Our expert critics supply a guide to film, dance, visual art, theater, author readings, and music. More offerings will be added as they come in.

Film

Cat Video Fest 2024
August 4 at 2 p.m.
Coolidge Corner Theatre

Cat Ladies! You’ll have to hurry down to this year’s #1 Cat Video Festival “culled from countless hours of unique submissions and sourced animations, music videos, and classic internet powerhouses”.

Burden of Dreams
Opens August 9
Coolidge Corner Theatre

A screening of a 4K Restoration of Les Blank’s documentary, which captures director Werner Herzog’s making of his most ambitious film – Fitzcarraldo. In the interests of authenticity, Herzog had Klaus Kinski and the cast endeavor to push a steamship over a mountain to where Fitzcarraldo had built an opera house in the Amazon jungle — a thousand miles from civilization. It drove Kinski nearly mad. Featuring interviews with a Herzog who is still bewildered by the experience. Roger Ebert called it “one of the most remarkable documentaries ever made about the making of a movie”.

Martha’s Vineyard African-American Film Festival
August 2 – 10
Vineyard Performing Arts Center

The festival features nine days of independent and established African American features, documentaries, and short films culled from across the world. MVAAFF provides a nurturing environment for African American filmmakers to test their creativity while it gives “sponsors a captive audience to promote their brands among a highly discerning community of people of color”. Complete Schedule

Vacationland Film Festival
August 8-11
City Theater in Biddeford, Maine

The first-ever Vacationland Film Festival will present the season’s latest independent films, festival favorites, shorts, youth-produced work, and student filmmaking.

The opening enrey on August 8 at 7 p.m. will be The Ghost Trap, based on a novel by K. Stephens: a young lobsterman is forced to choose between right and wrong when his girlfriend suffers a traumatic head injury and a rival lobstering family sabotages his gear. Members of the cast and crew will be in attendance. Friday at 3 p.m. will feature “Mostly Maine Shorts.” Director Henry Spritz’s award-winning film Sunner follows at 5:30 p.m.

Closing out Sunday will be the wonderful Arc of Oblivion a documentary about a quest to build an ark in a field in Maine. The film’s intent is to illuminate the strange world of archives, recordkeeping, and memory; the narrative rambles poetically, moving from salt mines in the Alps and fjords in the Arctic to ancient libraries in the Sahara. The film was directed by Ian Cheney and produced by Werner Herzog. The complete weekend schedule is here.

I’m Your Man
August 14 at 8 p.m.
Goethe-Institut Boston, 170 Beacon Street in Boston

Free outdoor screening. “Alma is a scientist at the famous Pergamon Museum in Berlin. In order to obtain research funds for her work, she is persuaded to participate in an extraordinary study. For three weeks, she has to live with a humanoid robot tailored to her character and needs, whose artificial intelligence is designed to be the perfect life partner for her. Alma meets Tom, a machine in human form in a class of its own, created solely to make her happy. A comic-tragic tale about the questions of love, longing and what makes a human being human.” Directed by Maria Schrader.

Last Summer
August 16 –18
Brattle Theatre in Cambridge

The local premier of provocative French director Catherine Breillat’s latest film, which features a terrific performance by Léa Drucker as the wife of a wealthy older man. She has a passionate affair with her 17-year-old stepson from her husband’s first marriage. In typical fashion, Breillat’s eye is on unrestricted female passion; the director leaves viewers squirming, trying to imagine how this inevitably disastrous affair might conclude. Interviewed about the film, the director stated that“eroticism is men gazing at women as consumer goods”. Last Summer received four nominations at the 49th French César Awards.

Caligula: The Ultimate Cut
August 16 – 22
Somerville Theatre in Davis Square

Despite its controversial reception, due to its graphic erotic content and historical inaccuracies, Caligula remains a provocative exploration of the depths of human corruption and the consequences of absolute power. Released in 1980 after years of squabbling, the film remains notorious for a number of reasons. It was made under nightmarish circumstances — there were budget-blowing delays and “artistic differences” galore, many of them public. On top of that, producer Bob Guccione of Penthouse Magazine demanded that hardcore sex scenes be added to the final product. (Gore Vidal’s original script placed a strong focus on homosexuality, leading Guccione to demand rewrites which toned down the gay content and added in heterosexual couplings for wider audience appeal.)

More than forty years later, this painstakingly restored cut (with previously unreleased scenes) delves, memorably, into the debauched reign of the Roman emperor infamous for his tyranny and extravagance. Vidal and the film’s director, Tinto Brass, disavowed the extensive changes to their contributions. Brass was dismissed prior to editing; Guccione brought in Giancarlo Lui to film X-rated scenes. A stellar cast includes Malcolm McDowell, John Gielgud, Helen Mirren, and Peter O’Toole.

Wings
August 18 at 2 p.m.
Somerville Theater in Davis Square

The first film to win the Best Picture Oscar features a divine — and still engaging — Clara Bow. David Armstrong (Richard Arlen) and Jack Powell (Charles “Buddy” Rogers) join the military at the dawn of WW I with an eye toward flying American fighter planes. They leave Mary Preston (Bow) behind, a local girl who’s in love with David but committed to Jack. Directed by William A. Wellman. Live musical accompaniment by Jeff Rapsis!

Pick of the Week

Origin (2023)
Amazon Prime, Apple TV, Hulu

Ava DuVernay reaches across the globe and through history to secure the point that America has its own caste system anchored in place decades of corrupt legislation, bureaucratic and systemic finagling. Based on Isabel Wilkerson’s best-selling book, Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents, this narrative film follows the author (played by Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor) as she attempts to publish a follow-up to her classic study The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration.

Caste is a tough read, filled with horrific facts about our racial history. To both my discomfort and delight, the film is tinged with romance, but the latter makes the story grow deeper and darker. The love interest viscerally reinforces material that, in lesser hands, might have become a pedantic exercise. DuVernay knows how to balance challenging history lessons with palatable, though not always easy, entertainment. With Kamala Harris now in the running for the U.S. President and Donald Trump making shocking statements about race, it is a good time to revisit this beautifully produced and timely film.

— Tim Jackson

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World Music and Roots

Silkroad’s Global Musician Faculty Concert
August 6, 8 p.m.
Jordan Hall, New England Conservatory

The cultural collaboration/ non-profit Silkroad is hosting its fourth annual Global Musician Workshop, providing opportunities for 68 musicians from 32 to countries to learn and create together. As part of the workshop each night — from August 6 to 10 — there will be nightly concerts open to the public at New England Conservatory’s Jordan Hall. The first night will spotlight the Silkroad-affiliated luminaries on the GMW faculty, including cellist Mike Block, pipa master Wu Man, balafon player and National Heritage Fellow Balla Kouyaté, and guest artist trumpeter Marcus Printup. Later in August the GMW will debut its Chinese edition at the Zhejiang Conservatory of Music.

Caribbean Night with Roots Alley Band and Dion Knibb
August 6, 6 p.m.
Elma Lewis Playhouse in the Park

The Attractors and Friends
August 9
Lizard Lounge, Cambridge

You’d be hard pressed to name a reggae vocalist in or out of Boston who sings with more soul and passion than Jamaican-born, Boston-based Dion Knibb. This week he’ll be on both sides of the river: On Tuesday, he’s with the burning Roots Alley Band during a free Franklin Park concert; on Friday he’s with the sensational jazz-ska sounds of the Attractors, who will also feature another longtime fixture of the local ska scene, Riki Rocksteady.

Gyedu-Blay Ambolley
August 17
Crystal Ballroom at Somerville Theater

In the mid-’70s Ambolley helped pioneer the glorious Ghanaian highlife sound. He’s been rarely seen in these parts, but thanks to the Jazz is Dead crew, he’s mounting a US tour with his eight-piece band and will be performing his debut LP Simigwa in its entirety, making this date a real treat for West African music fans.

Big Daddy Kane
August 16, 7 & 10 p.m.
City Winery

Like most of his other early hip-hop peers, Big Daddy Kane spent most last year performing in ’50th anniversary of hip-hop’ package tours. But this “Smooth Operator” has more than enough rhymes to fill his own evening. And he is bringing his own live band with him for a pair of shows.

The Nebulas, The Electric Heaters, The Beachcombovers, and Carand
August 18, 3 p.m.
Midway Cafe, Jamaica Plain

Summer is waning, so this might be one of the last chances to catch some musical waves with this all-star instro-mania surf package. Rhode Island’s Nebulas have been bridging early surf with a modern approach for over 20 years, and this date is the only East Coast release show for their recent Euphorium LP. Joining them are local surf-noir heroes the Electric Heaters (the other side of Celtic guitar whiz Matt Heaton) and the Beachcombovers as well as a solo set from Carand Burnet of Kioea.

— Noah Schaffer

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Classical Music

National Children’s Symphony of Venezuela
Presented by Tanglewood Music Festival
August 8, 8 p.m.
Koussevitzky Shed, Lenox

Gustavo Dudamel leads the Venezuelan NCSO in a concert of music by South and North American composers as well as Dmitri Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 5.

Kirill Gerstein plays Rachmaninoff
Presented by Tanglewood Music Festival
August 9, 8 p.m.
Koussevitzky Shed, Lenox

Pianist Gerstein is the soloist in Sergei Rachmaninoff’s evergreen Piano Concerto No. 3. Afterwards, Alan Gilbert leads the BSO in Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring.

Stasevska conducts Sibelius and Stravinsky
Presented by Tanglewood Music Festival
August 10, 8 p.m.
Koussevitzky Shed, Tanglewood

Dalia Stasevska leads the BSO in Jean Sibelius’ Symphony No. 5 and Igor Stravinsky’s arrangement of his Canzonetta. Meantime, Leila Josefowicz plays Stravinsky’s Violin Concerto.

Jeremy Denk plays Wiggins and Ives
Presented by Tanglewood Music Festival
August 11, 7 p.m.
Seiji Ozawa Hall, Lenox

Denk, one of the day’s great pianists, offers one of the years most intriguing recital lineups: Charles Ives’ mammoth Concord Sonata alongside “Blind Tom” Wiggins’ The Battle of Manasas.

Mozart & More
Presented by Boston Landmarks Orchestra
August 14, 7 p.m.
Hatch Memorial Shell, Boston

Christoper Wilkins leads BLO in a couple of Mozart favorites (the Overture to Lucia Silla and Symphony No. 29). They’re paired, refreshingly, with music by Joseph Bologne, Eubie Blake, Florence Price, William Grant Still, Astor Piazzolla, and Arturo Márquez.

Yo-Yo Ma plays Schumann
Presented by Tanglewood Music Festival
August 18, 2:30 p.m.
Koussevitzky Shed, Lenox

Superstar cellist Yo-Yo Ma joins the BSO for a performance of Robert Schumann’s Cello Concerto. Earl Lee conducts further works by Carlos Simon and Beethoven.

— Jonathan Blumhofer

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Theater

COVID PROTOCOLS: Check with specific theaters.

The Plastic Bag Store Created, written, designed, and directed by Robin Frohardt. Music by Freddi Price. Produced by Pomegranate Arts. Presented by Mass MoCA and Williamstown Theatre Festival at Mass MoCA, North Adams, MA, through September 2.

Billed by Mass MoCA as “an immersive, multimedia experience by Brooklyn-based artist Robin Frohardt that uses humor, craft, and a critical lens to question our culture of consumption and convenience — specifically, the enduring effects of single-use plastics. The shelves are stocked with thousands of original hand-sculpted items — produce and meat, dry goods and toiletries, cakes and sushi rolls — all made from discarded single-use plastics in an endless cacophony of packaging.”

The Suppliant Women by Aeschylus. Staged by Apollinaire Theatre Company, in collaboration with Teatro Chelsea and the City of Chelsea at PORT Park, 99 Marginal Street, Chelsea, through August 17. The show begins at 7:30 p.m., though the festivities begin at 6 p.m. with live music, entertainment, and dinner in a pop-up Beer Garden featuring BearMoose Brewery with take-out or delivery from “Chelsea’s exciting culinary delights.”

What does it say about the absurd escapist drift of our theater that one of the few dramas on view that grapples with a growing global crisis was written a couple of centuries ago. Hoist a frosty mug of BearMoose beer to a risk taker, Aeschylus. The Apollinaire Theatre Company PR tells it like it is: “Fifty women board a boat in North Africa. They flee across the Mediterranean, leaving everything behind. They are escaping forced marriage in their home and seeking asylum in Greece. Written 2,500 years ago, The Suppliant Women is one of the world’s oldest surviving plays. It’s about the plight of refugees, moral and human rights, and democracy. It tells a story that echoes down the ages to find striking and poignant resonance today.” Note: “This bilingual adaptation, featuring haunting music and dynamic choreography, is designed to engage English speaking and Spanish speaking audiences alike.”

Revolution’s Edge by Patrick Gabridge. Directed by Alexandra Smith. Staged by Plays in Place in the Old North Church & Historic Site, 193 Salem St, Boston, through August 10.

The 45-minute historical drama is back at the Old North Church for its second season. The action “is set in Boston’s oldest surviving church on April 18, 1775, the day before the Battles of Lexington & Concord and mere hours before the famous ‘two if by sea’ lantern signals … three men share a faith but have very different beliefs concerning the right path ahead for themselves, their families, and the colonies. Their conversation explores the intersection of faith and freedom on the edge of the American Revolution.”

The Islanders by Carey Crim. Directed by Regge Life. Staged by Shakespeare & Company at the Tina Packer Playhouse, Lenox, through August 25.
A world premiere production of a script that was originally staged at Shakespeare & Company in 2022 as a reading in the Plays in Process series. The Shakes & Co summary of the plot: “Anna lives an insular life on an underpopulated island in the Great Lakes. She has few friends and likes it that way. Her quiet, controlled world is turned upside down by the arrival of a charming but secretive new neighbor, Dutch. For different reasons, Dutch and Anna have each retreated from mainstream society. Can their connection survive the revelations that must inevitably come with true intimacy?”

The Heron’s Flight directed by Jennifer Johnson and Travis Coe. Staged by the Double Edge Theatre at 948 Conway Road, Ashfield, through August 11.

Here is how Double Edge Theatre sets the scene for this year’s summer spectacular: “A great blue heron perches silently in a tree, then breaks the surface of the cool green water. Familiar and mythological creatures gather for a Midsummer Feast — an explosive celebration of love, dance, and flight. Walk with us toward transformation in an impossible world as we embrace the knowledge of the land — that each season of life is beloved.”

Pamela Palmer by David Ives. Directed by Walter Bobbie. Staged by the Williamstown Theatre Festival on its CenterStage, Williamstown, July 23 through August 10.

A world premiere production of a script by veteran playwright Ives. According to WFT, the play puts a “noir spin on an existential romance…. Pamela Palmer lives a seemingly perfect life with her husband at Wishwood but has a bizarre suspicion something’s wrong, only for them both to become entangled with the detective she hires to investigate. The cast includes Becky Ann Baker, Tina Benko, Clark Gregg, and Max Gordon Moore.

Big Big Sky by Tom Wells. Directed by James Warwick. Staged by Chester Theatre Company, Town Hall Theatre, 15 Middlefield Road, Chester, August 8 through 18.

An American premiere. According to the CTC website: “Kilnsea, East Yorkshire. Angie and Lauren are closing up the café for another winter; the birds have gone south and taken the tourists with them. The last visitor is Lauren’s dad Dennis, stopping by for his pasty and beans. But there’s another arrival — one that’s unforeseen and life-changing for them all.” This script is about “nature’s influence on love, friendship and family, reminding us that anyone who’s lost can be found, even in the remotest of places.”

The Principle of Hope Circus, based on Ernst Bloch’s book The Principle of Hope. Written and performed by Bread & Puppet Theatre at 753 Heights Road, Glover, VT, through August 31.

The venerable political troupe’s summer show will be performed on Saturdays and Sundays through the end of the month. The festivities begin at 2 p.m. Saturday circuses will be followed by Gaza Grey Lady Cantata in the Paper Maché Cathedral; Sunday circuses will be followed by a pageant in the pageant field adjacent to the circus ring. Director Peter Schumann on the circus’ focus: “The imminent end of the capitalist empire, colonizing and genociding as the whole world looks on in horror, attacked by a flock of cranes migrating from Palestine to replace the shit inside the White House with genuine bird droppings. Frogs, caribou, dancing bears, bicycling chickens make up the rest of the cast.”

Westminster written and directed by Brenda Withers. Staged by Harbor Stage Company at 15 Kendrick Avenue, Wellfleet, August 8 through September 1.

A regional premiere. According to the Harbor Stage Company website: “When Pia’s old friend gifts her with a surprise rescue dog, the women and their partners face off over issues of nature, nurture, and accountability A new comedy that takes a bite out of good breeding and bad manners.” Cast includes Stacy Fischer, Jonathan Fielding, Robert Kropf, ​and Withers.

Smart People by Lydia R. Diamond. Directed by Michael Ofori. Staged by Silverthorne Theater Company at the Perch at Hawks and Reed Performing Arts Center, 289 Main St, Greenfield, through August 10.

According to the Silverthorne Theater Company website: “unfolding during Obama’s 2008 campaign, the script is a political comedy about four ambitious and fallible Harvard University intellectuals confronting the strains of prejudice that underlay their personal and professional lives. Brian White is a white man studying neurological responses the brain has to perceptions of race; Ginny Yang is a respected psychologist analyzing the prevailing stereotypes of Asian American women; Valerie Johnston is a MFA Acting grad working multiple jobs and facing prejudicial treatment in the arts; and Jackson Moore is a surgeon-in-training consistently facing discrimination as a Harvard Med School intern. The play dares to ask difficult and insightful questions about the social and sexual politics of living in America.”

Flight of the Monarch by Jim Frangione. Directed by Judy Braha. Staged by Shakespeare & Company in association with the Great Barrington Public Theatre at the Elayne P. Bernstein Theatre, Lenox, August 3 through 25.

>A regional premiere. According to the Shakespeare & Company website: “Two siblings, Sheila and Thomas, were both born and raised in a small, New England fishing village where they still live. This darkly comic play explores how siblings’ lives are intertwined, what we owe to the people who know and love us best, and how family members’ needs and desires may push the boundaries of what we can be expected to do for others.”

Wish You Were Here by Sanaz Toossi. Directed by Melory Mirashrafi. Staged by Gloucester Stage at 267 East Main Street, Gloucester, August 9 through 25.

From the Gloucester Stage website on this script by a Pulitzer prize-winning playwright: “A circle of tight-knit girlfriends gather to plan weddings, trade dirty jokes, and try to hang onto a sense of normalcy as protests are breaking out all around them. Centered on a suburb of Iran from 1978 to 1991, each of the friends must choose whether to join a wave of emigration or to remain where the future is uncertain.”

The Queen of Versailles, Stephen Schwartz, music and lyrics. Lindsey Ferrentino, book. Directed by Michael Arden. Presented by Broadway in Boston at the Emerson Colonial Theatre, Boston, through August 25.

A new musical starring Kristin Chenoweth that is headed for Broadway. According to the Emerson Colonial website: “From computer engineer to Mrs. Florida to billionairess, Jackie Siegel sees herself as the embodiment of the American Dream. Now, as the wife of David “The Timeshare King” Siegel and mother of their eight children, she invites us to behold their most grandiose venture yet: building the largest private home in America – a $100 million house in Orlando, Florida, big enough for her dreams and inspired by the Palace of Versailles. But with the Great Recession of 2008 looming, Jackie and David’s dreams begin to crumble, along with their lavish lifestyle.” The show purports to explore “the true cost of fame, fortune, and family.”

— Bill Marx

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Visual Arts 

The Yale Center for British Art, closed since February 2023 for “building conservation,” has continued to operate as much of its program as possible, even moving selections from its collections across the street to the Yale University Art Gallery. In the summer of 2023, Los Angeles-based artist Ken Gonzales-Day, whose work has explored how racial bias shapes representation, historical memory, and the ways museums evaluate and display works of art, was a visiting artist at the Center. During those months, he photographed and researched works in the Center’s collection and at the Yale Peabody Museum, then also closed for a thorough-going renovation. The two museums commissioned a public art work, Composition in Black and Brown, which in New Haven on August 5.

With no public galleries available at the Center, the work was conceived as an unorthodox public display. Composition in Black and Brown I is a billboard on Interstate 95 as it passes through New Haven. Composition in Black and Brown II is a “site specific vinyl artwork” on display in the windows of the Center’s lower court until December. Both versions center on two sculptures, one from each of the sponsoring museums. Gonzales-Day chose a striking and mysterious classicizing portrait in black limestone of an unknown Black sitter, made around 1758 in the studio of British artist Francis Harwood, who worked exclusively in Florence, from the Center. A Mexica figure of a young man from the Peabody Collection, made between 1350 and 1521 BC and, uniquely for that culture, shown in the nude, came from the Peabody. The two works are surrounded by a series of marble portrait busts taken from the Center’s collection.

Video, an increasingly important medium for contemporary artists worldwide, inspires the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museums’ Aldrich Video Series, which opens on August 19 in Ridgefield, CT. Irish-born Eva Richardson McCrea begins the series with two films, Rope (2022) and Table Games (2021), that “frame the banality of high stakes transactions.” Toronto-based Winnie Truong follows with two stop motion animations, The Trade (2022) and Seed Vault (2024), opening on September 9. New York-based Maya Jeffereis concludes with Fields Fallen from Distant Songs (2023) and Passages II (2024), both partly inspired by family history as Japanese plantation laborers in Hawaii. This final leg of the series opens September 30.

The Fuller Craft Museum in Brockton opens Hand in Hand: Works from the Fleur S. Bresler Collection on August 10. The show features a 2023 donation to the Fuller by collector and crafts patron Fleur S. Bresler, who, over many years, assembled one of the most notable crafts collections in the United States. The show includes work by Mary Jackson, Richard Marquis, and Kay Sekimachi, among others.

Ulises is a Philadelphia-based “bookworkers collective” founded in 2016. It operates a bookshop and project space, holds workshops, discussions, exhibitions, and projects, and describes itself as “a curatorial platform… that explores publishing as an incubator for new forms of editorial, curatorial and artistic practice.” Ulises’ first institutional residency and solo exhibition, Ulises: Assembly will be presented by the Tufts University Art Galleries at its Grossman & Anderson Galleries, SMFA at Tufts campus, at 230 Fenway, Boston, starting August 13. The residency will “realize a bookshop and workshops with a curated selection of collaborators… in dialogue with faculty and students.”

On August 3, a host of new installations opened at New England institutions, two of them at MassMOCA in North Adams. Steve Locke: The Fire Next Time takes its title from the classic James Baldwin essay collection on race, American history, and religion, published in the midst of the Civil Rights era. Locke’s elaborate exhibition, described as “a meditation on uniquely American forms of violence directed at Black and queer people,” includes a sculptural installation, examples from an on-going series of paintings, drawn portraits of American mass murderers and accused or acquitted killers, and a “data driven” site-specific installation.

Amy Podmore: Audience at MassMOCA features plaster casts of the interiors of wicker baskets and cornucopias. Fitted with motorized glass eyeballs, the unfamiliar shapes shade into anthropomorphic surrealism as their eyes “sleepily” fall shut and then snap open, making the museum visitor “the one being uncannily watched back.”

Agustina Woodgate: Ballroom opened at the Peabody-Essex Museum in Salem. It features an installation of geographic globes that have been sanded free of nations and human boundaries —  a symbol of “our common humanity” perhaps or maybe a  prophecy of a world destroyed by human-caused catastrophes. Also included in the exhibition are historical navigation instruments from the museum’s collection and a video in which the artist “uses artificial intelligence to reconstruct images from an erased atlas.”

A Fragile Force: Meditations on Water includes two video works on the nature and environment of water. Jenifer Moller’s Seas portrays icy waters as they meet the shore. Amy Globus’ Electric Sheep follows an intelligent sea dweller as it moves from the deep through a “man-made waterscape.” The show is on view at the Hood Museum, Dartmouth College.

— Peter Walsh

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Jazz

Mark Walker + The Rhythm of the Americas Quintet
August 8 at 6 p.m.
Long Live Roxbury Brewery & Taproom
FREE

Mark Walker has long been a go-to drummer for all manner of Afro-Latin jazz. His Rhythm of the Americas Quintet comprises saxophonist Mike Tucker, keyboardist Maxim Lubarsky, bassist Oscar Stagnaro, and percussionist Ernesto Diaz. It’s all part of the free Thursday-night series at the Long Live Roxbury Brewery & Taproom.

Black Lamb Trio
August 8 at 8 p.m.
Lilypad, Cambridge, Mass.

Saxophonist and flutist Andrew Lamb (aka Black Lamb), a longtime participant in the New York avant-garde, has an extensive resume as bandleader and sideman, going back to his early studies in Chicago with AACM founding member Kalaparusha Maurice McIntyre and subsequently working with a whole host of heavies, including Warren Smith, Henry Grimes, Alan Silva, Marshall Allen, and on and on. Lamb makes a rare foray into Cambridge, joined by another stalwart of the New York scene, bassist Joe Fonda, and a Boston mainstay, drummer Luther Gray.

Grace Kelly
August 8-13
Various venues

After touring extensively behind her album Grace Kelly with Strings: At the Movies, the saxophonist, singer, and songwriter is barnstorming New England with a small-ish band: Utar Artun on piano and keyboards, James Heazlewood-Dale on acoustic and electric bass, and Ross Pederson on drums. The tour includes The Kate, in Old Saybrook on August 8; the Spire Center in Plymouth on August 9; and the Shalin Liu Performing Arts Center in Rockport on August 10. A show at the Wequassett Resort in Harwich on August 13 will feature “At the Movies” with a string quartet.

David Chesnut Jazz Festival
August 10 at 12 p.m.
Eustis Estate, Milton, Mass.

Mandorla Music and Historic New England have put together this second annual festival at the Eustis Estate, named for a coachman and chauffeur who worked at the Estate from the 1890s until 1905. According to Historic New England, Chesnut, following his time in Milton, “worked as chauffer for the Endicott family in nearby Dedham. He purchased property there to build a home and continued to acquire other properties, using them to house extended family and for rental income. By the mid-1920s he owned three houses, becoming one of the only Black landlords in the area.” A jazz enthusiast, Chesnut was a trumpet player, who “played in several marching bands and musical groups, directed local military exercises, and hosted jam sessions in the kitchen of his home. He filled that home with jazz and the marches of John Phillip Sousa, leaving a musical legacy that lasted for generations in his family.” The festival, it is hoped, will help “tell a more inclusive story about the people who were part of the Eustis Estate, while celebrating the power of art and community.” And the music looks pretty good, too: The Adventure Time Trio (with drummer Brooke Sofferman); the Jesse Taitt Trio; the Devon Gates Quintet; Temidayo Balogun + Akéde, and the Sheryl Bailey Quartet. It all happens outdoors at the Estate. Lawn seating; blankets, and camp/beach chairs are encouraged. Food will be available, alcohol prohibited.

Kristalis Sotomayor
August 15 at 6 p.m.
Long Live Roxbury Brewery & Taproom
FREE

The accomplished young Puerto Rican virtuoso flutist and singer Kristalis Sotomayor has agile instrumental chops, with the requisite silvery tone as well as rhythmic bite and improvisational brio. She’s put together an ambitious format for this free show at Long Live Roxbury, billed as Las Nenas del Swing (look it up). She’ll be joined by singer Barbara Zamora, violinist Beatriz Martinez, bassist Irisley Luis Gomez, conguera Judith Soberanes, pianist Rebecca Cline, and timbale player Miguel Martínez.

“Third Thursday”
August 15 at 8 p.m.
Harvard-Epworth Church, Cambridge, Mass.

For this edition of Third Thursday, Matthew Brown, author of the graphic novel Ornette Speaks: A Cartoon Grammar, “will create art in real time, accompanied by series host keyboardist Dave Bryant, saxophonist Jorrit Dijkstra, bassist Jacob William, and drummer Miki Matsuki, and by Daniel Kurganov performing Ornette Coleman’s ‘Trinity,’ a piece for solo violin.”

New England Jazz Collaborative
August 18, 11:15 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.
Georges Island, Boston Harbor
FREE

The nonprofit New England Jazz Collaborative has put together this generous afternoon free program, which includes complimentary ferry tickets to the venue: Georges Island in Boston Harbor. The featured band will be guitarist-composer Eric Hofbauer’s formidable quartet, with saxophonist Noah Preminger, bassist Sean Farias, and drummer Francisco Mela, “plus special guests in impromptu solo and duo performances in scenic locations around the island.” The ferry departs from Long Wharf North at noon. You must register in advance here.

— Jon Garelick

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Popular Music

Diiv with Horse Jumper of Love and Full Body 2
August 5 (doors at 7/show at 8)
Royale, Boston

After an arduous four-and-a-half-year span that nearly broke up the band, Diiv (pronounced “dive”) reemerged in May with their fourth LP, Frog in Boiling Water. Although they managed to maintain the same four-member lineup that recorded 2019’s Deceiver (as well as their shoegaze-y musical perspective), this record saw them move to Fantasy Records after a 10-year tenure at Captured Tracks. Lead singer Zachary Cole Smith describes Frog in Boiling Water as “a political shoegaze album,” which makes it a less than perfectly easy listen in the age of Trump. However, the band’s confidence in the results was made clear enough when they extracted five songs as singles — including “Brown Paper Bag,” whose video shows them doing a Saturday Night Live performance that never actually happened — before the album’s street date. Boston’s Horse Jumper of Love and Philly’s Full Body 2 will open Diiv’s August 5 show at Royale.

Midge Ure
August 9 (doors at 5:30/show at 7:30)
City Winery, Boston

As a member of The Rich Kids for their one-album career, almost a member of Sex Pistols, briefly a touring member of Thin Lizzy, lead singer of Ultravox during its most commercial successful era (1979-1987), and co-writer – with Bob Geldof – of the second biggest-selling British single of all-time, James “Midge” Ure, OBE was either a peripheral or central player in some of the most significant unfoldings of the punk, new wave, and pop scenes of the late ‘70s and early ‘80s.

Although Ultravox was quite popular in his native UK and his solo career has been at modestly to admirably successful, Ure has barely been a blip on the American radar in terms of the charts. (We discussed this in our 2015 interview together.) Still, he remains able to attract his devoted fans to small-venue gigs in the US, one of which will be at City Winery on August 9.

We Love Ducky: A Musical Celebration of Ducky Carlisle’s Larger Than Life!
August 11 (doors at 7/show at 8)
Brighton Music Hall, Allston

On August 11, Brighton Music Hall will host quite the all-star lineup when it pays tribute to the legendary Boston musical polymath Ducky Carlisle, who died last October. Brighton Music Hall’s site highlights the presence of  Barrence Whitfield & The Savages, The Figgs, Air Traffic Controller, Mike Viola, and Bleu. However, the “many MANY (so MaNy more!” who will honor the three-time Grammy winner include Sal Baglio, The Flashcubes, Corin Ashley, Anthony Kaczynski, and Emily Grogan. If you have any connection to the Boston music scene whatsoever, then you have nowhere else to be on this specific evening other than at this show!

Good Looks
August 13 (doors at 7, show at 8)
Cantab Underground, Cambridge

Bummer Year proved to be an unfortunately appropriate title for the debut by Good Looks. On the night of their April 8, 2022 record release show in their hometown of Austin, guitarist Jake Ames was struck by a vehicle. The band canceled two months’ worth of gigs and put everything on hold as Ames recovered. Good Looks’ determination got them fully back into writing, recording, and touring mode by the following summer. Sadly, their van went up in flames in July, destroying everything that the scrappy touring band had with them. Not to be deterred, the Tyler Jordan-led quartet toiled to replace their gear and got back to work. The result is the triumphant Lived Here For a While. This hearty, thoughtful, and highly inspired 40-minute collection occasionally recalls The War on Drugs’ best moments without sounding derivative. I’ve said it about many artists before, but Good Looks will be – either as an opener or a headliner – playing venues much more spacious than Cantab Underground soon enough.

John Powhida with Shang Hi Los and The I Want You!
August 15 (doors at 6, show at 6:15)
The Burren, Somerville

My Arts Fuse colleague Jason M. Rubin has done a fine job of covering Albany ex-pat John Powhida in recent years, having reviewed The Bad Pilot (2019), This Phasor Sound Divine (2021), and his newest, Jerry’s House (2024). The 2011 Rock and Roll Rumble winner and multiple Boston Music Awards nominee celebrated the April release of Jerry’s House with a live performance at Hollywood’s Hotel Café, a recording of which is – along with the two aforementioned efforts – available at his Bandcamp page. And since it is an album well worth celebrating, he will do the same in Davis Square on August 15. The inclusion of supergroup quintet Shang Hi Los and long-running quartet The I Want You! puts this bill right up there with the Ducky Carlisle tribute on the all-star local talent meter.

Bent Knee with Nova One
August 17 (doors at 7/show at 8)
The Sinclair, Cambridge

The sting of live appearances by Boston-based artists continues at The Sinclair on August 17. Bent Knee’s origins date back to when Courtney Swain and Ben Levin started writing songs together 15 years ago while enrolled at Berklee College of Music. (Levin, I should note, is no longer with the band.) Since 2011, the quartet has built as six-LP discography and garnered an equal number of Boston Music Awards nominations. When they headline The Sinclair, Bent Knee with preview the August 30 unveiling of their seventh full-length, Twenty Pills Without Water. Providence’s Nova One – whose music, in their own words, “celebrates vulnerability, self-love, self-expression, and queer futurity” – will provide support.

Sons of Cream
August 17 (doors at 7/show at 8)
The Cabot, Beverly

Two-thirds of Sons of Cream are just that. Kofi Baker is the son of drummer Ginger Baker and Malcolm Bruce is the son of bassist Jack Bruce. Together, their fathers comprised the eruptive rhythm section of one of the most influential rock bands of the late 1960s. Filling out the trio on guitar (a space originally occupied by Eric Clapton) is Rob Johnson, a grandnephew of Ginger Baker. On August 17, Sons of Cream will play the songs of Cream – e.g., “Sunshine of Your Love”, “White Room”, “Crossroads”, “Badge” – at Beverly’s Cabot Cinema. Attendees can also expect to hear many stories about the elder musicians as only their scions can tell them.

— Blake Maddux

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Author Events

Picture + Panel: Seriously Funny with Emma Hunsinger and Caitlin Cass – Porter Square Books
August 5 at 7 p.m.
Free

“Porter Square Books is excited to collaborate with the Boston Comic Arts Foundation (BCAF) and Aeronaut Brewing to bring Picture + Panel. This month, Picture + Panel invites you to discover the role humor plays in reflection and understanding. Join us for an engaging discussion with Emma Hunsinger and Caitlin Cass as they delve into comics and comedy.

Picture + Panel is a monthly conversation series that brings fantastic graphic novel creators to the Greater Boston area. Discover terrific authors and fascinating stories that combine text and art through conversational confabulation. Produced in partnership by Aeronaut Brewing, Porter Square Books, and the Boston Comic Arts Foundation, Picture + Panel provides thought-provoking discussions for adults about this unique form of expression.”

Jessica Anthony in conversation with Nina MacLaughlin – Porter Square Books
The Most
August 7 at 7 p.m.
Free

“From ‘one of our most thrilling and singular innovators on the page’ (Laura Van Den Berg), a tightly wound, consuming tale for readers of Claire Keegan and Ian McEwan, about a 1950s American housewife who decides to get into the pool in her family’s apartment complex one morning and won’t come out.

“It is an unseasonably warm Sunday in November 1957. Kathleen, a college tennis champion turned Delaware housewife, decides not to join her flagrantly handsome life insurance salesman husband, Virgil, or their two young boys, at church. Instead, she takes a dip in the kidney-shaped swimming pool of their apartment complex. And then she won’t come out.

“A consuming, single-sitting read set over the course of eight hours, The Most breaches the shimmering surface of a seemingly idyllic mid-century marriage, immersing us in the unspoken truth beneath. As Sputnik 2 orbits the earth carrying Laika, the doomed Soviet dog, Kathleen and Virgil hurtle towards each other until they arrive at a reckoning that will either shatter their marriage or transform it, at last, into something real.

Marjan Kamali – Harvard Book Store
The Lion Women of Tehran
August 8 at 7 p.m.
Free

“Kamali tells a moving story of an unforgiving time, an unlikely friendship, and how a country’s transformation, in turn, transforms the lives of two unforgettable women. Simultaneously heartbreaking and life affirming, it’s a book that you won’t be able to put down until you’ve read every word.” —Adrienne Brodeur, New York Times bestselling author of Little Monsters

Soma Mei Sheng Frazier – Brookline Booksmith
Off the Books: A Novel
August 9 at 7 p.m.
Free

“Recent Dartmouth dropout Mei, in search of a new direction in life, drives a limo to make ends meet. Her grandfather convinces her to allow her customers to pay under the table, and before she knows it, she is working as a routine chauffeur for sex workers. Mei does her best to mind her own business, but her knack for discretion soon leads her on a life changing trip from San Francisco to Syracuse with a new client.”

Kelly Clancy — Harvard Book Store
Playing With Reality: How Games Have Shaped Our World
August 12 at 7 p.m.
Free

“Playing with Reality explores the riveting history of games since the Enlightenment, weaving an unexpected path through military theory, political science, evolutionary biology, the development of computers and AI, cutting-edge neuroscience, and cognitive psychology.

Neuroscientist and physicist Kelly Clancy shows how intertwined games have been with the arc of history. War games shaped the outcomes of real wars in nineteenth and twentieth century Europe. Game theory warped our understanding of human behavior and brought us to the brink of annihilation — yet still underlies basic assumptions in economics, politics, and technology design. We used games to teach computers how to learn for themselves, and now we are designing games that will determine the shape of society and future of democracy.”

David Daley – Harvard Book Store
Antidemocratic: Inside the Far Right’s 50-Year Plot to Control American Elections
August 15 at 7 p.m.
Free

“David Daley has written a masterful true-crime story in which the victim is democracy. He reveals the schemers behind today’s assault on fair elections, some of whom sit on the Supreme Court. Antidemocratic is both riveting and essential reading for anyone who cares about the fate of American democracy.” —Jane Mayer, New York Times bestselling author of Dark Money

Third Thursdays Poetry: Heather Treseler, Lloyd Schwartz, & Tina Cane – Bookline Booksmith
August 15 at 7 p.m.
Free

“Heather Treseler is the author of Auguries & Divinations, which received the 2023 May Sarton Prize and is a finalist for the New England Book Award in poetry, and Parturition, which won the Munster Literature Centre’s international chapbook prize and the Jean Pedrick Prize from the New England Poetry Club. Lloyd Schwartz is the Poet Laureate of Somerville, MA, Frederick S. Troy Professor of English Emeritus at UMass Boston, a major editor of Elizabeth Bishop’s poetry and prose, and music and arts critic for NPR’s Fresh Air and WBUR’s The Artery. Tina Cane is the founder/director of Writers-in-the-Schools, RI, and, from 2016-2024, served as the Poet Laureate of Rhode Island where she lives with her husband and three children.”

Ken Liu – Havard Book Store
Laozi’s Dao De Jing: A New Interpretation for a Transformative Time
August 20 at 7 p.m.
Free

“Laozi’s Dao De Jing was written around 400 BC by a compassionate soul in a world torn by hatred and ambition, dominated by those that yearned for apocalyptic confrontations and prized ideology over experience. By speaking out against the cleverness of elites and the arrogance of the learned, Laozi upheld the wisdom of the concrete, the humble, the quotidian, the everyday individual dismissed by the great powers of the world.

Earthy, playful, and defiant, Laozi’s words gave solace to souls back then, and offer comfort today. Now, this beautifully designed new edition serves as both an accessible new translation of an ancient Chinese classic and a fascinating account of renowned novelist Ken Liu’s transformative experience while wrestling with the classic text.”

— Matt Hanson