Photo courtesy of the filmmaker A longtime local merchant gets his overdue doc treatment, in “The Birdman.”

B.Y.O.B. film fest lubricates life on L.E.S.

 BY SCOTT STIFFLER | Shoestring filmmakers, and cinephiles wrestling with a similar shortage of coinage, are poised to find some common ground — when the reasonably priced Lower East Side Film Festival returns to its namesake neighborhood to “continue the tradition of showing great low-budget films from around the world.”

The sprawling June 13-23 event takes place at venues including Landmark Sunshine Cinemas, Anthology Film Archives and The Crosby Street Hotel. Feature, short, documentary, experimental, foreign, LGBT and animated films populate the festival’s roster — which also offers music, visual art, installations, a block party/Drive-in and a June 17 panel discussion featuring Tamara Jenkins, Ira Sachs and Craig Zobel.

In addition to the self-professed “inexpensive tickets,” the screenings will, festival organizers proudly declare, “be BYOB as always.” Curated with attention to the demands of the well-lubricated as well as those more prone to sober contemplation, we’re especially interested in seeing the following:

Director Chioke Nassor’s “How To Follow Strangers” is based on the true story of a woman who died in her apartment, and was found a year later (decomposing, but still looking snappy, in a crisp Chanel suit). When a young man becomes obsessed with this urban tragedy and disappears, a young woman who shares his commuting schedule inserts herself into his life after he resurfaces.

Joanna Arnow’s “I hate myself ” charts her dysfunctional relationship with racially charged poet-provocateur James Kepple (including a scene where Kepple razzes her about her online profile pic, while the filmmaker questions why her Romeo needed a wingman for his OkCupid date).

Jessie Auritt’s “The Birdman” looks at the life, and livelihood, of Rainbow Music’s 70-year-old proprietor. Still going strong at its St. Marks Place & First Ave. location, the store’s floor-to-ceiling inventory of CDs, VHSs and old cassettes could easily be mistaken for the lair of a world-class hoarder — but the quirky owner’s mastery of the soft sell and ability to find exactly what you want amidst the clutter makes him a treasured neighborhood character (as well as a mom-and-pop shop survivor whose very existence is helping to protect the East Village from total immersion into a Starbucks and Subway mentality). “If you’re not afraid to come in,” he vows, “you’ll probably end up buying a lot of stuff.”

June 13-23, at Landmark Sunshine Cinemas, Anthology Film Archives, The Crosby St. Hotel and other Lower East Side venues. For a full schedule of events, visit lesfilmfestival.com.

Photos courtesy of ARChive of Contemporary Music

From now through Labor Day, you could spend countless hours scouring every last stoop, garage and yard sale you come across — and you still won’t come even remotely close to the quality pickings you’ll find at the ARChive of Contemporary Music’s Summer Record & CD Sale.  Twice a year (now, and again during the holidays), the not-for-profit archive, music library and research center opens its doors to the public with a dizzying, up-for-grabs collection of new and donated items from record companies and collectors.

Last week, the staff was sorting through 40,000 new arrivals — including 500 sound effects records, early hip-hop recordings, rap twelve-inch singles and punk rarities. In addition to the CDs and LPs (most of them priced from $1-$5), they’ll also be hanging figurative “For Sale” signs on turntables and audio equipment, Fillmore East programs, music magazines and original 60s psychedelic posters (from Detroit’s Grande Ballroom). For the “dis-en-vinyled,” there’s also an Astroturf Yard Sale, featuring a generous selection of vintage kitchen wares and clothing. As always, becoming a member of ARC will score you an invite to their Summer Party (“great food, nice people and first crack at all the recordings”). Let the pickin’ and the grinnin’ begin!

Free admission. Sat., June 8 through Sun., June 16, from 11am-6pm daily. At the ARChive of Contemporary Music (54 White St., three blocks south of Canal St., btw. Broadway & Church Sts.). Call 212-226-6967 or visit arcmusic.org.

—Scott Stiffler

BY SCOTT STIFFLER  |  When she’s not conducting guided tours of her Lower East Side Troll Museum, hosting the Anti-Slam at Pyramid Club or writing books (such as the upcoming “BDSM 101”), chances are elf-eared art star icon Saint Reverend Jen is busy prepping for The Mr. Lower East Side Pageant.

Like the Macy’s Parade, this beloved annual NYC destination event requires year-round work in order to delight the masses with its intoxicating brew of satire, sexy spectacle and Budweiser-fueled shenanigans. But are those who triumph in their quest for the crown born or made? We asked this, and other penetrating questions, to Rev. Jen.

Can contestants train to develop the qualities one looks for in a Mr. L.E.S., or are they intangible traits? 

Some men are naturally lazy multislackers, while others need to work at it. Training for the pageant should involve imbibing copious amounts of cheap alcohol, collecting unemployment checks, loosening one’s morality and ridding oneself of shame.

Only gay men and women are allowed to be judges. Like the Boy Scouts, have you faced external pressure to reflect the diversity that makes America the single greatest country on the face of the earth? 

The decision to allow only women and gay men the right to vote has been controversial — but I believe that if straight men were allowed to vote, there would be too much underhanded alpha male bullshit to contend with. Women didn’t get the right to vote in this country until 1920, so dudes need to give us a break.

How do the duties of runner-up Mr. Tribeca differ from those of Mr. L.E.S.?

Mr. Tribeca’s only duty is to wear a vagina-shaped crown throughout his term, while Mr. L.E.S. has no duty other than to bask in the glory of being Mr. L.E.S. — though it should be stated that previous Mr. Lower East Sides have done quite a bit.

When Giuliani created a “decency panel” back in 2001, Mr. L.E.S. Mike Amato created a “Lower East Side Decency Panel.” When Mr. L.E.S. John Ennis had to relocate to L.A., he made pamphlets that spread the good news about the Lower East Side and handed them out to people on Hollywood Boulevard.

Would a scandal force Mr. L.E.S. to abdicate, or is bad behavior encouraged? How has 2012 winner Jason Thompson conducted himself?

Jason Thompson also recently relocated to L.A., which seems to be a trend. Fortunately, he is using his time wisely thanks to Grindr. We only had one impeachment trial, during Jeff Mac’s term in 2005. Laziness and insolence are encouraged…but he was just too lazy.

What are some of the most memorable responses to the Q&A segment?

Last year, when Jason Thompson was asked to name four films Cher had appeared in, he named every film Cher had ever appeared in. It also helped that his “evening wear” consisted of his birthday suit and a ZZ Top-style wig that just barely covered his wenis. He strutted onto the stage to “Sharp Dressed Man.” The Q&A plus evening wear segment is the deadliest. It makes or breaks contestants. It’s important to know two things: Lower East Side history and the female anatomy.

Rising rents, high rise buildings, shuttered theaters and a suffocating influx of monied twits — how have these exciting changes in the neighborhood impacted the pageant’s identity and mission, since its 1999 debut?

The first few pageants were held at Collective Unconscious, which we had to leave when the building was bulldozed by developers. Then we moved to Cake Shop. Then we moved to Bowery Poetry Club, which recently closed — and now, we are moving back to Cake Shop.

Obviously, the Mr. Lower East Sides aren’t doing quite enough. However, the pageant combats gentrification in that it reminds people that there are still freaks in New York City. The city should actually fund the pageant — because if folks in Middle America thought there were no more weirdos in New York, no one would come here. We are increasing tourism.

Describe the best, and worst, talent portion in pageant history.

This is a tough one…because after 13 years, I’ve witnessed so much greatness. The talent portion is one minute long and if contestants deign to go over one minute, the place erupts into the Roman Coliseum.

Moonshine Shorey (the only Triple Crown Mr. L.E.S.) chugged a beer and read a poem in under a minute. Sometimes just showing your “junk” isn’t enough. I witnessed one gentleman insert his wenis into his own anus and he still didn’t win.

Does this event have spin-off or corporate sponsorship potential (a Miss L.E.S. Pageant or perhaps a doggy version brought to you by Alpo)? 

I started the pageant because I was fed up with the female body being objectified. I write for Penthouse, so I obviously have nothing against porn or naked female bodies.

But my open mic and the performance scene in general was sorely lacking in naked male bodies. Other women and gay men must have agreed, because the pageant was an immediate hit. Every year, it gets better. The contestants have a blast and so does the audience. I would love to curate a Chippendales-type spin-off that happens monthly. The world needs it. The more silly, dancing, half-naked men in this world, the better. But for now, the pageant only happens once a year — like Christmas.

THE 14th ANNUAL MR. LOWER EAST SIDE PAGEANT
Thurs., Feb. 21, 8pm
At Cake Shop
152 Ludlow St., btw. Rivington & Stanton Sts.
Admission: $10
Contestants & Judges must arrive by 8pm
Contestants can register by e-mailing
revjen@revjen.com for details
Visit revjen.com and cake-shop.com

Photo by Sarah Ferguson
Grammy-nominated hip-hop star John Forte, with David Bailis on guitar and Brian Satz on bass, performing at the Angel Orensanz event for the Under_Line.

BY SARAH FERGUSON | On Dec. 4, more than 30 leading jazz, performance and visual artists threw down at a benefit to launch a new venue for improvisational music on the Lower East Side. Didn’t hear about it? Let me run down some names: DJ Spooky, William Parker, John Zorn, Henry Grimes, Joe Lovano, Roy Campbell, Christian McBride, Charles Gayle, Yoshiko Chuma, Billy Martin, Amira Baraka, Marshall Allen and hip-hop star John Forte, formerly of Fugees fame.

All these folks and then some came out to the Angel Orensanz Center on Norfolk St. to jump-start The Under_Line, a still-in-the-vision-stages scheme to create a permanent space for such mind-bending collaborations to occur on a regular basis. Their aim is to land a spot in the still raw basement of the Clemente Soto Velez Cultural and Educational Center on Suffolk St.

“It’s very frustrating not having a venue for what you do,” explained Patricia Parker, a dancer/choreographer and founder of the annual Vision Festival, an internationally renowned event that has showcased avant-jazz, poetry and dance in New York City for the last 17 years.

“I’ve had an office at C.S.V. for nearly a decade — it’s tiny, a former bathroom. I can’t do anything in it,” said Parker, who is also executive director of Arts for Art, a nonprofit group that supports experimental and emerging artists.

Now, with the city dropping millions to bring C.S.V. — a former elementary school turned public arts space — up to code, Parker wants to make sure she has a stake in the action.

“Music can’t survive on the Lower East Side by paying market rate,” observed Parker, who first floated her plan for an experimental music venue in 1997, after the closing of Tonic on Norfolk St.

Back then, she and guitarist Marc Ribot and actress/musician Rebecca Moore went to City Hall to demand that the city recognize the great cultural capital being squandered, and provide artists with an alternative, affordable space. But when the economy collapsed in 2008, their campaign stalled.

Now Parker is reviving her dream. While arts spaces are still dropping like flies, a 2009 court settlement put to rest the incessant infighting at C.S.V. that had kept City Hall wary of investing in the dilapidated building. Since then, the city has released more than $11 million to finance a new heating system, roof and windows and the replacement of nearly 1,000 ornate terra-cotta elements adorning the exterior.

C.S.V. is now accepting proposals for how to revamp the interior, the fate of which is still up for grabs.

“Patricia is welcome to attend any of the town meetings that we’ll be having so people can submit ideas,” said C.S.V. Director Jan Hanvik. But his first priority is getting C.S.V. up to code: adding exits, wheelchair ramps and an elevator, and more bathrooms.

“I’d say we’re a good four years away from leasing out the basement to anyone,” Hanvik said.

That doesn’t deter Parker.

“This is about making me a viable candidate for the space,” she said of The Under-Line campaign. “To make anything like this real, you need to build support — from politicians and the public, and also from the artists who will reap the benefits of the space.”

For the artists, it’s not just about another venue to perform.

“We need a place for rehearsals and for musicians to meet and practice and deal with all the daily things that go into keeping a musical lifestyle together,” pianist Matthew Shipp told the audience at Angel Orensanz, which included many veteran artists and family members. “We need all the help we can get,” Shipp said, “because these times don’t make it easy for anyone not doing corporate work.”

DJ Spooky cut to the chase: “Everybody’s moving out to Brooklyn. Yo, this is Manhattan! We have to do something about this!”

While Spooky does not lack for venues — he is currently doing a yearlong residency at the Metropolitan Museum of Art — he built his name as a DJ while living on the Lower East Side in the 1990s.

“My old studio was a junkyard at Second and B called The Gas Station,” he recalled. “Most of my parties and events used to happen in a five-block radius of this place.

“There are so many heroes in this room. I’m just honored to be here,” Spooky added before launching into a pair of compositions based on custom iPad apps and recordings he took of the ice shelves melting in Antarctica.

Other highlights included a free-form jam with William Parker and Christian McBride on bass, Charles Gayle and Hamiet Bluiett blowing sax, Jason Kao Hwang on violin, and composer/instrument builder Cooper-Moore keeping crazy time on lap drum and snare.

It was a flurry of raw talent and ideas from artists who have been working it out together for years. It was the kind of tightly woven improv you get from artists so accustomed to riffing together, they can travel through each other’s notes and take you along for the ride. One could hear echoes of Soho loft parties and old L.E.S. jazz haunts from the ’50s, ’60s and ’70s bouncing off Angel Orensanz’s soaring walls, which were lit up in pastel hues like a Matisse.

“There’s a real renaissance going on right now of improvisational music,” noted jazz pianist Connie Crothers. “There’s thrilling music going on right now. It just needs to be heard. I think if we could create such a venue as The Under_Line — run by and for the artists themselves — there would be a huge burst of musical creativity.

“This works,” Crothers added of the stunning music that filled the hall. “It’s just that people don’t know about it.”

In fact for the Under_Line to succeed, Parker and her backers will have to do a lot more promoting. Turnout for the event was good but sparse given the depth of talent on the bill. And even some performers weren’t clear on what they were there for.

“I came out not knowing much about what this event was about,” confessed Grammy-nominated hip-hop star John Forte, who performed a reggae-influenced set with his band. “When they asked, I said sure. But I didn’t know the gravity of what this was until I showed up.”

Poet Amiri Baraka, who closed the night with a surprise spoken-word set, was concise when asked why a space like The Under_Line is needed:

“So we can be humans,” Baraka responded. “How can there be humanity when there is so little art?”

The F.B.I. once thought David Peel, above, was John Lennon. Photo by Paul DeRienzo

BY PAUL DERIENZO  |  David Peel, the inveterate street rocker and Village stalwart, is a familiar face at Occupy Wall Street protests and Tompkins Square riot memorial concerts and at the Yippie Cafe on Bleecker St. His albums still sell and some are collector’s items. His unmistakable voice and simple but catchy melodies have been a soundtrack to the Village for more than 40 years. Less known is his friendship and collaboration with one of the greatest rockers of all time.

It was 32 years ago this past week that John Lennon was shot and killed by a drifter named Mark David Chapman. While hundreds of Lennon’s legions of fans gathered last Saturday at Strawberry Fields in Central Park across from where the murder occurred on the dark anniversary, probably few will know that there was a time when the F.B.I., who followed Lennon around for years, actually had the wrong guy.

Yoko Ono, Lennon’s wife, protector and muse had been living and staying in New York and its environs, and after the Beatles broke up he moved to New York with her. Lennon came to live in New York City and decided to make it his permanent home. One afternoon she took Lennon down to the Village along with rock journalist and producer Howard Smith where they visited Washington Square Park. Lennon said he saw this guy with a guitar exhorting the crowd, “Why do you have to see stars?” Lennon standing in the back of the crowd said he thought to himself, “He must be talking about me.”

Shortly afterward, Lennon was back in the park, this time with Yippie radicals Jerry Rubin and Abbie Hoffman, when they again met Peel in a circumstance Lennon described as “like a happening.”

“We started singing with him in the street until we got moved on by the police,” said Lennon. “It was wonderful.”

The meeting and subsequent friendship between the two musicians would have unforeseen consequences. The F.B.I. under J. Edgar Hoover had been tasked with disrupting the antiwar movement, which had become intertwined with the youth movement and rock-and-roll culture of the early 1970s. Hoover made it clear the bureau’s job wasn’t just to watch out for wrongdoing but to use whatever means to hinder the movement, harass its leaders and symbols and even murder them, as in the case of Chicago Black Panther leader Fred Hampton.

In the case of Peel and Lennon, the police were at a concert featuring Peel in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and got a hold of a photo used for an album cover produced for Peel by Apple, the Beatles’ record label. The image featured Peel holding a joint with the words “The Pope Smokes Dope” in a balloon

bubble coming out of his mouth.

The local cops sent the photo to F.B.I. headquarters, telling the G-men it was John Lennon. According to Peel, the F.B.I. had “told the officials in the auditorium not to take a picture of John Lennon because they didn’t know what he looked like.”

Peel said, “I looked a lot like John Lennon in those days,” adding, “I’m a fan of his,” and that he considers the mix-up “the greatest flattery of all rock and roll.”

“To this day the picture is still in the F.B.I. file,” claimed the craggy-faced hippie, who still can pull off his larger-than-life rock star persona. “I’m not complaining,” he added.

Peel has copies of his F.B.I. file, which he says amounts to 200 or 300 pages, compared to 5,000 or 6,000 about Lennon, who was fighting a major extradition case at the time. Immigration authorities used a misdemeanor cannabis arrest in England as an excuse to try and deport Lennon. After his death, a lawsuit by journalist Jon Weiner revealed that the U.S. government had been closely watching Lennon and other antiwar activists for years. Although from the evidence, the authorities seemed to have had problems telling one long-haired, pot-smoking target from another.

David Peel began his music career in 1968 with “Have A Marijuana,” followed by songs with prosaic titles like “Santa Claus Rooftop Junkie” and “Anarchy in New York City.” He’s also played himself in Cheech and Chong’s film “Rude Awakening.”

During a recent interview, Peel said, “I’m into The Fugs, Zappa, a little bit of crazy Yoko Ono — a bit of the MC5 and a little bit of David Peel.” Peel paused for a second, contemplating, then piped up, adding, “Also street people of Washington Square Park.”

Comparing himself to the popular folkies of the 1960s and ’70s, Peel said he was “much more street, much more provocative, much more uncensored.”

“He’s such a great guy,” said Lennon in 1972. “We loved his music and his spirit and everything — his whole philosophy of the street.”

DeRienzo co-hosts “Let Them Talk” on Tuesdays at 8 p.m. on Manhattan Neighborhood Network’s Lifestyle channel

Peggy Friedman, head of the Washington Square Music Festival, announcing the door prizes at the festival’s annual benefit at Le Poisson Rouge on Bleecker St. in May. Photo by Sally J. Blair

BY ALBERT AMATEAU  |   From Mozart and Beethoven to the music of West Africa, the Washington Square Music Festival, the city’s second-oldest free outdoor classical concert series, concluded its 54th consecutive year on Tuesday.

The festival has become a Village institution since it was founded by the late Alexander Schneider, violinist with the renowned Budapest String Quartet, and sponsored by the Washington Square Association, the city’s second oldest civic organization.

The festival’s annual July concerts in Washington Square Park (or in St. Joseph’s Church on Washington Place on rainy evenings) have ranged over the familiar classical repertory and the not-so-familiar sounds of jazz, avant-garde and world music.

“We’ve always had great musicians,” said Peggy Friedman, executive director of the Washington Square Music Festival for more than 30 years. “Wynton Marsalis played with the festival chamber ensemble when he was 17. Of course, he was classically trained,” she observed.

“Sasha Schneider, who founded the festival, often played in Washington Square in the early days,” she noted. “The soprano Marilyn Horne performed in a concert with her husband Henry Lewis in 1960; and the Charles Mingus Orchestra played the music of the late great jazz master in the festival several times in recent years,” Friedman said.

“Lutz Rath, the current leader of the festival chamber orchestra, is a distinguished cellist with a special sensitivity to the human voice,” Friedman added.

She noted with pride The New York Times review of the July 17 performance in which the reviewer, Allan Kozinn, said the Franz Schubert Quartet in C minor for two cellos was “a luminous performance,” and the Gustav Mahler piano quartet was “played with intensity.”

In the same program, Arnold Schoenberg’s “Ode to Napoleon” for piano quintet and speaker, Rath was the speaker of the text by Byron.

Fittingly, Friedman speaks with intensity whenever referring to the festival and to Greenwich Village where she lived as a child on W. Ninth St.

“In a way, the festival is who I am — I grew up with it,” Friedman said. “My mother, Peggy Campbell, helped organize it in 1953 and was the first director of the festival.”

Back then, Greenwich Village was still a low-rent, low-rise, brownstone neighborhood, according to Friedman, who has been living in Upstate Sullivan County with her husband, the sculptor Robert Friedman, since 2001.

“We used to play hopscotch on the sidewalk and everyone knew who their neighbors were,” she recalled.

Friedman studied theater at Northwestern outside Chicago after she graduated from the Brearley School in 1956, but she came back to New York as an actress before getting a degree.

“I did finally graduate — from Hunter College — in 1977. It was a great experience going to school as an older undergraduate,” she said.

Under the stage name of Courtney Campbell, she took part in the Off Broadway theater scene of the 1960s. She was a member of the Actors Repertory Theater, founded by Wendell Phillips, a Broadway actor, playwright and director. A highlight of her theater days was taking part in Peter Schuman’s astonishing Bread and Puppet Theater. She acted with the late writer and political activist Grace Paley in 1965.

“One of the most influential things in my life was working for Emeline Paige, who was still editor of The Villager in the early 1960s,” Friedman said. Paige, the creator of Scoopy’s Notebook, was part of The Villager from 1934 (the year after it was founded) until 1967. “She was a free spirit years ahead of her time — proper, strong-willed and unconventional,” Friedman recalled.

The same could be said of Friedman, who was described as “the heart and soul of the Washington Square Music Festival” by Anne-Marie Sumner, president of the Washington Square Association.

“She is the glue that holds it all together, raising funds and making sure that everything works,” Sumner said.

Young Magic, led by producer and vocalist Isaac Emmanuel (right), will bring their brand of indie electronica to the Mercury Lounge on July 29. Photo by Bek Andersen

Forgo outdoor fests, and beat the heat with music in the Village

BY SAM SPOKONY   |  With the thermometer hitting the triple digits for days on end, I don’t blame you for wanting to stay inside — and while New York hosts some of the nation’s best outdoor music festivals every summer, we shouldn’t neglect the equally exciting shows taking place inside the wealth of excellent East and West Village venues. So feel free to get some sun — but don’t feel compelled to run all the way out to the beaches or parks when it comes to taking in tunes of all shapes, sizes and subgenres.

With that in mind, I’ve looked deeply into my crystal ball of coming events in the worlds of jazz and indie/rock music, and have come up with several tips to increase your live listening pleasure over the next month. Aside from including both fast-rising young artists and revered elder statesmen, these listings also feature some of the best values in town —no higher than $35 for jazz and $20 for indie, with a couple of freebies thrown into the mix — because some of us can’t drop $200 on tickets for Justin Bieber at MSG…and why should we, when there’s more affordable and eclectic fare to be had?

JAZZ

While Brooklyn-based pianist John Lander isn’t quite old enough to order a beer, his melodic control and keen sense of harmonic layering belie his age. The SUNY Purchase conservatory student has the rare ability to approach both decades-old standards and contemporary tunes with the same level of energy and fresh invention. Check him out at Caffe Vivaldi (32 Jones St., btw. Bleecker & W. Fourth Sts.) on July 24 at 8:30pm, and you’ll see what I mean. Whether it’s with Duke Ellington’s classic “C Jam Blues” played in two keys at once, or a surprisingly deep Deadmau5 cover, this kid’s going to show you that jazz hasn’t stopped evolving. And to top it off, there’s no cover charge. For more info, visit caffevivaldi.com.

Speaking of evolution, I won’t be the first one to tell you that there are a number of jazz instrumentalists who haven’t become household names, even though they’ve played a vital role in pushing the music forward. Tenor saxophonist and flautist Lew Tabackin, who turned 72 this year, falls squarely into that category — so if you haven’t heard him blow yet, get off your couch and get schooled! Aside from spending three decades as the head soloist in a cutting-edge big band led by his wife (pianist and composer Toshiko Akiyoshi), Tabackin has recorded with icons like Clark Terry, Hank Jones and Charlie Haden. Now you can see him at Smalls Jazz Club (183 W. 10th St., btw. W. Fourth St. & Seventh Ave.) on July 27 and 28 at 10pm, for a $20 cover. For the back-to-back shows, Tabackin will be leading a trio featuring bassist Boris Kozlov — who also does a hell of a job leading the Charles Mingus Big Band — and drummer Shinnosuke Takahashi. Tickets can’t be reserved, so you’ll have to pay your cover at the door. For more information, visit smallsjazzclub.com.

If the straight-ahead stuff isn’t enough, and you’re up for an act that stretches the boundaries of jazz outside both the genre and the American border, look no further than Farah Siraj and The Arabian Jazz Project. Siraj, a vocalist who was recently named the Musical Ambassadress of her home country of Jordan, now leads an ethnically diverse quintet — with musicians from the U.S., Spain, Syria and Georgia — on a quest to blend Middle Eastern rhythms with Western jazz harmonies. They’re doing it with everything from traditional Arabian folk tunes to original compositions in contemporary styles, and you can experience some of the culture shock for yourself at Drom (85 Ave. A, btw. Fifth & Sixth Sts.) on August 4 at 9:30pm. Tickets are $10, and can be purchased in advance at dromnyc.com.

And it wouldn’t hurt to see four of jazz’s greatest living musicians all at once, right? That’s what you’ll get if you come out to see Lee Konitz, Bill Frisell, Gary Peacock and Joey Baron as they celebrate the release of their new album, “Enfants Terribles,” with a five-night run at the Blue Note (131 W. Third St., btw. MacDougal St. & Sixth Ave.). Just writing about it is making me sweat — and I think I just coughed up a few minor ninth chords in anxious anticipation. Saxophonist Konitz, guitarist Frisell, bassist Peacock and drummer Baron have all left their mark on the last half-century of the jazz tradition as individual leaders — but this is the first time they’re joining forces to bring the best of the old school to the 21st century. And there’s a chance for everyone to take a listen, as the quartet will perform two sets per night — at 8pm and 10:30pm — from August 15-19. Tickets cost $20 for a bar seat and $35 for a table, and you can purchase table tickets in advance at bluenote.com. Tickets for bar seats can only be purchased at the door, and they’re first-come, first-served.

INDIE/ROCK

Lovers of the musically trippy should by all means converge at the Mercury Lounge (217 E. Houston St., btw. Ludlow & Essex Sts.) on July 29 — where you’ll find two acts that come from opposite angles to achieve equal amounts of catchiness and weirdness. Quilt, a Boston-based indie-folk trio, radiates a cosmic wave of jangly guitars and three-part harmonies that recalls the soul of the ’60s — while washing that soul in chorus effects that are thick enough to kill a small horse. Young Magic is an electronica trio led by Australian-born producer Isaac Emmanuel, whose most recent project involved sampling and recording songs, piece-by-piece, over the course of a six-month trip around the world. This combination should be one that captures everything great about the blend of high-tech instrumentation and lo-fi grit that’s been an indie trademark for years, so don’t miss it. Doors open at 7pm, and tickets cost $10 in advance and $12 the day of the show. To purchase tickets, visit mercuryloungenyc.com.

Amy Vachal: so dreamy. And I don’t just say that because she’s young and attractive. Her voice may actually be angelic enough to permeate and hover within your subconscious mind. She’s a songwriter and guitarist at heart, combining passionate lyrics with upbeat tunes that are folk-tinged and pop-friendly — but Vachal also shines while reinterpreting cheesy old standards like “La Vie En Rose” in understated, self-accompanied solos. Don’t believe me? Go check her out for yourself at Rockwood Music Hall (196 Allen St., btw. E. Houston & Stanton Sts.) on August 2 at 9pm. And there’s no cover charge, so feel free to buy yourself that extra drink. For more information, visit rockwoodmusichall.com.

Now, I know some people are just going to treat this next event as a massive dance party. That’s fine, but I still think there’s plenty of listening value in it for anyone like me, who would rather watch paint dry than dance continually for three hours. I’m talking about electro mastermind RJD2, who’s going to be playing a set at Webster Hall (125 E. 11th St., btw. Third & Fourth Aves.) on August 3 at 10pm. For more than a decade, he’s been one of the most adventurous and stylistically open-minded producers in the nation, while never losing his straight-up skills as a DJ and instrumentalist. As RJD2 continues to mix samples from the worlds of rock, hip-hop and electronica into a whole that’s much greater than the sum of its parts, it’s worth hearing him on such a big stage. Tickets cost $20, and can be purchased in advance at websterhall.com.

And finally, since it’s always nice to end with a flourish, I give you instrumental rock mainstay Russian Circles. With a wide dynamic range that runs from seriously heavy breakdowns to swirling, ethereal improvisations, the Chicago-based trio quickly became known for their way-better-than-the-record live shows when they first hit the scene around 2004, and that reputation has never faded. Catch them at Highline Ballroom (431 W. 16th St., btw. Ninth & Tenth Aves.) on August 18 at 8:30pm. The opening bill for this one is also worth hearing, comprising the deeply brooding singer-songwriter Chelsea Wolfe and the inventively grungy power trio Marriages. But don’t you dare bring earplugs. You take that high-volume distortion — and you take it like a (gender-neutral) man. Tickets cost $15 in advance and $18 on the day of the show, and you can purchase them at highlineballroom.com.

And that’s that! Happy listening to all, and don’t forget to tip your bartender. If you have any questions, suggestions or hidden secrets about sweet shows on and under the Village radar, drop me a line at samspokony@gmail.com.