Sun Ra

WELLESLEY - Covering most of the floor in a gallery at the Davis Museum at Wellesley College, "Windward Coast," an installation by Radcliffe Bailey, is a pile of 35,000-odd wooden piano keys with black and white tips, extracted from 400 pianos. The pile has been spread out and shaped into a vast rectangle. Its edges are neat, but inside those edges it undulates, conjuring a turbulent, wind-whipped sea. Nothing relieves the rhythmic motion of these rough and splintered piles of wood (they feel like a sculptural equivalent of cross-hatching, or perhaps a giant game of Pick Up Sticks)

WELLESLEY - Covering most of the floor in a gallery at the Davis Museum at Wellesley College, "Windward Coast," an installation by Radcliffe Bailey, is a pile of 35,000-odd wooden piano keys with black and white tips, extracted from 400 pianos. The pile has been spread out and shaped into a vast rectangle. Its edges are neat, but inside those edges it undulates, conjuring a turbulent, wind-whipped sea. Nothing relieves the rhythmic motion of these rough and splintered piles of wood (they feel like a sculptural equivalent of cross-hatching, or perhaps a giant game of Pick Up Sticks)

Betwixt Hat Hut ESSENTIAL "Saturn" "Betwixt" is the third release from the Boston-based jazz trio known as mi3, though curiously that moniker does not appear anywhere on the new album. The captain of the ship is Pandelis Karayorgis, who returns to the Fender Rhodes electric piano for this outing with bassist Nate McBride and drummer Curt Newton. Karayorgis's utilization of the Fender Rhodes reminds me of the way Larry Young played the organ. No tired clichés are employed.

"WELL I SEE: THE MUSIC IN MOTION"" A Tribute to Makanda Ken McIntyre With the Makanda Project and Mickey Davidson and her dancers At: Hibernian Hall, 184 Dudley St., Roxbury, tomorrow at 8 p.m. and Sunday at 3 p.m. Tickets: $20. 617-849-6322, www.madison-park.org Makanda Ken McIntyre had a favorite aphorism for his jazz students. Think in terms of "both/and," he liked to say, not "either/or. " McIntyre, the Boston native who left a generous academic legacy, a lengthy discography, and a colossal trove of unrecorded compositions when he died in June 2001, clearly practiced what he...

Pannonica de Koenigswarter is a jazz legend, but not for any virtuosity on an instrument. She is famous for having befriended scores of musicians as a high-powered patron of jazz. She had an especially close association with both Thelonious Monk and his wife. Charlie Parker died in her apartment. Now we have a new window onto de Koenigswarter's life. What we didn't know: She had undertaken a little project in which she asked every musician she knew to write down their three wishes.

It could have been a disgrace. Imagine: three-fifths of the MC5 (the other two being comfortably dead) ploughing through their back catalog with Evan Dando, Mudhoney's Mark Arm, and, for some reason, Marshall Crenshaw -- superannuated hippy blow- hards in the company of grunge ex-stars, whipping small crowds into a grisly froth of rock nostalgia. But Thursday night's show at the Middle East was, in fact, a triumph, a celebration that turned into an invocation, a real summoning of powers.

"WELL I SEE: THE MUSIC IN MOTION"" A Tribute to Makanda Ken McIntyre With the Makanda Project and Mickey Davidson and her dancers At: Hibernian Hall, 184 Dudley St., Roxbury, tomorrow at 8 p.m. and Sunday at 3 p.m. Tickets: $20. 617-849-6322, www.madison-park.org Makanda Ken McIntyre had a favorite aphorism for his jazz students. Think in terms of "both/and," he liked to say, not "either/or. " McIntyre, the Boston native who left a generous academic legacy, a lengthy discography, and a colossal trove of unrecorded compositions when he died in June 2001,...

HAYDENVILLE — Terry Adams is alone in a tiny recording studio on the fourth floor of a former brass mill. Hunched over a grand piano whose corners are patched with gaffer tape, Adams suddenly lurches backward. “My mission is to make people happy,’’ he says, hitting a random key with his knuckle. “It’s what I do.’’ That’s no secret to fans of NRBQ, the eclectic combo Adams formed four decades ago. Playing a peculiar blend of rock, blues, jazz, and just about any other groove that felt good, the band built an obsessive cult following.

Jazz Rudder Matorning 19/8 ESSENTIAL "3H Club" If you could toss Medeski Martin & Wood, Soulive, Sun Ra, Zony Mash, and the Chemical Brothers in a blender and then drizzle a little instrumental Beastie Boys on top, it would probably sound like Rudder, the quartet of saxophonist Chris Cheek, keyboardist Henry Hey, drummer Keith Carlock, and bassist Tim Lefebvre. Rudder's second album, "Matorning," nearly detonated in my stereo; it's that powerful. Funk riffs, hard rock beats, jazz improvisation - it's all there, in a form so fresh it threatens to create a new...

“Popular Songs,’’ the name of Yo La Tengo’s terrific new album, could be read as an in-joke between the band and its fans. The humor lies in Yo La Tengo’s definition of what’s popular, and safe to say its latest isn’t going to give Lady Gaga a run for her Top 40 money. In case that album title implies Yo La Tengo has softened since its inception in (get ready to feel old) 1984, the band’s incendiary show at the Wilbur Theatre Wednesday night sent a clear message: This is still, and stridently, a band that’s not interested in getting too comfortable.

Betwixt Hat Hut ESSENTIAL "Saturn" "Betwixt" is the third release from the Boston-based jazz trio known as mi3, though curiously that moniker does not appear anywhere on the new album. The captain of the ship is Pandelis Karayorgis, who returns to the Fender Rhodes electric piano for this outing with bassist Nate McBride and drummer Curt Newton. Karayorgis's utilization of the Fender Rhodes reminds me of the way Larry Young played the organ. No tired clichés are employed.

Pannonica de Koenigswarter is a jazz legend, but not for any virtuosity on an instrument. She is famous for having befriended scores of musicians as a high-powered patron of jazz. She had an especially close association with both Thelonious Monk and his wife. Charlie Parker died in her apartment. Now we have a new window onto de Koenigswarter's life. What we didn't know: She had undertaken a little project in which she asked every musician she knew to write down their three wishes.

It could have been a disgrace. Imagine: three-fifths of the MC5 (the other two being comfortably dead) ploughing through their back catalog with Evan Dando, Mudhoney's Mark Arm, and, for some reason, Marshall Crenshaw -- superannuated hippy blow- hards in the company of grunge ex-stars, whipping small crowds into a grisly froth of rock nostalgia. But Thursday night's show at the Middle East was, in fact, a triumph, a celebration that turned into an invocation, a real summoning of powers.

CAMBRIDGE -- By 10:45 p.m., those in the long line snaking around the corner in the extreme cold would soon be grumbling. Word at the front of the line was that 25 more tickets were available for the night's show. Inside the Middle East Downstairs in Cambridge, the coat check was already full. And before the band even started, a tall man with an enormous, furry Russian hat was dancing circles around his friend, in anticipation of the music. Such fanfare Friday night was somewhat surprising, and heartening, to see for the Antibalas Afrobeat Orchestra.

PICK OF THE DAY Big bang theory When you're at this exhibit look closely at ‘‘Trainer Tricycle III. " The frame of the child's tricycle at ‘‘Michael Cooper: A Sculptural Odyssey, 1968-2011" is a handgun which makes a statement about violence in our society. Tues-Sun from 10 a.m.-5 p.m. through May 13. $8, $5 students and seniors, free under 13 and for everyone Wed from 5-9 p.m. Fuller Craft Museum, 455 Oak St., Brockton. 508-588-6000. www.fullercraft.org TODAY It speaks volumes Every year, VP Records releases two volumes of dancehall/reggae music,...