Sheet Music

When pianist Jean-Michel Pilc, bassist François Moutin, and drummer Ari Hoenig play music together, whether in concert or in the studio recording an album, the plan is always the same: There is no plan. No sheet music. Nothing discussed in advanced. Only improvisation. "We go on stage and we don't know what we're going to do," says Moutin. "No set list, no preconceived idea. It's whatever happens there. " What happens — one can say this much — is a roiling, vibrant set by a jazz trio that sounds like no other.

When pianist Jean-Michel Pilc, bassist François Moutin, and drummer Ari Hoenig play music together, whether in concert or in the studio recording an album, the plan is always the same: There is no plan. No sheet music. Nothing discussed in advanced. Only improvisation. "We go on stage and we don't know what we're going to do," says Moutin. "No set list, no preconceived idea. It's whatever happens there. " What happens — one can say this much — is a roiling, vibrant set by a jazz trio that sounds like no other.

After surviving a Nazi concentration camp as a boy and fleeing communist rule in his native Czechoslovakia, Michael Gruenbaum remembers well the first job he got upon immigrating to the United States and becoming a student at MIT. Gruenbaum was studying engineering at the Cambridge school in the early 1950s when he heard of an opening at MIT's Lewis Music Library, where he rushed to get an interview and landed the job. As an immigrant, Gruenbaum...

As befits an outfit that has turned out countless renditions of "The Stars and Stripes Forever," the theme of the Boston Pops's 127th season is "Visions of America. " So it was only appropriate that opening night would make good on it right away by turning the Pops into a jazz orchestra. It began Wednesday night at Symphony Hall with "Love Is Sweeping the Country," sunny and jaunty but with the undeniable flair of George Gershwin. With her undemonstrative but light vocals and piano, Maggie Scott returned to the Pops a mere 61 years after last performing with them to offer a Gershwin medley featuring a...

As befits an outfit that has turned out countless renditions of "The Stars and Stripes Forever," the theme of the Boston Pops's 127th season is "Visions of America. " So it was only appropriate that opening night would make good on it right away by turning the Pops into a jazz orchestra. It began Wednesday night at Symphony Hall with "Love Is Sweeping the Country," sunny and jaunty but with the undeniable flair of George Gershwin. With her undemonstrative but light vocals and piano, Maggie Scott returned to the Pops a mere 61 years after last performing with them to offer a Gershwin medley featuring a...

The Mansfield Music and Arts Society will hold auditions for "Caught in the Act, an Evening of Radio Variety from 1936," written and adapted by Sarah Barlow, on Feb. 12 and 13. Auditions for children's roles will be 6:30 to 7:30 p.m., and adult auditions from 7:30 to 9 p.m. Everyone should prepare a short song selection from any of the styles prior to 1950, including jazz, blues, early Broadway/vaudeville, hymns, or classical art songs. Bring sheet music for the accompanist. Auditioners for nonsinging roles may bring a prepared monologue, but this is optional.

EVENTS Haverhill: The fourth annual Taste of Spring fund-raiser will be hosted by the Renaissance Golf Club to benefit L'Arche Irenicon "Homes of Hope. " Event features tastings and an auction of donated items along with original artwork of community members, plus Red Sox tickets. Tuesday, 6 p.m. Renaissance Golf Club, 377 Kenoza St. $25. 978-556-0900, www.larcheirenicon.org. North Andover: Pentucket Players present "Titanic: A New Musical" with music by Maury Yeston and book by Peter Stone.

Nellie McKay shuffled on stage Tuesday at the Paradise nearly an hour late carrying a stack of tattered songbooks and sheet music. She piled her papers precariously on the piano and sat down to sing. But nothing came out of the microphone. McKay had missed sound check. It was a predictably batty start to a rich, captivating set. A blond pixie with a tart tongue and pink chiffon dress, McKay makes witty, issue-oriented music that bridges the vintage sounds of Tin Pan Alley and the subversive sensibilities of the East Village.

GEORGIANA, Ala. — Music legend Hank Williams Sr. penned and recorded some of the greatest country hits of the 20th century, including “Hey, Good Lookin’ ’’ and “Your Cheatin’ Heart,’’ before his death at 29 on New Year’s Day 1953. At the Hank Williams Boyhood Home and Museum, not far off Interstate 65, you can tour the house where he lived with his family in the early 1930s. This was where he acquired his first guitar and was taught how to play by street performer Rufus “Tee-Tot’’ Payne.

The 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom was Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s most glorious moment, the occasion of his celebrated “I Have a Dream’’ speech. But the march, like all historical moments, also belonged to much lesser-knowns. Jerome Smith, for example, was a Freedom Rider from Mississippi who had been invited to a meeting on race relations at Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy’s Manhattan apartment a few months before the march. The secret huddle, arranged by the writer James Baldwin, featured committed celebrities such as Lena...

EVENTS Haverhill: The fourth annual Taste of Spring fund-raiser will be hosted by the Renaissance Golf Club to benefit L'Arche Irenicon "Homes of Hope. " Event features tastings and an auction of donated items along with original artwork of community members, plus Red Sox tickets. Tuesday, 6 p.m. Renaissance Golf Club, 377 Kenoza St. $25. 978-556-0900, www.larcheirenicon.org. North Andover: Pentucket Players present "Titanic: A New Musical" with music by Maury Yeston and book by Peter Stone.

The Mansfield Music and Arts Society will hold auditions for "Caught in the Act, an Evening of Radio Variety from 1936," written and adapted by Sarah Barlow, on Feb. 12 and 13. Auditions for children's roles will be 6:30 to 7:30 p.m., and adult auditions from 7:30 to 9 p.m. Everyone should prepare a short song selection from any of the styles prior to 1950, including jazz, blues, early Broadway/vaudeville, hymns, or classical art songs. Bring sheet music for the accompanist. Auditioners for nonsinging roles may bring a prepared monologue, but this is optional.

LOS ANGELES - Roger Williams, a virtuoso pianist who topped the Billboard pop chart in the 1950s and played for nine US presidents during a long career, died yesterday. He was 87. Mr. Williams died at his home in Los Angeles of complications from pancreatic cancer, according to his former publicist Rob Wilcox. Known as an electrifying stage performer and an adept improviser, Mr. Williams could switch musical styles effortlessly. "Roger was one of the greatest pianists in the world and could play anything from classical music to jazz.

After surviving a Nazi concentration camp as a boy and fleeing communist rule in his native Czechoslovakia, Michael Gruenbaum remembers well the first job he got upon immigrating to the United States and becoming a student at MIT. Gruenbaum was studying engineering at the Cambridge school in the early 1950s when he heard of an opening at MIT's Lewis Music Library, where he rushed to get an interview and landed the job. As an immigrant, Gruenbaum...

REHEARSAL OF THE PASDELOUP ORCHESTRA AT THE CIRQUE D'HIVER By John Singer Sargent At: Museum of Fine Arts. 617-267-9300. www.mfa.org Nothing can really compare to the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum's "El Jaleo" or the Museum of Fine Arts' "The Daughters of Edward Darley Boit," but when I'm asked to name my favorite picture by John Singer Sargent, I often nominate this one. It's a great picture - but, I freely admit, it's...

BECCA STEVENS BAND At: Club Passim, Monday, 8 p.m. Tickets: $10, $12. 617-492-7679, www.clubpassim.org The first clue that "Weightless" isn't an album by a typical jazz singer is that it's credited to the Becca Stevens Band. The point isn't just that Stevens is also an accomplished string player whose guitar, ukulele, and charango work is central to her sound. Identifying herself as a bandleader who's part of an ensemble speaks to her singer-songwriter sensibility, albeit one steeped in the kind of improvisation and instrumental interplay usually found in...

REHEARSAL OF THE PASDELOUP ORCHESTRA AT THE CIRQUE D'HIVER By John Singer Sargent At: Museum of Fine Arts. 617-267-9300. www.mfa.org Nothing can really compare to the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum's "El Jaleo" or the Museum of Fine Arts' "The Daughters of Edward Darley Boit," but when I'm asked to name my favorite picture by John Singer Sargent, I often nominate this one. It's a great picture - but, I freely admit, it's...

1901 sheet music cover (American Memory, Library of Congress) By the time of this particular edition of the march, it was already being used as a Harvard fight song. By Jim Dalton, Globe Correspondent “My step quickens when I hear Sousa’s “Stars and Stripes”: my feet move irresistibly at the sound of Reeves’ “2d Conn.,” but my main thrill is in marching ahead of 500 or more schoolboys playing the flowing trio of Bigelow’s “Our Director” and for this march he should be held in greatest reverence and love by every schoolboy musician,...

1901 sheet music cover (American Memory, Library of Congress) By the time of this particular edition of the march, it was already being used as a Harvard fight song. By Jim Dalton, Globe Correspondent “My step quickens when I hear Sousa’s “Stars and Stripes”: my feet move irresistibly at the sound of Reeves’ “2d Conn.,” but my main thrill is in marching ahead of 500 or more schoolboys playing the flowing trio of Bigelow’s “Our Director” and for this march he should be held in greatest reverence and love by every schoolboy musician, professional musician,...

GEORGIANA, Ala. — Music legend Hank Williams Sr. penned and recorded some of the greatest country hits of the 20th century, including “Hey, Good Lookin’ ’’ and “Your Cheatin’ Heart,’’ before his death at 29 on New Year’s Day 1953. At the Hank Williams Boyhood Home and Museum, not far off Interstate 65, you can tour the house where he lived with his family in the early 1930s. This was where he acquired his first guitar and was taught how to play by street performer Rufus “Tee-Tot’’ Payne.