By Don Allred
Roy Ayers with fo/mo/deep
Although Roy Ayers didn’t start playing the vibraphone until he was seventeen, lessons on keyboards and percussion certainly prepared him to raise electric rainbows. Vivacious vintage tracks like "Everybody Loves The Sunshine" have stimulated acid jazz bands, neo-soul balladeers, hip-hop producers, and trans-genre club DJs as well. Ayers’ slyly expansive instrumental and verbal skills are seconded by Columbus’s own fo/mo/deep, whose current set, Eclecticism, also sails the jazz funk galaxies.
03/04 @ Vonn Jazz Lounge, 245 E. Campus View Blvd.
7 & 10 p.m.
Great American Taxi
Steering close to the Grateful Dead's and Commander Cody’s roadhouse landmarks, Great American Taxi rolls the restless, sometimes frustrated vitality of all us great Americans into song-focused, jam-wise, cannily customized rides. “Cold Lonely Town” expertly prowls the odds; “Albuquerque, NM” passes along subtly shaded warnings. “Tough Job” kids GAT’s working-man persona, while “Fuzzy Little Hippy Girl” eternally inspires “bongos in the corporate jet/Ready for tonight’s drum circle!”
03/05 @ Woodlands Tavern, 1200 W. 3rd Ave.
9 p.m.
Chris Thomas King with the Floorwalkers
Singer/songwriter/arranger/multi-instrumentalist Chris Thomas King not only plays the blues, he plays the bluesmen, in movies such as O Brother, Where Art Thou? and Ray. Rootsy success hasn’t inhibited King’s blues odyssey, which sometimes encounters hip-hop, chamber music, jazz, African sources and psych-rock. His afternoon Jazz Academy-sponsored workshop at the Lincoln traces the blues through ancient-to-contemporary connections. This concert includes CTK favorites and new songs. Columbus’s roots-rocking Floorwalkers open.
03/05 @ The Lincoln Theatre, 769 E. Long St.
Workshop: 2 p.m., Concert: 8 p.m.
Altan
In the summer of 1973, roving Belfast teenager Frankie Kennedy ventured into remote County Donegal. There he met a fair young lass, Mairead Ni Mhaonagh, whose levitating Gaelic ballads were as magnetic as her reeling fiddle. Ni Mhaonagh’s presence still centers Altan, the standard-setting traditional band she and the late Kennedy nurtured. With two fiddles, two guitars, bouzouki, tin whistle, and button accordion, Altan’s courtship of living musical history continues.
03/09 @ The Lincoln Theatre, 769 E. Long St.
8 p.m.
Lady Gaga with Scissor Sisters
As her debut album The Fame begins, Lady Gaga zings an arrogant lover in passing: “He just couldn’t wait/Yeah, he’d never last.” Gaga’s new single, “Born to Be”, rallies fellow travelers with equally bracing candor: “Subway Kid/Rejoice your truth/In the religion of the insecure.” This fresh, yet traditional, dance diva also challenges herself to keep spinning through the thrillingly truthful and truly thrilling. Glittery, durable Scissor Sisters open.
03/10 @ The Schottenstein Center, 555 Borror Dr.
8 p.m.
She Bears/EaseThe Medic/Saturday Giant/Vanity Theft
Columbus sextet She Bears tenaciously ride daily life’s light and dark arcs, especially in “Black Mannequins,” a paradoxically rollicking anti-fashion rant/confessional. Fans of the Arcade Fire and Columbus’s Karate Coyote should definitely check them out. Winter’s lingering discontents also get zapped by local lights Ease The Medic’s post-punk cathartic complexity and the Saturday Giant’s electronic sci-fi apocalypse. Springboro’s all-female, indie-pop-rocking Vanity Theft bring on justice-seeking, disruptively romantic drama.
03/11 @ Kobo, 2590 N. High St.
9 p.m.
Richard Shindell with Nels Andrews
Singer/songwriters Richard Shindell and Nels Andrews balance folkie sentiment with observantly shaded clarity and sensuous tone. Shindell is especially adept at directing the traffic of detail and rhythm, as his characters, including Mary Magadelene, a desperate interrogator, and a high-flying canary, all refuse to settle down and shut up. Ditto Nels Andrews’ people, like the guy cruising back through his hometown, greeting the spring: “I’m sober/Though my memories are lies.”
03/12 @ The Columbus Performing Arts Center(The Shedd Theatre), 549 Franklin Ave.
Doors Open: 7:30 p.m.
Columbus Jazz Orchestra/Ken Peplowski/Butch Miles
The CJO and director/trumpet ace Byron Stripling salute the music of Count Basie, Buddy Rich and Benny Goodman, with two very appropriate guests, clarinetist/saxophonist Ken Peplowski and drummer Butch Miles. Peplowski started out in his family’s Cleveland polka band; by age 25, he was playing with swing king Goodman. Butch Miles made his reputation while touring with the Count Basie Orchestra. Tested by the best, Peplowski and Miles are stage-savvy artists.
03/17-20 @ The Southern Theatre, 21 E. Main St.
03/17-19: 8 p.m., 03/20: 2 & 7:30 p.m.
roeVy/Digiraatii/Carma & Attak/Cornelious Jackson
Now entering the third year of their social experiment, DJ/VJ unit roeVy add The Demons EP to Columbus’s synchronised diet of humanoid warmth and flamboyant minimalism. Also making electro-house a home for the adventurous, successful Cleveland-to-Columbus transplants Digiraatii’s characteristically exuberant march gets lured into dubstep’s dancefloor chess moves on the intriguing new “Years Ago,” from the forthcoming Drop City. Carma & Attak and Cornelious Jackson provide very palatable compatibility.
03/19 @ Skully’s, 1151 N. High St.
8 p.m.
Blasters
Brothers Dave and Phil Alvin’s 1979-launched Blasters quickly became roots-rock standard-setters: Dave was the eloquent songwriter/lead guitarist, Phil was the yelping, wailing, born-to-be lead singer. Phil still thrills, as he and his co-founding Blasters, drummer Bill Bateman and bassist John Bazz, plus long-time axeman Keith Wyatt, keep their rockabilly-r&b-honky tonk colors flying like sheets on the line.
03/19 @ Woodlands Tavern, 1200 W. 3rd Ave.
9 p.m.
Curse Icon/7th Cycle/Chasing Oblivion
Powell-based Curse Icon have been compared to Evanescence, but they’ve got their own volatile swirl of melody and metal. Vocalist Kiana Prestol projects without screeching clichès or faux-operatic delusions either. Drummer Marco also charges the convergence of Jason Retz's guitar and Jim Guest's bass with crystalline keyboard shards and electronic friction, further focusing the frustration and resolve of CI’s new EP, The War Inside. Columbus journeymen 7th Cycle and Chasing Oblivion maintain this show’s range of head-banging topography.
03/25 @ Newport Music Hall, 1722 N. High St.
Doors Open: 5:30 p.m.
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