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Published: Oct 4, 2006

On Buzz, Ben Allison's 2004 release with his quintet Medicine Wheel, song titles like "Green Al" and "R&B Fantasy" give the game away: The bassist maintains a groove, but it's somehow abstracted, inverted. Allison's tunes take the angular shifts of avant-garde jazz and the cyclical pulses of post-rock at a sedate stroll, blunting the edges but playing on them nonetheless.

Ars Nova Workshop has packed its fall schedule with a who's who of European improvisers, kicking things off with this particularly rambunctious duo. Barrel-chested tenorist Peter Brötzmann blows like he's got a personal vendetta against his lungs, and percussionist Han Bennink likes to play the room, literally and figuratively: His eyebrows are as important a part of his arsenal as his kit, which he's been known to leave in order to play the walls and floor.

The most exciting thing about Matt Duke's record release show, oddly enough, isn't the record itself. Winter Child is OK enough, a fair first showing from this South Jersey native that mixes great songs with generic ones. But its sleepy troubadour inklings are hardly representative of Duke's onstage approach, where he pounds his guitar strings, spits ardent vocals with fierce aplomb and then slips away just long enough to drop a breathy verse from Jeff Buckley's "So Real." Resuscitating his songs into something surprisingly satisfying, he forces you to pay attention to what could have been forgotten in the background.

Must be a man's world. How else to explain how Solomon Burke's Joe Henry-produced comeback got the royal treatment, while Bettye LaVette's got shoved into the pantry? On I've Got My Own Hell to Raise, LaVette puts a feisty soul spin on songs by Aimee Mann, Fiona Apple and Lucinda Williams. Spin? Hell, she rips 'em up and makes 'em get born again. Give that lady a throne.

1807 co-directors Nancy Bean and Lloyd Smith do not seem to have much trouble recruiting great soloists for their chamber music concerts. They just grab Philly Orchestra colleagues (he's retired, she is still there as associate concertmaster) and walk them a few blocks from Verizon to AVA. This Monday night, it's Ricardo Morales' turn, as the superb principal clarinetist takes the spotlight in the Brahms Clarinet Quintet. Mozart and Barber, too.

Dave Holland Quintet
El Perro Del Mar
Northern Liberties Fest 06.2
Shosta!
Slide Rules
These Are Pop
Thinking Big