This Week in MKE Music: April 18-24, 2024

Here are the Milwaukee shows we are looking forward to coming up this week.

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Pop at X-Ray Arcade, Americana at Linneman’s and Shank Hall, Jazz in Bay View and Riverwest, Obscure Birds in Tosa, Record Store Day and more—This Week in Milwaukee Music!

Thursday, April 18

Ian Sweet w/ The Ophelias and Diamond Life @ X-Ray Arcade, 6:30 p.m.

SUCKER, Jillian Medford’s fourth album as Ian Sweet, merges her pop sensibilities with the widescreen indie rock that she first made her name on. Cincinnati’s The Ophelias play songs “songs equally infused with references to the Bible and The Twilight Zone,” wringing “mystic emotion out of the spaces between their past, present, and future.”

It’s rare to find a play named after a song and the artist who wrote it. But Nina Simone is no ordinary songwriter, her 1966 composition “Four Women” is not just another song (shepherdexpress.com/culture/theater/milwaukee-rep-explores-singer-nina-simones-evolution-to-act). The classically trained Simone, who died in 2003 at age 70, was one of the foremost Black jazz voices of the late 20th century, a voice that became even more prominent after she embraced her role as a civil rights advocate.

Erik Koskinen w/Long Mama and Dandy Freling @ Linneman's, 8 p.m.

Musically sprouted from the blend of American folk, country, rock-n-roll and blues, Erik Koskinen it not difficult connect the dots from himself and the likes of Greg Brown and Bo Ramsey. Koskinen's albums are a lyrical and musical metaphor of American's theaters of war, of history, of relationships, and of the reflections in the mirror. Koskinen played on Milwaukee’s Long Mama’s album; they’ll collaborate onstage for this show.

A highway-kind traveler, Dandy L. Freling combines a touch of the high and lonesome hollers of the Appalachian hill people with the low-down, dusty grooves of the cosmic cowboys.

Friday, April 19

The Latin Side of Pepper Adams and Ronnie Cuber @ Jazz Gallery Center for the Arts, 7 p.m.

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Baritone saxophonist Mike Pauers says there is a very small number of baritone players from which to draw inspiration. Pepper Adams and Ronnie Cuber really spoke to him most of all because of their sound and the way they approached playing jazz and improvising. “Pepper is experiencing a bit of a resurgence or re-exploration of his playing and influence … he really defined the modern baritone sax sound. He came up with this dark but edgy and barky sound that could not only support a sax section in a big band, but really cut when it came time to take a solo.”

Pauers took a few lessons from Cuber, who had been influenced by Adams. Cuber “was especially unique in his embrace of R&B, funk, rock and pop in his playing; even when playing over a jazz standard, in a swing style, he was especially funky and soulful.”

Kevin Christensen, drums; Julio Pabon, percussion; Joey Sanchez, bass and pianist David Wake share the stage with Pauers.

Gray/Johnson/Feldman @ Sugar Maple, 6:30 p.m.

The collected resume of Devin Gray (percussion), Russ Johnson (Trumpet) and Mark Feldman (Violin) is stellar: John Zorn, John Abercrombie, The Masada String Trio, Lee Konitz, Steve Swallow, Bill Frisell and Joe Lovano. Check out a rare performance by the trio with Gray opening with a solo set.

Shadow Soiree – Obscure Birds @ Silhouette Lounge (2300 N. Mayfair Rd., Wauwatosa), 8 p.m. 

Every third Friday is for the birds each month. Obscure Birds bring over 200 years of music-listening experience and funnel it from their ears through the mind filter and dispense it through their fingers and toes, to create a unique blend of pos-retro psych alt-country folk sub-prog classic rock.

Saturday, April 20

Record Store Day 

Get your vinyl on. Bullseye has become Irving Place; Record Head, Volta, Rush Mor, We Buy Records, Stardust Records, Musical Memories, Omen Alternative, Bay View Books and Music, and Half Price Books all sling eternal vinyl. Also check out Rockhaus, Downtown Books. There will be live music at Acme from Jim Warchol, Jeff Mitchell, Slow Owls and Nick Elert.

Sunday, April 21

La bohème @ Marcus Performing Arts Center, 2:30 p.m.

Shifting La bohème from the Left Bank to Milwaukee’s Bronzeville? It’s been long in coming (shepherdexpress.com/culture/classical-music/florentine-operas-la-boheme-in-bronzeville). The Florentine Opera scheduled the production for 2020—but Covid intervened. The revamped Puccini was then slated for the Florentine’s 2021-22 season—and delayed again.

Milwaukee’s Bronzeville was a thriving, predominantly Black neighborhood north of Downtown, with Third Street (now Martin Luther King Drive) as one of its main business arteries. In the segregated America of the era, Bronzeville was exemplary as a self-contained community with churches, nightclubs, record stores, funeral parlors, butcher shops, cinemas, businesses of all kinds—and most of all, street after street of family homes. Much of Bronzeville was lost, razed by ill-conceived urban development in the ‘60s. But in recent years, Bronzeville has been remembered in books and essays.

Monday, April 22

Jesse Dayton @ Shank Hall, 8 p.m.

Best known for his work with X, Samantha Fish, Johnny Cash and Rob Zombie, Jesse Dayton takes center stage. With over a dozen albums to his name, Dayton’s new The Hard Way Blues adds another chapter to the guitarist-songwriter’s impressive list of accomplishments.

Tuesday, April 23

Alejandro Escovedo @ Vivarium, 8 p.m.

On January 14, 1978, Alejandro Escovedo played the most infamous gig of his long career, opening for the Sex Pistols' final show in San Francisco. After that, Escovedo midwifed the Americana movement with Rank and File, then The True Believers—also taking a side trip into ferocious rock with Buick MacKane. His solo career gained flight with 1992’s Gravity, the album that unveiled him as a songwriter to be reckoned with. Even a battle with Hepatitis C couldn’t keep him from making music; his fellow musicians, including John Cale, Lucinda Williams and Ian Hunter, banded together to record the benefit collection Por Vida of Escovedo-penned tunes. Trivia: Escovedo has been known to cover Milwaukee’s Mighty Deerlick (shepherdexpress.com/music/concert-reviews/alejandro-escovedo-turns-the-cooperage-into-his-backyard).

Wednesday, April 24

The Arcadian Wild @ Anodyne Coffee, 6 p.m.

Nashville trio The Arcadian Wild draws on pop, classical and country to reimagine string band music. “Harmony has been at the center of our musical experience and expression from the very beginning,” says mandolinist/singer Lincoln Mick. “Often, when we’re unsure of what to do next, we’ll say, ‘Let’s just all sing together.’ We’ve changed a lot as a band over the years, but harmony has always been the backbone of what we do, which has led us to create all these background vocals that not only support the lead but have a life and character of their own.”