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Pop, Rock and Jazz in NYC This Week

The rapper Pitbull at Madison Square Garden in 2013.Credit...Chad Batka for The New York Times

Our guide to pop and rock shows and the best of live jazz.

ARCA AND JESSE KANDA at Brooklyn Steel (July 6, 8 p.m.). The Venezuelan electronic-music producer Alejandro Ghersi, who performs as Arca, made his name creating sharp-edged, shadowy beats for records by Kanye West and Björk, as well as for his own experimental solo releases. On his latest album, “Arca,” Mr. Ghersi reveals more of himself than ever, singing about desire and loss in heart-rendingly direct Spanish lyrics. At this show he’ll be joined by the visual artist Jesse Kanda, a close collaborator.
bowerypresents.com/brooklyn-steel

CANADA D’EH at the Well (July 1, 12 p.m.). On Saturday Canada will celebrate the 150th anniversary of the passage of the law that established its modern existence. The Well, a Brooklyn bar, will mark the occasion with a free all-day party featuring performances by some of Canada’s finest musical exports, including the Ontario folk-rock act Great Lake Swimmers.
thewellbrooklyn.com

DIARRHEA PLANET AND DADDY ISSUES at Brooklyn Bowl (June 30, 8 p.m.). Listeners who can get past the Nashville garage-rock band Diarrhea Planet’s juvenile name are rewarded with a catalog full of absurdly fun, extremely catchy songs built for fans to air guitar along with. The Nashville scene has produced a promising crop of new punk-influenced groups in recent years — including the opening act at this show, Daddy Issues, whose new debut album, “Deep Dream,” is a cathartic alt-rock outpouring in the vein of Veruca Salt and Weezer.
718-963-3369, brooklynbowl.com

D.J. PREMIER AND FRIENDS at Betsy Head Park (July 2, 7 p.m.). Pick any great New York rap album from the 1990s, and there’s a good chance you’ll find D.J. Premier in its credits. His production work for Nas, Jay-Z, the Notorious B.I.G. and other leading acts — including Gang Starr, his duo with the rapper Guru, who died in 2010 — helped define the hardheaded, artistically free sound of an era. This free show in Brownsville, Brooklyn, is presented by City Parks Foundation and the Lyricist Lounge 25th-Anniversary Series.
cityparksfoundation.org

ENRIQUE IGLESIAS AND PITBULL at Madison Square Garden (June 30 and July 1, 7:30 p.m.). The Cuban-American rapper Armando Pérez, who performs as Pitbull, made himself an international star by emphasizing singalong hooks, club-ready production and his own relentlessly upbeat charm. This summer, Mr. Pérez (or, as he prefers to be called by his fans, Mr. Worldwide) is sharing top billing on a North American tour with the Spanish pop singer Enrique Iglesias. Their two-night stand at the Garden is sure to be among the summer’s most ebullient live events.
866-858-0008, thegarden.com

SINKANE at MetroTech Commons (July 6, 12 p.m.). The 23-year-old BAM Rhythm and Blues Festival at MetroTech continues to interpret the genre of R&B with rewarding openness, putting on free outdoor shows each summer by an eclectic assortment of artists who draw on pop, jazz, soul and more. On Thursday afternoon, that means warm, funky, psychedelic grooves from Sinkane, the Sudanese-American musician Ahmed Gallab and his band, as heard on the recent album “Life & Livin’ It.”
bam.org

TIËSTO at Governors Island (July 4, 4 p.m.). In an era of endless subtlety and stylistic diversity in dance music, Tiësto, the superstar Dutch D.J., is a standard-bearer for sledgehammer-blunt house and trance beats. This Independence Day, he’s swooping in to New York for a one-night-only performance on Governors Island. It’s the place to be for EDM fans who are staying in town over the long weekend and want somewhere to dance from the Fourth of July into the first moments of the Fifth.
877-987-6487, rpmpresents.com

SIMON VOZICK-LEVINSON

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The alto saxophonist Lou Donaldson in 2013.Credit...Joshua Bright for The New York Times

DARCY JAMES ARGUE’S SECRET SOCIETY at Jazz Standard (July 4, 7:30 and 9:30 p.m.). With Secret Society, his 18-piece ensemble, the composer and bandleader Darcy James Argue makes music with a metallic and alkaline bite, often drawing on political inspirations. His latest album, “Real Enemies,” released last year, is a meditation on famous American conspiracy theories. Sonically, its cousins are the arrangements and compositions of Bob Brookmeyer; the orchestral works of Morton Feldman; and even, occasionally, Ornette Coleman’s Prime Time. Here Secret Society plays a sampling of new compositions, including the 40-minute suite “Tensile Curves” and the piece “Flux in a Box,” written for David Foster Wallace.
212-576-2232, jazzstandard.com

LOU DONALDSON at the Blue Note (July 6-9, 8 and 10:30 p.m.). The alto saxophonist and N.E.A. Jazz Master Lou Donaldson, 90, has held together this quartet for many years; it features Randy Johnston on guitar, Akiko Tsuruga on Hammond B3 organ and Fukushi Tainaka on drums. The group plays bluesy hard-bop of the sort that made Mr. Donaldson a star in the 1950s and ’60s, when he recorded a number of classic albums for Blue Note Records. A sometime vocalist and a full-time ham, he’ll probably sing a few tunes here, and will almost certainly tell some jokes. Here’s a promise he often makes: “We play straight-ahead — no fusion, no confusion.”
212-475-8592, bluenote.net/newyork

40TH-ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATION at the Cornelia Street Café (July 4, 7 p.m.). The Cornelia Street Café was founded in 1977 in a tiny storefront on a tucked-away block in the West Village. Its footprint gradually expanded, and today the basement club is one of the city’s most treasured homes of improvised music, comedy and literary events. Once a month for the past decade, the composer, conductor, multi-instrumentalist and author David Amram, 86, has held forth as an artist in residence; he is the perfect avatar of the cafe’s ecumenical soul. He performs at this special celebration alongside the vocalist and National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Master Sheila Jordan as well as the trumpeter John McNeil.
212-989-9319, corneliastreetcafe.com

CELEBRATING ALLAN HOLDSWORTH at the Iridium (July 5-7, 8 and 10 p.m.). The guitarist Allan Holdsworth, who died this year, applied a fluid and clement touch to his instrument, lending a humane appeal to a brand of jazz-rock fusion that otherwise might have been too esoteric or bombastic for most listeners. Although he never achieved broad stardom, his legato playing and protean harmonic flow influenced a generation of guitarists. Over three nights at the Iridium, a core ensemble featuring veterans of Holdsworth’s band will be joined by esteemed guitarists from the worlds of jazz, metal and fusion: Nir Felder, Alex Skolnick, Alex Machacek and Tim Miller.
212-582-2121, theiridium.com

A NIGHT OF AFRO-CUBAN JAZZ at Minton’s Harlem (June 30, 7 p.m.). The guitarist Richard Padrón was born in Havana and raised in Miami; his music has a stippled and fluttery sense of motion, sharp guitar lines against stutter-stepping bass and drums. For this show he leads a band featuring two stellar vocalists, the silk-toned Melvis Santa, also from Cuba, and Lara Bello, who hails from Spain and has eclectic affinities. Mr. Padrón will also welcome a couple of special guests: the inimitable percussionist and folklorist Roman Diaz and the drummer Kenny Grohowski.
212-243-2222, mintonsharlem.com

DAVID SANBORN, HYPNOTIC BRASS ENSEMBLE AND MAURICE BROWN at the Seaport District (July 4, 5:30 p.m.). Three acts offer their own danceable divergences from the jazz tradition at this free outdoor show, presented by the Blue Note Jazz Festival and the Seaport District NYC. The trumpeter Maurice Brown, known as Mobetta, makes glossy, hip-hop-inspired music with his band, Soul’d U Out. The Hypnotic Brass Ensemble, from Chicago, mingles funk and rock with traditional brass band music. The alto saxophonist David Sanborn, a smooth jazz pioneer, will close the evening.
seaportdistrict.nyc

TYSHAWN SOREY at the Stone (July 5-9, 8:30 p.m.). As a drummer, Mr. Sorey is liable to make complex, reticulated patterns with a serious and almost inexplicable density. But he also plays trombone, piano and electronics — and he’s just as interested in exploring slow, viscid harmony, or music that verges on silence. For his residency at the Stone, he will perform in duos with the vocalist Jen Shyu (Wednesday) and the saxophonist John Zorn (July 8); in a quartet (next Friday); and alone (July 9).
212-473-0043, thestonenyc.com

GIOVANNI RUSSONELLO

A version of this article appears in print on  , Section C, Page 21 of the New York edition with the headline: Music. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

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