Pop, Rock and Jazz in NYC This Week

LIL YACHTY at Terminal 5 (Aug. 25, 8 p.m.). If you feel as if you don’t understand the appeal of the 20-year-old Atlanta musician Lil Yachty, don’t fret — you may be just a little too old for his proudly silly style of rapping and singing. (Sorry.) For those who find it easier to tune in to Lil Yachty’s wavelength, releases like his recent full-length debut, “Teenage Emotions,” are way too much fun to sweat the details.
888-929-7849, terminal5nyc.com

RADIATOR HOSPITAL at Saint Vitus (Aug. 29, 8 p.m.). This Philadelphia-based punk band specializes in compact, devilishly catchy songs about heartbreak, delivered in lead singer Sam Cook-Parrott’s urgent whine. The group’s upcoming album, “Play the Songs You Like,” is its first in three years, and its release in October is a major event for Radiator Hospital’s devoted and growing fan base.
877-987-6487, saintvitusbar.com

SIMON VOZICK-LEVINSON

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Jazz

MARY HALVORSON AND AMBROSE AKINMUSIRE at National Sawdust (Aug. 30, 7 p.m.). Here are two young musicians with vastly different approaches to contemporary jazz, but with something in common, too. Ms. Halvorson, a guitarist, uses bent notes and small, dissonant harmonies to incite. In her hands, a hunk of desiccated wood is also a sparky transmitter. Mr. Akinmusire, a trumpeter with a dark and furrowed tone, stands a few steps closer to your classic conceptions of beauty, but both musicians offer their gifts with their fists partly closed: Both are inward-looking, playing in a language that draws them nearer to an essence, rather than to communication. Ms. Halvorson and Mr. Akinmusire will appear here in a duo for the first time, each debuting new compositions.
646-779-8455, nationalsawdust.org

SHABAKA HUTCHINGS, MOSES BOYD EXODUS AND NATIVE DANCER at Baby’s All Right (Aug. 26, 10 p.m.) and Nublu (Aug. 28, 8 p.m.). London’s jazz scene is on a hard upswing, experiencing a renaissance similar to the one underway in Los Angeles: Young musicians of diverse backgrounds are swimming in all sorts of new directions, drawing on the music of the Caribbean, Indian classical, halcyon jazz, house music and grime. A lot of this artistic growth has been fostered by Jazz Re:freshed, an organization based in West London that has presented concerts since 2003. It’s responsible for this showcase, featuring three leading names in British jazz’s new wave: the saxophonist Shabaka Hutchings, leading a trio; the drummer Moses Boyd’s band, Exodus; and Native Dancer, fronted by the vocalist Frida Mariama Toura. Saturday’s show, at Baby’s All Right, is an after party for the Afropunk music festival.
babysallright.com
nublu.com

EMILSEN PACHECO AND BULLA EN EL BARRIO at Terraza 7 (Aug. 29, 8 p.m.). Mr. Pacheco is New York’s most prominent exponent of bullerengue, the Afro-Colombian music tradition that still thrives on Colombia’s Caribbean coast. With Bulla en el Barrio, a group of more than a dozen musicians, he has performed this reverberant, boisterous music on stages across New York City over the past three years. Here the band appears at a Colombian-run, Pan-American watering hole, where the intimate surroundings will help to amplify the energy.
347-808-0518, terraza7.com

CHARLIE PARKER JAZZ FESTIVAL This yearly festival, celebrating its 25th anniversary through Sunday, is free, outdoors and judiciously programmed, with an emphasis on both blues tradition and diffuse innovation: basically, something close to the Platonic ideal of jazz festivals. It culminates this weekend, with concerts on Friday night and Saturday afternoon in Marcus Garvey Park, in Harlem, then an afternoon program on Sunday,downtown in Tompkins Square Park. Friday’s headliner is the Anat Cohen Tentet. On Saturday, the alto saxophonist Lee Konitz, the drummers Terri Lyne Carrington and Louis Hayes, and the vocalist Charenee Wade all lead groups. Sunday’s show features the saxophonists Joshua Redman, Lou Donaldson and Tia Fuller, as well as the vocalist Alicia Olatuja.
212-360-1399, cityparksfoundation.org/charlieparker

DAFNIS PRIETO BIG BAND at Jazz Standard (Aug. 25-27, 7:30 and 9:30 p.m.). Mr. Prieto, a buoyant drummer, writes music that lends an illusion of constant expansion to even the smallest ensembles. Whether he’s playing with a trio, a quartet or a slightly bigger band, he’s always assembling and realigning his components, pushing into new directions and adding layers without bogging things down. Until now, he’s never led a big band, but it’s easy to see why the challenge would appeal to him. These shows will be the first for this 17-piece band, which includes the remarkable saxophonists Roman Filiu and Chris Cheek, the pianist Manuel Valera, and the percussionist Roberto Quintero.
212-576-2232, jazzstandard.com

SAX APPEAL WITH JIMMY HEATH, GARY BARTZ, JAVON JACKSON AND DONALD HARRISON at the Iridium (Aug. 31 to Sept. 2, 8 and 10 p.m.). Each of these four saxophonists is a master of straight-ahead jazz, though most have dipped into other styles, too. Mr. Heath, 90, wears the hard-bop mantle: In the 1950s and ’60s, he was one of the style’s notable composer-practitioners. Mr. Bartz played in some of Miles Davis’s best jazz-rock ensembles, and honed a personal brand of frisky soul jazz. Mr. Jackson is known as a deft exponent of John Coltrane’s clear and untempered sound on the tenor saxophone. Mr. Harrison, a guiding light in the world of New Orleans culture, has a slippery and groove-soaked approach to the alto saxophone.
212-582-2121, theiridium.com

AXEL TOSCA at Dizzy’s Club Coca-Cola (Aug. 29, 7:30 and 9:30 p.m.). As rugged as he is lithe, this pianist fuses the percussive piano stylings of Afro-Cuban montuno with the full-fisted attack of a postbopper, as well as Western classical precision and the theatricality of funk. For his debut at Dizzy’s he presents a program, “A Night in Havana,” featuring the bassist Alex Smith, the drummer Mark Whitfield Jr., the vibraphonist and percussionist Felipe Fournier, and the vocalist Xiomara Laugart.
212-258-9595, jazz.org/dizzys

GIOVANNI RUSSONELLO

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