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Sonny
Fortune Quartet
The
Van Dyck, Thursday
After
playing as a sideman in the ’60s and ’70s with Elvin Jones,
McCoy Tyner, Buddy Rich and Miles Davis, saxophonist Sonny
Fortune seemed destined for his own share of glory. While
his impact on the jazz world so far has been somewhat low-key,
he has always been an in-demand sideman, and he has cut some
well-received records as a leader, notably Monk’s Mood
in 1993 and a refreshingly original and insightful John Coltrane
tribute album in 1999. But don’t take our word for it—take
H. Carl McCall’s. Yes, the New York state comptroller and
Democratic gubernatorial candidate is expected to be in attendance
at Fortune’s Van Dyck show, and McCall is known to have discriminating
taste in jazz (OK, the event also is a McCall fundraiser,
but let’s not get too hung up on details). Who knows—you might
find yourself tapping your feet in time with New York’s next
governor. (Aug. 22, two shows at 7 and 9:30 PM, $50, 381-1111)
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Berkshire
Jazz Festival
Butternut
Ski Basin and other venues, Thursday-Sunday
Calling
all jazz lovers! The second annual Berkshire Jazz Festival
will present 20 bands on three stages this Saturday and Sunday
at Butternut Basin on Route 23 in Great Barrington, Mass.,
plus additional performances tonight (Thursday) and tomorrow
(Friday) at various nearby venues. From noon to 8 PM Saturday
and Sunday at Butternut, the stages will be hopping with nonstop
music: Among the featured artists are Maynard Ferguson, Spyro
Gyra, the Caribbean Jazz Project, Hank Jones and Chico Hamilton.
Jam sessions, music workshops, food and crafts add to the
packed-to-the-brim weekend in the Berkshires. The festival
actually begins tonight (Thursday) with a free 6 PM performance
by festival producer/founder Mark Morganelli with his band,
the Jazz Forum All-Stars, at the Norman Rockwell Museum (Route
183, Stockbridge). Friday night has been deemed Berkshire
Club Night, featuring local jazz acts at seven participating
venues including Union Bar & Grill, Cheesecake Charlie’s
and Club Helsinki. (Aug. 22-25, $60 for both days, $37.50
for one day, $40 for both days kids and seniors, $25 for one
day kids and seniors, 476-1000 or 914-631-1000.)
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 Skinless,
Disciples of Berkowitz, Traumaside, Thunderclad, Irate
Saratoga
Winners, Saturday
Severely
distorted guitars machine-gun strummed, rapid-fire double-bass
pedal drumming in bursts, vocals projected directly from the
bowels of hell—and somewhere in that mess there’s a bass player.
Those are the sounds of death metal at its finest. Those also
happen to be the sounds of Saratoga’s own Skinless. The group,
known for their over-the-top live performances, will be at
Saratoga Winners Saturday for a CD-release show. The quartet
of darkness, comprising vocalist Sherwood Webber, guitarist
Noah Carpenter, drummer Bob Beaulac and bassist Joe Keyser,
will be handing out copies of their new CD-single Miscreant,
an enhanced disc featuring new material recorded during the
group’s Roaming America Tour earlier this summer. Fresh off
of last month’s stop at the Milwaukee Metal Fest, Skinless
will play Winners before embarking on a mini-East Coast tour
with Six Feet Under. Rounding out the bill of underground
metal brutality are Albany’s psychotic rockers Disciples of
Berkowitz (who just finished work for their new album Chronicles),
Traumaside, Thunderhead and Irate. (Aug. 24, 8 PM, $12,
783-1010)
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Paul
Westerberg
Pearl Street, Northampton,
Mass., Saturday
He
might be a father, and he sure is a dad. Yeah, Paul Westerberg,
lead singer and songwriter for the legendary Replacements
and solo artist since the ’Mats broke up back in 1991, has
been keeping a low profile for the last several years, mostly
staying at home in Minnesota and hanging out with his young
son. Oh, and he’s been writing songs, too, which led to the
release this year of a complex two-album project on the Vagrant
label, Stereo and Mono, the latter released
under his sometime- pseudonym Grandpaboy. While Westerberg
probably will never recapture the naive, sloppy charm of early
Replacements material (and c’mon, why would he want
to—he’s a dad now, for chrissakes!), critics are hailing Stereo
as an older, wiser, subtler and sparer version of Westerberg
with his old emotional resonance back in place, and Mono
as a return to traditional rock & roll with plenty of
swagger—and not the kind that comes from drinking 12 beers
in 45 minutes. Westerberg claims to be pretty happy with his
new stuff too, which explains why he’s taken temporary leave
of his Dr. Seuss-reading duties to hit the road again. (Aug.
24, 8:30 PM, $20, 800-THE-TICK)
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Sammy
Hagar and David Lee Roth
Saratoga
Performing Arts Center, Saturday
What
Van Halen fan doesn’t remember when Sammy Hagar took over
frontman duties after David Lee Roth vacated the position
in 1985? Who doesn’t know how much these guys hate each
other? Whose mother doesn’t know the animosity between
the two towheads? And while most fans have their favorite
Van Halen frontfella (Roth), they can now see both of ’em
on one stage at one time (perhaps they joined in a mutual
hatred for Eddie). Roth led Van Halen through the mid-’70s
and the early ’80s and through six mega-platinum albums, and
left the band badly (although he did return for a spell after
Hagar departed to record a couple songs for a greatest-hits
album before getting the boot once again). Hagar joined up
on Roth’s departure, saw the band through a bunch more albums
of the multi-platinum sort, and was shown the door as well.
The two egomaniacal onetime frontguys will play SPAC on Saturday.
(Aug. 24, 7:30 PM, $35-$65, 476-1000)
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Kevin
Blechdom, Goodiepal
West
Hall, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Wednesday
Kevin Blechdom is actually Kristin Erickson, and the Florida
native has taken her early lessons in piano to new and interesting
heights. Blechdom first played her instrument of choice with
Adult Rodeo, an Austin, Texas, band who put out a couple of
albums on Kramer’s Shimmy Disc label and toured the states
and Europe with Kramer and Jad Fair. Blechdom then got interested
in computer music at San Francisco’s Mills College, where
she learned to program software (all of her present music
is generated by software she herself programmed) and began
Blectum From Blechdom with a friend. She’s got a couple of
solo EPs out on tigerbeat6, The Inside Story and I
Heart Presets (the latter of which contains a too-cool-for-words
rendition of Tina Turner’s “Private Dancer”), and on Wednesday
at RPI, she’ll sing and play two laptops, a banjo and a strap-on
MIDI as the kickoff for the iEAR presents! fall season. Danish
electronic musician Goodiepal shares the bill. (Aug. 28,
8 PM, $5, $3 RPI community, 276-4829)
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also
noted
Intimate
duo Jen Chapin (vocals) and Stephan Crump (bass)
will play tonight (Thursday) at Great Barrington’s Club Helsinki
(9 PM, $12, $10 advance, 413-528-6308). . . . Zydeco master
Terrance Simien will play tonight at the Guilderland
Performing Arts Center (7:30 PM, free, 355-0890). . . . Secretguy
are threatening to call it a day, playing their last show
tomorrow (Friday) on the downstairs stage at Valentine’s—a
Black Sabbath tribute, no less. Sharing the bill are Clawdaddy,
Wood, Jason Martin and the Regurgitones, John Brodeur, 5 Alpha
Beatdown, Hungry Jack and the Lawn Sausages. See
your favorite Sabbath tunes performed by some of our area’s
most deranged and delightful (an oxymoron perhaps), and make
sure to sock the Secretguys on their nozzles for getting us
hooked and leaving us wanting (8 PM, $5, 432-6572). . . .
Gay Tastee & Scout will play a kid-oriented, cuss-free
set at Miss Mary’s Art Space Friday, followed by performances
by Troy Pohl and Lincoln Money Shot; then Tastee
and Scout will again take the stage for a late-night swearfest
(7:30 PM, 439-0041, http://missmarysartspace.tripod.com).
. . . Blackcat Elliot will play their last show with
bassist Jamie St. Denis on Friday, and new band Scrapper
(featuring a couple of members of old band 100 Acre Wood)
will open (9 PM, 238-2788). . . . Dave Walsh and
Nelson Gage will play a mix of swing and bluegrass
at Miss Mary’s on Saturday as a benefit for the venue. The
evening also features a screening of the 14-minute-long Poopampareno,
a film produced by Walsh and Scott Freedman, aka Unfortunate
Face Productions (8 PM, $10, 439-0041). . . . On Sunday, Northern
Lights hosts Rockfest at the Albany-Saratoga Speedway in Malta,
featuring Dokken, L.A. Guns, Warrant, Ratt and Firehouse.
Gates open for the all-day festival at 11 AM, and there will
local bands playing prior to the mainstage activities as well
as vendors and backstage pass giveaways ($30, $25 advance,
371-0012). . . . Jazz guitarist Mike DiMicco will join
Laurel Masse at the WAMC Performing Arts Studio on
Wednesday (8 PM, $5, 465-5233, ext. 4).
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Columns
& Opinions
