This Week in MKE Music: March 7-13, 2024

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

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Live original music every night this week--for seven days running. Think about that for a moment. From Riverwest to the East Side, from Downtown to Bay View, from Cudahy to Brookfield, from Riverwest to Kenosha—This Week in Milwaukee!

Thursday, March 7

Holy Pinto w/ Max Niemann & The Fellow Travelers and Jacob Slade @ Linneman's Riverwest Inn, 8 p.m.

Kick off the weekend with a trio of local acts. Holy Pinto returns after a break while working on a new record.

Jazz Night with Special Guest Bony Benavides @ Jan Serr Studio, 7:30 p.m.

In celebration of Women’s History Month, UWM Jazz Night features several compositions by well-known composers Toshiko Akiyoshi and Maria Schneider along with vocal tributes to Ella Fitzgerald and Sarah Vaughn. It will also include special guest Bony Benavides. Benavides keeps a busy schedule as a free-lance percussionist, performing regularly with groups like De La Buena, Samba Da Vida MKE, Caña Brava, The Carlos Adames Group and Eric Jacobson Quartet, among others.

Benavides, a native of Bogotá, Colombia, started playing percussion at her school’s ensembles of Afro-Cuban and traditional Colombian music at the age of 13; in the United States, she received her bachelor’s degree in music with a concentration on Percussion Performance from the University of Wisconsin-Parkside. Benavides currently teaches for Milwaukee Public Schools as a Percussion Traveling Music Teacher. She has also taught at the Wisconsin Conservatory of Music and Concordia University.

Friday, March 8

Fringe Market @ Bremen Café, 5 p.m.

This inaugural event showcases a variety of local artists and makers, live music and live painting.

Mary Timony @ X-Ray Arcade, 7 p.m.

For more than 30 years, singer-songwriter and guitar hero Mary Timony has cut a distinctive path through the world of independent music, most recently as vocalist and guitarist of acclaimed garage-pop power trio Ex Hex but also as a member of seminal post-punk band Autoclave, celebrated leader of the deeply influential Helium, multifaceted solo artist, and a co-founder of supergroup Wild Flag.

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Gaines & Wagoner w/ Glenn Asch & John Parrott @ Anodyne Coffee Roasting Co., 8 p.m.

Gaines & Wagoner are the award-winning multi-instrumental (violin, cello, mandolin, lap steel, ukulele, guitar and vocals) husband and wife duo of Mary Gaines and Chris Wagoner based in Madison. They are co-founders of several popular Wisconsin-based bands over the past nearly 40 years including Harmonious Wail (vintage string jazz), Common Faces (folk-soul) and The Moon Gypsies.

Glenn Asch & John Parrott have been steady musical compatriots over the last 10 years. Asch literally wrote a book about jazz violin, titled Deluxe Anthology of Jazz Violin Styles. Parrott’s songwriting, vocals and his lively bounce on the acoustic archtop guitar in the rhythm section are hallmarks of that much-praised band. A long trail of credentials follows them both, from Asch's chair in the violin section of the Milwaukee Symphony, to Parrott’s rhythm guitar adventures with renowned jazz mandolinists Jethro Burns and Don Stiernberg and local Milwaukee clarinet legend Chuck Hedges.

Milwaukee Jazz Institute Ensemble @ Sharon Lynne Wilson Center for the Arts, 8 p.m.

From hard bop to world beats, original compositions to soulful standards, Milwaukee Jazz Institute all-star ensemble explores the full range of jazz in their straight-ahead style. A consistent favorite of festivals and clubs, MJI’s ensemble has won the Best Jazz Combo Award in the Shepherd Express Best of Milwaukee for the past three years.

Saturday, March 9

Celebrating John King @ The Coffee House, 7:30 p.m.

A long-time friend and performer at the Coffee House, John King passed on in November of 2023. To honor his memory, Brett Kemnitz, Paul Smith, Andy Jehly, Ives Iverson, Francesca & Tom, Mary Wacker, Eccentric Acoustic (Sandy Stehling, Ruth Williams and Scott Emmons) and more will be performing a body of music that King made his own with his remarkable voice and devotion.

An Evening With Rickie Lee Jones @ Turner Hall, 8 p.m.

If she was once known as Tom Waits’ muse, Rickie Lee Jones long career as pop-jazz singer songwriter has defined her as an artist who has always charted her own course. In 1980, Jones took home a Grammy for Best New Artist (“Chuck E’s in Love” was the hit) and in 2024 she released the Grammy nominated album Pieces of Treasure.

Cat Call Killers @ Bad Moon Saloon, 7 p.m.

Cat Call Killers describe their sound as “Hard Rock & Pop band from MKE ala Joan Jett meets Foo Fighters getting interrupted by Courtney Love.” Judge for yourself at this neighborhood tavern that feels like a biker’s roadhouse.

Sunday, March 10

The Lodger with live score by Little Bang Theory @ Jan Serr Studio, 3 p.m.

Alfred Hitchcock’s The Lodger (1927), the first memorable serial killer thriller, is a great exemplar of the art of silent cinema https://shepherdexpress.com/film/reviews/hitchcocks-the-lodger-live-with-little-bang-theory/ for telling a story without speech, sometimes dispensing with title-card words altogether. “The opening scene is crystal clear, all movement, like dance,” says Isabelle Kralj, dancer and co-artistic director of Theatre Gigante. “It’s so brilliant, watching how, in the first five minutes, the film pictorially pulls you into the story,” agrees Mark Anderson, monologuist and Gigante’s co-artistic director.

Theatre Gigante’s screening of The Lodger with a performance by Little Bang Theory, playing their original score for the film on children’s instruments and (Gigante’s website promises) “a carload of toys.”

Monday, March 11

Jazz Week @ The Rita - UW-Parkside, through Thursday

UW-Parkside’s Jazz Week kicks off with Tim Berne Trio’s improvisations and continues with concerts led by bassist Christian Dillingham, trumpet player Emily Kuhn, the Orrin Evans Trio and more. More info here https://www.uwp.edu/therita/jazzweek.cfm

Tuesday, March 12

Bluegrass Whatevers @ Nashville North, 7 p.m.

This weekly gig is anchored by house band Joe Wais (The Milbillies) and Ernest Brusbardis IV and Jordan Kroeger (Chicken Wire Empire). Georgia Rae takes the stage this week.

The Surfrajettes w/ The McCharmlys @ Shank Hall, 8 p.m.

Tiki-centric Toronto instrumental quartet The Surfrajettes mix psychedelic rock and reverb-drenched surf music with sky-high beehives, go-go boots and eyeliner as thick as their guitar strings. A Tuesday night dance party—Why not?

Wednesday, March 13

Sir Chloe w/ Daffo @ Vivarium, 8 p.m.

Sir Chloe draws her influences from genres spanning folk to pop, jazz to hip hop. Their sound combines the punky, literate style of artists like St. Vincent and Fiona Apple with the twangy '90s-style bombast of the Pixies.