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Our guide to pop and rock shows and the best of live jazz happening this weekend and in the week ahead.
Note: Because of the coronavirus outbreak and the state’s ban on gatherings of more than 500 people, many events have been canceled. As of press time, these were still scheduled to take place. Before heading out, visit the website of the performance space or organization for the latest updates.
BILLIE EILISH at Prudential Center in Newark, N.J. (March 16, 7:30 p.m.). If you weren’t already convinced that this singer is music’s brightest new star, this year’s Grammy Awards made that status harder to contest. Eilish walked away from the ceremony with an impressive five trophies awarded to her lawless spin on pop, which showcases her whispered alto, affinity for SoundCloud rap aesthetics and fascination with the macabre. Less than a year has passed since Eilish last performed in New York, in which time she’s upgraded from concert halls to arenas. Prudential Center will host her “When We All Fall Asleep” tour on Monday. The show is sold out, but tickets are available for a pretty penny on the resale market.
973-757-6625, prucenter.com
[Read about the events that our other critics have chosen for the week ahead.]
THE OPHELIAS at Trans-Pecos (March 15, 8 p.m.). “Sadness is good for writing songs but it’s awful for everything else !!” tweeted this indie-pop band from Cincinnati in January, offering followers a window onto their creative process. Indeed, there is usually an underlying darkness to the Ophelias’ songs, even when they are swathed in bright arrangements and buoyed by the singer Spencer Peppet’s wispy, cotton candy vocals. A track like “Fog,” from their 2018 album, “Almost,” best demonstrates this duality: The song expresses an earnest fear of solitude with the help of a sweeping fiddle and chipper harmonies. On Sunday, the Ophelias will perform in Queens with support from the singer-songwriter Lina Tullgren.
thetranspecos.com
[Read about the events that our other critics have chosen for the week ahead.]
SOB X RBE at Baby’s All Right (March 14, 8 p.m.). Hailing from Vallejo, Calif., this rap group essentially consists of two discrete business units: Strictly Only Brothers (SOB) is responsible for their bark-rapped verses, while Real Boi Entertainment (RBE), helmed by the group’s breakout star Yhung T.O., delivers sticky melodic hooks. This winning recipe has carried SOB x RBE through four albums in half as many years, as well as a handful of EPs and a clout-boosting appearance on the Kendrick Lamar-curated “Black Panther” soundtrack. Lineup fluctuations have raised questions about their long-term viability, but for now, the group — down one member after Lul G’s departure — is sticking together and touring behind their most recent release.
718-599-5800, babysallright.com
OLIVIA HORN
JANE IRA BLOOM at Shapeshifter Lab (March 13, 7 p.m.). Bloom has written and performed sophisticated original music for ensembles of all sizes, but there’s nothing more directly rewarding than the sound of her soprano saxophone, which banters and curls but puts its point to you straight. She will bring a trio of trusted confidants — the bassist Mark Helias and the drummer Matt Wilson — for the group’s first performance at Brooklyn’s Shapeshifter Lab.
shapeshifterlab.com
WILL CALHOUN’S TOTEM ENSEMBLE (March 16-18, 8 and 10:30 p.m.). Calhoun springs from a tradition that counts Tony Williams, Ginger Baker and Billy Cobham as founding fathers: powerhouse drummers whose roots in both rock and jazz laid the foundation for broader explorations. Calhoun made his name in the 1980s as a member of Living Colour, the famed funk-metal band behind “Cult of Personality,” but more recently he has focused on his own bandleading career. Next week Calhoun appears with a top-flight ensemble featuring Orrin Evans on piano and keyboards, Greg Osby on saxophone and Melvin Gibbs on bass. The guitarist Jean Paul Bourelly will appear as a special guest each night. On Monday, the guembri player Hassan Hakmoun will also be on hand; on Wednesday, the rapper Pharoahe Monch will sit in.
212-475-8592, bluenote.net
AL FOSTER, RON CARTER AND KEVIN HAYS at Smoke (March 12-15, 7 and 9 p.m.). Carter left Miles Davis’s employ for good at the end of the 1960s, after spending much of the decade as the linchpin of that famed trumpeter’s quintet — one of the most influential groups in jazz history. Soon after, Foster joined Davis’s electric band, and participated in a string of recordings that have not been as thoroughly canonized, but nonetheless left an indelible mark on American music. Foster and Carter have collaborated in a smattering of small bands in the past, most notably in a trio with Joe Henderson that was captured for his “State of the Tenor” albums. For this four-night run they are joined by the nimble pianist Kevin Hays.
212-864-6662, smokejazz.com
WILLIAM HOOKER at Roulette (March 15, 8 p.m.). Hooker’s drum style, fired in the furnace of the downtown experimental scene of the 1980s and ’90s, is thunderous and unrelenting, but that doesn’t mean he lacks a taste for nuance. In recent years Hooker has focused on crafting large-scale, multimedia works, and here he presents the premiere of “TOUCH: Soul and Service,” a four-part suite that accompanies a film Hooker directed with the experimental artist Phill Niblock.
917-267-0368, roulette.org
JOSH LAWRENCE AND LOST WORKS at Jazz Standard (March 18, 7:30 and 9:30 p.m.). A rising trumpeter with the raw talent to match his inquisitive instincts, Lawrence released a short EP last year featuring a three-part suite of tensile post-bop, inspired by the expressionist paintings of Wassily Kandinsky. At these shows he will perform that music with an ensemble of esteemed side musicians: Antonio Hart on alto saxophone, Robin Eubanks on trombone, Zaccai Curtis on piano, Luques Curtis on bass and Anwar Marshall on drums.
212-576-2232, jazzstandard.com
LOGAN RICHARDSON AND IMMANUEL WILKINS at the Jazz Gallery (March 13, 7:30 and 9:30 p.m.). Two young saxophonists of bright, perfervid attack and deep assurance, Richardson, 39, and Wilkins, 22, have a lot in common. But then they diverge: Richardson’s stock in trade is the bluesy smear, bending one keening note into another. Wilkins communicates differently — at a higher rate of notes per minute — peppering you with action before letting his tone disintegrate into a dry bawl. At the Gallery they will lead a quartet featuring Matt Brewer on bass and Marcus Gilmore on drums.
646-494-3625, jazzgallery.nyc
GIOVANNI RUSSONELLO