Can spring really hang you up the most? Only if you don't jump on one of these amazing shows in the coming days. So get out there!
Spotlight: Coltrane 100 — Wednesday, McCarter Theatre Center, Princeton
We’ve already chronicled a few noteworthy centennial tributes to John Coltrane, but this one — happening midweek at Princeton’s McCarter Theatre Center — carries rare promise. For one thing, it arrives with the imprimatur of the Coltrane estate. For another, it features not one but two first-rate saxophonists inspired by the master’s legacy: Joe Lovano and Melissa Aldana, each a searching artist with a defined voice and vocabulary, as well as a sterling track record.
They’ll perform individually and in tandem, backed by a rhythm section well suited to the occasion, with Nduduzo Makhathini on piano, Linda May Han Oh on bass, and Jeff “Tain” Watts on drums. The set list is likely to range far and wide within the Coltrane cosmology, taking plenty of inspired liberties. Lovano, 73, has paid tribute in this fashion many times before, and offers a hint of the approach they’ll take. “This quintet will honor Coltrane’s compositions as a springboard to explore and express ourselves,” he says in a statement. “We do not seek to recreate, but rather to create in the spirit of Coltrane.”
April 8 at 7:30 p.m., McCarter Theatre, 91 University Place, Princeton, NJ, $44-$86; tickets and information.
Minas — Friday, Lansdowne Theater
The Lansdowne Theater first opened as a movie house in 1927, and closed 60 years later after an electrical fire. Now, after laying dormant for nearly four decades and undergoing a $20 million renovation, the venue has reopened — and will officially celebrate with a concert by Philly’s premiere Brazilian ensemble. Led by the husband-and-wife duo of Orlando Haddad and Patricia King, Minas formed right around the time that the Lansdowne shut its doors; all ticket proceeds from this special event will support the restored theater’s maintenance.
April 10 at 7:30 p.m., Lansdowne Theater, 31 North Lansdowne Ave, Lansdowne, PA; $30-$100; tickets and information.
Victor North and Aidan McKeon Sextet — Friday, Chris’ Jazz Cafe
Philly jazz stalwart Victor North teams up here with his fellow saxophonist Aidan McKeon, who parlayed his formative training at the Philadelphia Clef Club of Jazz into further studies at the Juilliard School. They’ll be joined by Conrad Herwig, a trombonist and arranger who has made a trademark out of retrofitting the jazz canon with Latin-jazz grooves.
April 10 at 7:30 and 9:30 p.m., Chris’ Jazz Cafe, 1421 Sansom Street, $25, with dinner packages; tickets and information.
Stéphane Wrembel — Friday, City Winery
Django Reinhardt has been an abiding inspiration for Stéphane Wrembel, who honed his craft among Sinti guitarists in the French countryside. But Wrembel is neither hemmed in by history nor confined by style, as he shows on Django New Orleans II: Hors Série, an album of eclectic, even anachronistic material like Astor Piazzola’s “Libertango” and Serge Gainsbourg’s “Le Poinçonneur des Lilas.”
April 10 at 7:30 p.m., City Winery, 990 Filbert Street, $36-$48; tickets and information.
YoungArts Philadelphia: Artist Gathering — Friday, FringeArts
YoungArts, the national foundation for the advancement of artists, joins forces with Felt Void, a festival of communal listening founded by James Allister Sprang, for this experience in spatialized sound. A range of artists — Sprang along with Benjamin Louis Brody, Jaleel Shaw and Immanuel Wilkins — have created works that will be presented in a brand-new 4DSound system, which involves what organizers are calling “sonic holograms.”
April 10 at 7:3-0 p.m., FringeArts, 140 N Columbus Boulevard, $25, $15 for students and under 25s; tickets and information.
Anaïs Reno — Saturday, Chris’ Jazz Cafe
A jazz singer with a warmly assured style beyond her years, Anaïs Reno has been steadily gaining ground on the scene. Her new album — Lady of the Lavender Mist, after a Duke Ellington ballad — comes with the cosign of a prominent elder, guitarist Peter Bernstein. For this one-nighter at Chris’, where she’s been a regular, she’ll be joined by the Tim Brey/Aidan McKeon Quartet.
April 11 at 7:30 and 9:30 p.m., Chris’ Jazz Cafe, 1421 Sansom Street, $35, with dinner packages; tickets and information.
Chris Speed’s Yeah No — Saturday, Solar Myth
Tenor saxophonist and clarinetist Chris Speed formed Yeah No in the late 1990s, convening a few fellow twentysomethings under an ethos governed by irreverent yet earnest ideals. The band — with trumpeter Cuong Vu, electric bassist Skúli Sverrisson, and drummer Jim Black — made several albums together before everyone headed off on separate solo trajectories, and far-flung coordinates. So this marks a welcome reunion, as well as a symbolic return, given that Yeah No played the first-ever Ars Nova Workshop show in March 2000.
April 11 at 8 p.m., Solar Myth, 1131 S Broad Street, $30; tickets and information.
