “Bam Bam.” And thanks to the powers of sampling, neither she nor the song has ever really left. (It has been spliced into hits by Lauryn Hill, Jay-Z, Kanye West and countless others. Even if you don’t think you know it, you do.) Sister Nancy appears here at El Cortez’s Safari Room, a cozy club tucked in the back of a Mexican restaurant in north Bushwick, Brooklyn.
347-599-2956, elcortezbushwick.com

AFRO-LATINO FESTIVAL at Albee Square (July 12-13). This annual festival, in its seventh year, will overtake the area around Long Island University in Downtown Brooklyn, infusing it with clave rhythm and dance music ranging from the traditional to the contemporary. Highlights will include a concert on Friday night paying tribute to the famed Puerto Rican composer Tite Curet Alonso, including a performance by the (all-female) mariachi band Flor De Toloache, and a festival-closing show on Saturday featuring José Alberto, the esteemed Dominican salsa singer known as El Canario.
afrolatinofestnyc.com

RON CARTER QUARTET at the Blue Note (through July 14, 8 and 10:30 p.m.). A bassist who needs no introduction, Carter served as the slippery anchor in Miles Davis’s game-changing quintet of the mid-1960s and, over his career, performed on more than 2,000 recordings. Now 82, he largely sticks to leading his own ensembles and tacks to a relatively straight-ahead approach. This week he appears with Renee Rosnes on piano, Jimmy Greene on saxophone and Payton Crossley on drums.
212-475-8592, bluenote.net

TOOTIE HEATH TRIO at Birdland Theater (July 18, 7 and 9:45 p.m.). The drummer Albert Heath, known as Tootie, is a member of one of jazz’s most illustrious families: Together with his brothers Jimmy, a tenor saxophonist, and Percy, a bassist who died in 2005, he has been an off-and-on member of the Heath Brothers band since the 1970s. But his buoyant, aerated swing feel has also graced albums by numerous other jazz luminaries, including John Coltrane, Herbie Hancock and Dexter Gordon. When he leads his own ensembles in concert, Heath takes his time between songs, teasing the audience with playful banter. This concert — featuring the pianist Emmet Cohen and the bassist Russell Hall, both of whom are about a third Heath’s age — is aptly billed as a night of “jazz and comedy.”
212-581-3080, birdlandjazz.com

DR. EDDIE HENDERSON QUINTET at Dizzy’s Club (July 12-13, 7:30 and 9:30 p.m.). The band joining Henderson at this run includes the New Orleanian saxophonist Donald Harrison, the pianist Peter Zak, the bassist Gerald Cannon and the drummer Mike Clark — who, like Henderson, came into his own in the 1970s, playing jazz-funk in bands led by Herbie Hancock. The group’s diversity makes sense for a trumpeter like Henderson, whose idea of jazz encompasses subtle backbeats, swarming atmospherics and virtuoso hard-bop playing.
212-258-9595, jazz.org/dizzys

JAMAICA DOWNTOWN JAZZ FESTIVAL at various locations (July 12-14). The inaugural edition of this festival will bring an impressive assortment of jazz talent to the heart of Jamaica, Queens, with a subtle emphasis on the avant-garde. Things kick off on Friday at the Jamaica Arts Center with a screening of the documentary “Milford Graves Full Mantis,” about the avant-garde drummer (and Jamaica resident) Milford Graves, followed by a duo performance from the pianist Jason Moran and the drummer Tyshawn Sorey. Saturday’s offerings include a walking tour of the neighborhood, and a mix of ticketed and free shows throughout the afternoon and evening (including one by Graves) at the arts center, the Jamaican Performing Arts Center, the central branch of the Queens Public Library and the King Manor Museum. On Sunday, the shows are all free and all based at the arts center; they culminate with a concert from the drummer Pheeroan akLaff.
718-658-7400, jcal.org

RYAN KEBERLE AND CATHARSIS at Jazz Standard (July 17, 7:30 and 9:30 p.m.). This trombonist and composer is celebrating the release of a fine new album, “The Hope I Hold,” featuring his long-running combo, Catharsis. Over the past five-plus years he has steadily expanded this group’s instrumentation and palette: It now includes Scott Robinson on saxophone and various other horns; Camila Meza on guitar and vocals; Jorge Roeder on bass; Eric Doob on drums; and Keberle on trombone, vocals, keyboards and synthesizers. On “Hope,” all those tones give the music a lovely, splayed-out energy, turning his sighing compositions into big, open canvases. At this concert, Matt Clohesy will fill in for Roeder.
212-576-2232, jazzstandard.com

CÉCILE MCLORIN SALVANT WITH THE BILL CHARLAP TRIO at the 92nd Street Y (July 18, 7:30 p.m.). At just 29, Salvant has already cemented her reputation as today’s leading interpreter of the vocal tradition in jazz. She puts her prodigious talent to work on a vast range of material, often reaching into some of the music’s dustiest annals. Her greatest affection is for oddball material from another era — tunes that might have made it into the jazz canon but didn’t quite. She has become a regular headliner at the 92Y’s annual Jazz in July series, and here she appears with the erudite pianist Bill Charlap (who programs the festival), the bassist Peter Washington and the drummer Kenny Washington. Jazz in July begins on Tuesday, with a concert featuring the guitarist and vocalist John Pizzarelli, and runs through July 25.
212-415-5500, 92y.org/jazzinjuly

CHERUBS at Saint Vitus Bar (July 13, 7 p.m.). What is good may never die but rises again harder and stronger. In the early 1990s, this Texas-based three piece was good — an eight ball of sprawling energy churning out tunes that were as catchy as they were chaotic. Unfortunately that fun house ride came to an end in 1994, lasting just a few years and resulting in two albums. But about five years ago, they plugged back in and resumed cranking out their uniquely layered mélange of stoner’s delight, dirtbag blues and stygian grooves as if not a day had passed. And if their November 2017 gig at Saint Vitus warming up the crowd for Unsane was any indication, their live performance chops are perhaps even tighter. Cherubs make their way back to Brooklyn on Saturday night two weeks in advance of the release of their latest album, “Immaculada High.”
saintvitusbar.com
DANIELLE DOWLING