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In the years since Netherlands collective The Ex first debuted, in 1979, the band has gone through admirable, always interesting stylistic changes. Venturing beyond the in-your-grill anarchist punk that the group embraced in its infant stages, The Ex have involved jazz elements, African percussion and even Turkish folk. Influential, beloved in a cult-like way, The Ex continually churned out records under leader G.W. Sok’s guidance with striking consistency, considering how many different paths the band explored. Last year, Sok decided to leave the group to pursue other interests, and the band replaced him with Arnold de Boer. The recent release with Boer, a seven-inch titled “Maybe I Was the Pilot/Our Leaky Homes,” shows that even with a new guy at the helm, The Ex remains powerful. Shellac opens, and honestly, the stamp of approval from Albini, Trainer and Weston should be enough to convince anyone. I’m in the middle of a personal Shellac resurgence, listening to each record over and over for three days apiece, and having a helluva time. “1000 Hurts” is king. That record is one mean bastard. (Tom Lynch)

March 20 at Lincoln Hall, 2424 N. Lincoln, (773)5252501, at 10pm. $15.

Tuesday is often overlooked. It’s too far from the weekend to seem relevant, no one ever gets a “case of the Tuesdays,” and it’s certainly not hump day. Dr. Zvonimir Tot and the Department of Performing Arts at UIC are trying in earnest to bring some life to the neglected workday with “Tuesdays at 1,” a regularly scheduled concert series at the school. “We wish to expose the audience to a diverse, high-quality music programming featuring reputable artists in a variety of musical styles, including classical, jazz and world music,” Tot says. Along with outside musicians, the series also serves as a showcase for the Department of Performing Arts faculty. Not only is it nice for the faculty to perform for their students but, as Tot says, “Faculty performances also present an opportunity to introduce our teachers as performing artists to the general public.” The concerts are at 1040 West Harrison, building EPASW, recital hall L060. All performances are free and open to the public. Jim Gailloreto’s Jazz String Quintet plays on March 2. (Peter Cavanaugh)

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Touring behind his first full-length release since 2005’s “Everything’s Ecstatic,” Four Tet makes a return to Chicago, where he’s become a welcome visitor. Perhaps it wasn’t always this way—in years past it was easy to praise Four Tet for his unique blends of pristinely produced musical beauty and noise that challenged the definitions of electronic music, but sometimes hard to stomach the indulgent nature of his uneven live performances. But somewhere, over time, man-behind-the-moniker Kieran Hebden began streamlining his live performances, channeling his genius into digestible dance-floor bites, shaped by his increased interest in DJing. Through his monthly residency at London’s famed Plastic People, Four Tet began trying out his new compositions on the unsuspecting public—perhaps standard operating procedure for most producers, but new to avant-jazz and folk-loving Four Tet. The result is apparent from the start of “There Is Love In You,” with leadoff track “Angel Echoes” harkening back to the sonic bliss of a classic like “My Angel Rocks Back And Forth,” but with the added urgency of a 4/4 beat. The album is a delight for both the feet and the head, and tonight’s show at the Empty Bottle should be an incredible night, as Four Tet’s diffused genius gets focused for a dance floor. Also performing—and making his Chicago debut—is Nathan Fake of Border Community fame, who first made waves with 2004’s melancholic club hit “The Sky Was Pink,” and is touring behind his latest and harder-hitting full-length effort, “Hard Islands.” (Duke Shin)

February 19 at Empty Bottle, 1035 N. Western, (773)276-3600, at 8pm & 11pm. $15.

RECOMMENDED

The prog-jazz trio formed by bassist Reid Anderson, pianist Ethan Iverson and drummer David King joined forces with singer Wendy Lewis and emerged with “For All I Care,” which is a masterpiece of a disc. The program opens with a cover of Nirvana’s “Lithium” that takes its creator’s quiet desperation to a completely different level. The same happens with Pink Floyd’s “Comfortably Numb,” which makes us feel like we are actually inside the drug-induced haze narrated by the chorus—while Lewis sings the words, Iverson plays a manic piano riff that has little connection to the melody that goes against Anderson and King’s more straightforward approach. There are several incursions into classical music, that showcase both the trio’s dexterity and chemistry together, but it is their incursions into pop that surprise the most, like the brilliant take on Jon Anderson’s “Long Distance Runaround,” which reinterprets Yes’ very electric classic in an acoustic setting without losing any of its energy. Listen also to their haunting rendition of The Bee Gees’ “How Deep Is Your Love,” which plays from the jaded, tired point of view of someone who no longer believes in romance—an extremely scary place to be in. NOTE: However, Lewis is not performing with the trio on this night. (Ernest Barteldes)

February 5 at Mandel Hall at University of Chicago, 1131 E. 57th, at 7:30pm.

By Dennis Polkow

Sting, “If On a Winter’s Night” (Deutshe Grammaphon)

Every now and then, a recording artist comes along and completely redefines what a Christmas album is in surprising and delightful ways. Sting’s Christmas album is not only his best new album in a long, long while, but a Christmas record that is good enough to put on any time of the year. The carols chosen tend to be somber, introspective and refreshingly under-produced, usually with Sting’s own voice and simple acoustic accompaniment. Sting claims he is an agnostic, but you would never know from his poignant performances of such traditional holiday fare as “Gabriel’s Message” and the “Cherry Tree Carol.” But the album also features other winter-themed offerings that celebrate the stark beauty of barrenness of the season, such as songs by British baroque composer Henry Purcell about cold and ice, the heartbreaking finale of Schubert’s song cycle of winter and lost love “Winterreise,” Celtic folksongs that include a Halloween offering, and even originals such as Sting’s own setting of Robert Louis’ Stevenson’s “Christmas at Sea” and his own wintry lyrics to the melody of a Bach Cello Suite.

Aretha Franklin, “This Christmas” (DMI Records)

This is Aretha’s first-ever Christmas album, believe it or not (2006’s “Joy to the World” was a record-company compilation of carols and sacred songs from throughout her career), and given the great care that was obviously taken with it, you can tell this is something that has been in the back of her mind for a long, long time. The virtuosity here is stunning and will certainly not be to everyone’s taste, as Aretha tends to take simple familiar songs and vocalize on many of them with “too many notes,” as the emperor told Mozart. But it’s the feeling underlying the notes that makes the grandest impression and the fact that there is so much heart here. There are carols, gospel songs, originals and spoken sections where Aretha offers up family vignettes and hopes. Read the rest of this entry »

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After surprising listeners with with her second CD “Zingaro” two years ago, the New York-born vocalist comes up with a collection of holiday songs entitled “The Greatest Gift—Songs of The Season,” a disc made with a cause in mind: the proceeds from both her New York and Chicago concerts benefit the World Bicycle Relief, an organization which provides sustainable access to healthcare, education and economic opportunities in developing nations, in addition to promoting more widespread use of bicycles as an alternative form of transportation. These concerts are fine opportunities  to discover the vocal work of this singer, who sets herself apart from your average jazz vocalist by taking on various sonic influences without veering too far from jazz. Live, she has a sincere approach and a cheerful manner, as heard both on disc and her rare appearances in town. (Ernest Barteldes)

December 16, Schubas, 3159 N. Southport, (773)525-2508, 8pm. $35.

RECOMMENDED

What genre could you fit these serial-festival-participants into? Simply calling them an instrumental jam band wouldn’t do, as they do keep a tight structure to their music while allowing a lot of improvisation to happen during their packed live sets (which, by the way, fans are free to record, trade and post online as long as no money changes hands). Are they an electronic band? Maybe, unless you notice their strong jazz-funk tendencies. Regardless if you can place them in a niche or not, the fact is that they are highly eclectic artists—their music could easily be played in a dance club (an example of this is “Bellwether,” a tune played around a vocoder and plenty of guitar), a trendy lounge or even a more upscale jazz club. But the real thrill is to catch them live—especially if you are lucky enough to catch one of their “thematic gigs,” like the time they dressed up to resemble rock stars who died at 27 (Jim Morrison, Kurt Cobain) for a show called “The 27 Conspiracy,” which featured reworked covers of Nirvana, The Doors and The Jimi Hendrix Experience. (Ernest Barteldes)

November 27 at The Vic Theatre, 3145 N. Sheffield, (773)472-0366. $21-$24

RECOMMENDED

Like a fifth-grade boy who’s confused about what to do about girls, a good portion of the indie community seems conflicted about what to think of girls who make slow, folksy jazz music (remember Norah Jones, how equally alluring and dreary her funereal blues was?). It’s certainly difficult to admit to yourself that you honestly enjoy the music that your mother listens to while quilting. Enter Jolie Holland, a Texas gal who’s taken that “jazz/blues club” template and made it sonically palatable to someone under 35. Holland’s last record, “The Living and the Dead,” was artful, downright gorgeous in sections, and even included a wave of distortion in one tune. Holland’s voice remains the glue that holds her arrangements together—it’s playful when the song calls for it, crooning at times, but never insufferably so, occasionally slipping into her native Texas drawl for the country-influenced tunes. Is it easy listening? Sure, but even easy listening is allowed to be a little challenging sometimes. (Andy Seifert)

October 14 at Schubas, 3159 N. Southport, (773)525-2508, at 9pm. $15.

RECOMMENDED

The opening day of the 2009 World Music Festival will begin as will each weekday of the weeklong festival, with a two-hour noontime performance and interview in the Chicago Cultural Center’s Claudia Cassidy Theater that will also be broadcast live on WNUR (89.3 FM).  Slide guitarist and vocalist Markus James will be among those spotlighted opening day, viewed by many as a successor to his Malian mentor, Ali Farka Toure.  Like Toure, James plays and sings blues that combine African rhythms, pedal points, repetitions and antiphons with Mississippi Delta blues-style improvisations and melancholy.  His group the Wassonrai is made up of Malian and Guinean musicians based in the States, including multi-instrumentalists Mamadou Sidibe, Amadou Camara and Karamba Dioubate.  Markus James & the Wassonrai will also headline the Uncommon Ground Outdoor Harvest Party Friday evening (9pm) and will also headline the Saturday night show (8pm) at the Old Town School of Folk Music.  But if you’re not into American meets African roots music, no worries: there are no less than fifty-five performances across twenty-one venues by artists representing thirty-two countries all week long.  New this year are five new venues, including Bottom Lounge, Edgewater GRalley Festival, Green Dolphin Street and Chicago Park District field houses at Kelvyn Park and Washington Park.  Also new are five free noontime concerts (Sept. 21-24) at Millennium Park’s Pritzker Pavilion.  This year’s eleventh annual festival will showcase no less than twenty-seven Chicago debut performances and the United States debut of Turkey’s Mehter Ottoman Turkish Military Band, which will headline a Millennium Park Pritzker Pavilion performance on Monday evening (6:30pm).  Navy Pier, a festival venue, will be blowing off fireworks tonight and Saturday at 9pm in salute of the festival.  (Dennis Polkow)

Visit www.WorldMusicFestival.org for a complete day-by-day schedule and festival updates; most events are free, but most ticketed events are less than $15; (312) 742-1938.

It isn’t just surf rock, and it isn’t just music inspired by spaghetti westerns either. It isn’t only tropical or bluegrass or gypsy jazz. But, while Mar Caribe’s music may incorporate elements of some or all of those genres, the band’s founders, Tom McGettrick and Tom Santiago, don’t consider their style of music to be a case of genre melding. “I think it’s just taking elements of each of those things that we like,” McGettrick says. “The words that I would think of are minor keys, well used dissonance, kind of janky rhythms and tremolo. Those are the things that drive it for us.”

The two began playing music as roommates at Loyola in their sophomore years. At the time, both were becoming interested in surf rock and both had a love for spaghetti-western films. But according to Santiago, the music has evolved over time to where it is now. “Originally, we thought we were going to go in a happier direction. We were thinking of paradise and beaches.” Then the band wrote a song called “Bad Joo Joo.” “It was a particular song that was darker sounding and kind of reminded us of Voodoo and we liked that a lot, so we started doing more things similar to that,” Santiago says. Read the rest of this entry »