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Noon Navy Pier

Seckou Keita See Friday 9/19.

1 PM Claudia Cassidy Theater

Kabile Kabile (see Friday 9/19) performs as part of a Bulgarian dance party hosted by indefatigable local presenter and organizer John Kuo. Preceding the party Martin Koenig, cofounder of the Center for Traditional Music and Dance in New York, will discuss his photography exhibit “Voices and Images From Bulgaria: 1966-1979,” which runs through September 28 at the Cultural Center, and screen documentary footage from the Balkans selected from his impressive personal collection. Kabile and Koenig will present a similar program on Sunday at 7 PM at Saint Sophia Bulgarian Orthodox Church, 404 W. Oakton in Des Plaines.

1:30 PM Navy Pier

Rupa & the April Fishes See Friday 9/19.

2:45 PM Hideout Block Party $25

Little Cow See Friday 9/19. For the complete block party lineup, see page 50.

3:30 PM Navy Pier

Chicha Libre See Friday 9/19.

5 PM Rogers Park World Music Festival 

Samba Mapangala & Orchestre Virunga Born and raised in the Congo, Samba Mapangala is a seasoned vocalist and bandleader and has long been one of Africa’s most successful musical syncretists. Having absorbed Congolese rumba, the dominant style in his homeland, he transplanted it to Uganda in 1976 with his first group, Les Kinois. A year later they moved to Kenya, where in ’81 Mapangala founded the mighty Orchestre Virunga, a supergroup of sorts consisting of Congolese expats and Kenyans—he’d initially planned to use only players from the Congo, but the band’s quickie debut album caught fire and he decided to stick with the original lineup. His bubbly, vibrant music mixes elements of Congolese rumba—particularly the extended, partly improvised instrumental “bridge” called the sebene—with the liquid melodies and guitar figures of benga, Kenya’s ubiquitous dance music, and the kind of tight horn charts that were popular in Tanzania during Virunga’s early years. The band has gone through loads of personnel changes and taken a few long breaks—including a stretch when Mapangala lived in Maryland—but its elegant sound, ebullient melodies, precise vocal harmonies, and sparkling guitar work aren’t a bit worse for wear. This is the group’s long-overdue Chicago debut. —PM

7:15 PM Hideout Block Party $25

Vieux Farka Toure It’s too early to make the call, but this son of great Malian singer and guitarist Ali Farka Toure seems to have the goods to carry on the family business. Vieux Farka Toure began playing music in defiance of his father, who reportedly wanted him to enter the military and only gave his blessing after hearing the quality of his son’s recordings. Vieux’s self-titled debut on World Village, with appearances by the elder Toure, now deceased, and legendary kora player Toumani Diabate, proves that this particular fruit hasn’t fallen far from the tree. Though he makes a few halfhearted stabs at reggae and rock, Vieux sounds authoritative and passionate on more traditional material, delivering somber, lyrical meditations that combine north African folk imagery with calls for peace and optimism—and his buoyant guitar style, floating and flickering around a single chord, is a creditable homage to his father’s sunlight-on-river-water sound. In his Chicago shows since the record’s release, he’s evolved quickly into a dynamic live performer. For a complete schedule of the Hideout Block Party, see page 50. —PM

8 PM World Music Company $15

Reelroad This young Russian septet’s latest album, Guljaju, Guljaju (Navigator), opens with chunky guitar strumming that could’ve come right out of American-­heartland folk-rock. When the singing starts, though, it’s clear we’re not in Kansas. Reelroad’s soaring filigrees of harp, bagpipes, and whistle wouldn’t sound out of place in Ireland, and the music’s sharp, sparse clarity subtly suggests Scandi­navian folk. Despite the songs’ very Russian themes—one title translates to “Bath­house Is Steamy and Ready,” another to “Turia (Bread Soup)”—you don’t need to understand a word to get the gist; the sad pastoral tunes have a powerful Slavic melancholy that’d come across without any vocals at all, and the up-tempo numbers speak the universal language of call and response. —MK

8 PM Old Town School of Folk Music $15, $13 for members

Rupa & the April Fishes See Friday 9/19.

Chicha Libre See Friday 9/19.

9 PM Martyrs’ $12, 21+

Baba Zula Since 1996 this terrific combo from Istanbul has been pumping new life into traditional dance music of Turkey. Baba Zula’s sound is built around Murat Ertel’s sorrowful yet driving figures on electric saz and guitar and Levent Akman and Cosmar Kamci’s beguiling percussion patterns, but they transform familiar belly-dance rhythms with outsize dynamic punches and even extreme dub techniques—on two albums they’ve collaborated with influential reggae producer Mad Professor. On their most recent disc, last year’s Roots (Doublemoon), they’ve backed off a bit on the instrumental overdubs and production tricks, but this relatively stripped-down approach hasn’t changed their mission—they’re still using electronic beats, judicious sampling (birdsong, neighing horses), cut-and-paste song structures, and the aircraft-hangar spaciousness of dub to repurpose a centuries-old sound. —PM

Lamajamal I’m really starting to warm up to this local “Gypsy surf” band. Lamajamal’s melange of eastern European, Middle Eastern, African, and Latin American musics suffers from the key weakness of all so-called world beat—music, like food, is only rarely improved when you throw as many different varieties as you can think of together—but they seem to be learning to find a sweet spot in their own particular jumble, where the proportions are just right. They’re lively and bighearted onstage, and their attempts to include everything are endearing even when they’re a bit clumsy, like a big slobbery dog . . . well, a big slobbery dog with a sweet guitar tone, anyway. —MK

9 PM Empty Bottle $10, 21+

Cordero Ani Cordero, of Puerto Rican heritage, writes and sings in Spanish, and her band (which includes her husband, Rock*a*Teens veteran Chris Verene) draws from cosmopolitan traditions for its warm, distinctive Latin indie pop—you can hear traces of Calexico and Yo La Tengo in the music’s sweet sway. The New York-based band signed to Bloodshot in 2006, after a stint on Amy Ray’s Daemon label, and its latest album, De Donde Eres, has the irresistible feel of a summer night in the city—imagine all the neighbors on your block sitting on their stoops trading stories, or a street festival where the beer is never flat and the Porta-Johns are never disgusting. —MK

Little Cow See Friday 9/19.

9 PM Museum of Contemporary Art $5

Mamak Khadem Iranian-born vocalist Mamak Khadem, who’s studied music not just from the Middle East but from such far-flung countries as Ireland and India, also teaches math at Santa Monica College in California—a reminder, should we choose to see it, that Islamic cultures kept the arts and sciences alive during those dark centuries when much of Europe had stopped bathing. Probably best known as the vocalist for the Persian-American fusion group Axiom of Choice, now on hiatus (her voice has appeared in the soundtracks to Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Battlestar Galactica, but not so that you’d necessarily know it was her), Khadem released her first solo album last year, the plaintive and mesmerizing Jostojoo: Forever Seeking (Banyan Tree). She sets poetry—some of it modern, some of it as old as the 11th century—to melodies from Kurdistan, Greece, Iran, Armenia, and elsewhere, rendering it all in her rippling, aching voice. —MK

Gaida Hinnawi Ensemble with Amir ElSaffar Born and raised in Damascus, Syria, early in life singer Gaida Hinnawi immersed herself in the work of the Arab world’s iconic female vocalists, like Oum Kalthoum and Fairuz, but since then she’d studied classical music at Wayne State University and moved to New York—and unsurprisingly, her aesthetic has evolved along the way. These days she collaborates with artists fluent in both jazz improvisation and Arabic disciplines, and her vibrant music reconciles the two brilliantly. Some of the tracks I’ve heard from her forthcoming debut album are pristine readings of traditional material, where she subtly colors the classic melodies with careful phrasing and tightly controlled emotion; on others she adopts a buoyant lilt to accommodate a strong current of jazz rhythm and harmony, but her shimmering, crystalline tone retains its purity. For her Chicago debut she’s joined by Iraqi-American santoor player and trumpeter Amir ElSaffar (who played a well-received concert in Millennium Park last month), Palestinian oudist and frequent ElSaffar collaborator Zafer Tawil, and superb French jazz drummer Francis Moutin. —PM

9 PM Sonotheque $10, 21+

DJ Samy Ben Redjeb, DJ TopDonn Born in Tunisia and now living in Germany, producer Samy Ben Redjeb is the guy behind the Analog Africa label, which in the past few years has released a boatload of amazing music recorded in Zimbabwe, Benin, and Togo during the 70s. Redjeb is a careful curator who painstakingly researches and licenses everything he reissues, but when he’s just DJing he doesn’t worry about any of that—he’ll play anything from the huge collection of vintage African vinyl he’s amassed over the years, even the cuts so obscure he could never track down a single person involved in the sessions. The killer mix of his I downloaded earlier this year ranged across the continent, with one common denominator: propulsive, dance-floor-filling funk. I wouldn’t be surprised if Redjeb tosses in some music from Colombia this time, since lately he’s been spending time there digging up old records. Also spinning is local contemporary African dance music specialist DJ TopDonn; Aurelien PV of the popular Chicago club night Afrodisiac hosts. —PM

10 PM Uncommon Ground on Devon 

Seckou Keita See Friday 9/19.

10 PM Schubas $12, 21+

Rachel Unthank & the Winterset In just a few years this stunning British folk ensemble has shaken up the UK scene, and it’s no exaggeration to say their gorgeous music puts them in the company of masters like June Tabor or Waterson: Carthy. Sisters Rachel and Becky Unthank grew up steeped in British folk; their father is a member of vocal group the Keelers, and they spent much of their childhood hanging out at music festivals. But they’re not simply looking to duplicate a classic sound. On their superb second album, The Bairns (Real World), most of the repertoire is traditional, but their wonderful harmonies and inventive arrangements—warm, subdued piano and fiddle, foot stomping, the occasional tasteful instrumental accent drawn from pop music—bring striking vitality and richness to melodies that have been sung for hundreds of years. Without any help from contemporary production flourishes—the record is purely acoustic—these arrangements create a strong arc of narrative and musical development within each tune. —PM

Spires That in the Sunset Rise This weird Illinois trio—or perhaps I should say “wyrd”—plays folk music from a country you won’t find on any map. Armed with harmonium, cello, mbira, spike fiddle, and any other instrument they can get their hands on that has an evocative sound, these women sit down to write songs with an improvisatory aesthetic and what sounds like a direct connection to the primal dreamtime. Their sound is beautiful but not warm—I imagine their country as remote, rocky, and thickly forested, with an ancient lore full of fairy women who sing laments for drowned sailors and runaway horses. —MK

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From the Reader blogs

Post No Bills Peter Margasak: Juju master King Sunny Ade plays Ravinia with Femi Kuti on Wednesday evening.
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