Hot Rock, Cool Jazz On The Way

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We’re still mired in the frigid cold of January, but the summer festival season begins to loom large with this morning’s announcement of the Boston Calling lineup for Memorial Day weekend on City Hall Plaza. The Newport Jazz Festival has likewise revealed an intriguing, well-balanced schedule for early August.

Jack Johnson, Death Cab for Cutie and the long-absent Modest Mouse are slated to headline the now-three-day Boston Calling Music Festival, split between two stages. Other artists include Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros, Brand New, the Head and the Heart, Tegan and Sara, Bastille, Jenny Lewis, Frank Turner and the Sleeping Souls, the Neighbourhood, Phosphorescent, Built to Spill, Kurt Vile and the Violators, Walk off the Earth, Warpaint, Cass McCombs, Maximo Park and the Districts. Tigerman WOAH! and Magic Man represent the local landscape.

This will be the third edition of Boston Calling curated by Aaron Dessner of the National, who closed the first one on Memorial Day Weekend last year. Vampire Weekend, Kendrick Lamar, Of Monsters and Men, the Shins and Lucius were among the many acts that played the downtown space last year. Tickets go on sale tomorrow (Jan. 29) for presale three-day passes and VIP tickets, the latter allowing access to the City Hall mezzanine overlooking the plaza. The event takes place May 23, 24 and 25. For more information, go to www.bostoncalling.com.

For those who prefer jazz to rock, the Newport Jazz Festival has already revealed its lineup as well – and it’s another impressive spread, expanded to three days at seaside Fort Adams State Park in that Rhode Island city.

The Newport Jazz Festival opens Aug. 1 with a rare bevy of challenging musicians both emerging and established, the highpoint being a “marathon” of John Zorn’s Masada that includes such virtuoso henchmen as Dave Douglas, Mark Ribot, Cyro Baptista, Mark Feldman, Greg Cohen, Joey Baron. Other artists on that Friday bill include Jon Batiste and Stay Human, Rudresh Mahanthappa’s Charlie Parker Project, Snarky Puppy, and big bands led by Miguel Zenon and Darcy James Argue.

Saturday, Aug. 2, will include the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis, Trombone Shorty & Orleans Avenue, Dave Holland’s Prism band with Kevin Eubanks, new Grammy winner Gregory Porter, Robert Glasper Experiment, Brian Blade and the Fellowship Band and the Kurt Rosenwinkel New Quartet.

The jazz fest rounds out Sunday, Aug. 3, with the likes of Bobby McFerrin, David Sanborn, Dr. John, the Gary Burton New Quartet, Viyay Iyer Sextet, Danilo Perez Panama 500, Ron Carter Trio, Lee Konitz Quartet, Ravi Coltrane, the Cookers with Gary Bartz, Billy Harper, Cecil McBee and Billy Hart, and the Mingus Big Band. For more information, go to www.newportjazzfest.org. Tickets are on sale now for both the jazz festival and the folk festival, which hasn’t released its lineup yet.


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