16 THENEWYORKER, NOVEMBER 11, 2019
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NIGHT LIFE
Musicians and night-club proprietors lead
complicated lives; it’s advisable to check in
advance to confirm engagements.JPEGMAFIA
Bowery Ballroom
The irreverent rapper and producer JPEGMA-
FIA gathers his disparate interests—anime, pop
culture, antagonizing the morally and politically
unsound—and renders them as captivating if dis-
located songs. It’s easy to mistake the chaos for
provocation for the sake of it, but Peggy, whose
recent album “All My Heroes Are Cornballs”
may be his most approachable, is a crafty lyricist
who uses his music to both critique and exorcise
the demons associated with being a veteran, an
artist, and a black man in a world that remains
unfriendly, in varying capacities, to all three. If
righteous indignation had a sound, this would
be it. (He also performs at Music Hall of Wil-
liamsburg, on Nov. 8.)—Briana Younger (Nov. 6.)“Still Point: Turning World”
Roulette
The guitarist and composer Joel Harrison shifts
so easily between genres—be they jazz, blues,
rock, country, or international styles—that
pinning him down is a sheer waste of energy.
Here, in a typically sweeping project, he joins
Indrajit Roy-Chowdhury on sitar and Swa-
minathan Selvaganesh on kanjira (plus other
Western musicians, including the saxophonist
Jon Irabagon) for a mashup of jazz and Indian
classical music.—Steve Futterman (Nov. 6.)Tom Harrell
Dizzy’s Club
Tom Harrell may not be the lickety-split trum-
pet phenom he was when he first hit New York, ILLUSTRATION BY SIMON LANDREINThe one-two punch of chillier tem-
peratures and the impending holidays
reinforces our natural inclination to
partner up and wait out the weather in
the arms of a loved one—or perhaps to
bask (or wallow) in solitude. Whatever
the case, a varied collection of singers
offer a heart-tugging soundtrack to suit
any mood. “Soul in the City” (Nov. 13,
Chelsea Music Hall) showcases a roster
of such young R. & B. rule-breakers as
Sebastian Mikael and PJ. Throwback
romantics can be ravished by the unpar-
alleled vocal stylings of Lalah Hathaway
(Nov. 15, Sony Hall), and millennial
audiences will find a patron saint in the
unfeigned lyricism of Summer Walker
(Dec. 7-8, Terminal 5).
At Webster Hall, the silky singer
Snoh Aalegra takes the stage with
Baby Rose, whose emotive voice has
drawn comparisons to that of Nina
Simone (Nov. 24). Later, the rising
stunner Xavier Omär and a few of his
equally talented peers appear on the
“Hot Javi” tour (Dec. 8). Just in time
for Valentine’s Day, the wrenching
singer Michael Kiwanuka (Feb. 8, Ter-
minal 5) performs his folk-soul songs.
For those who prefer to work out their
emotions on the dance floor beneath
skittish strobe lights set to epic bass
drops, a few splashy E.D.M. headliners
should provide opportunities for cathar-
sis. Flosstradamus shakes things up at
Webster Hall ( Jan. 3), and, across the
bridge, at Avant Gardner, Armin van
Buuren ( Jan. 23-24) and Deadmau
(Feb. 6-9) do the same.
Local radio stations play up the
seasonal cheer with an assemblage of
genre-spanning big-ticket shows. The
Barclays Center hosts 94.7’s “Stars and
Strings” (Dec. 4)—featuring country
musicians such as Sam Hunt and the viral
star Blanco Brown—along with ALT
92.3’s “Not So Silent Night” (Dec. 5),
whose lineup includes the folk rockers
Mumford & Sons and the indie-rock
darlings Vampire Weekend, and Hot
97’s “Hot for the Holidays” (Dec. 18),
a largely R. & B. showcase with perfor-
mances by Khalid, H.E.R., and Kiana
Ledé. Z100’s annual star-studded Jingle
Ball (Dec. 13) opts for Madison Square
Garden, bringing such pop mainstays as
Taylor Swift, 5SOS, and Lizzo.
WinterJazzfest ( Jan. 9-18) offers
a good reason to endure the brisk
air, with venues stretching out across
Brooklyn and Manhattan. This year’s
programming shines a spotlight on the
wide-ranging drummer and composer
Mark Guiliana, the artist-in-residence,
and honors the legendary hard-bop
drummer Art Blakey and the jazz leg-
acy of Detroit.
—Briana YoungerNIGHT LIFE
WINTER PREVIEW
Seasonal Soundtracks, Star-Studded Arenas
untangle the defiance from the despair, the
optimism from the acquiescence. Gabriel Bo-
laños fled Nicaragua with his family, in the
nineties; his string quartet, “Babel”—in which
he works to expose the threads of commonality
that bind us despite differences of time, place,
and culture—receives its New York première.
Mieczysław Weinberg’s massive and brooding
piano quintet, written in Moscow, in 1944, after
the composer escaped Nazi-occupied Poland,
completes the program.—H.W. (Nov. 12 at 7:30.)Neil Rolnick
Roulette
The composer Neil Rolnick has a knack for en-
dowing his electronic and electroacoustic works
with genuine humanity. That capacity reaches
new levels of intimacy in two works he created
in 2018, around the time of his wife’s death.
“Journey’s End,” performed here by the versatile
pianist Kathleen Supové, is meant to evoke the
peace with which Wendy Rolnick came to accept
her fate; “Messages,” for solo laptop with danc-
ers, makes use of voice-mail messages recovered
posthumously and the fiddle music discussed
therein.—S.S. (Nov. 12 at 8.)