Setting new standards

This 32-year-old French singer, touted for her fresh approach to “gypsy jazz,” is arriving in Japan just in time for the local release of Martin Scorsese’s excellent Hugo, whose ending credit theme, “Coeur Volant,” she sings. Slow and melancholy, it wraps up the movie in an appropriate way but doesn’t really promote the singer’s peculiar talents, which have made her a cause celebre in her native country. Though “gypsy jazz” is a convenient term to help her stand apart, she’s really a pop singer with a slightly exotic edge; which is sort of how Rihanna was pegged when she first started out, and now Rihanna is the world’s pop standard bearer. For one thing, “jazz” only describes the style of the playing and not the content of the songwriting, which is crisp, melodic, and geared toward what used to be known as Top 40 radio. Moreover, they offer Zaz ample opportunity to show of an ebullient side the Hugo song doesn’t begin to reveal. She proves diversity can still be fun.

Feb. 23 & 24 at 7:00, Akasaka Blitz. ¥7,000. H.I.P., 03-3475-9999.

Honest-to-goodness indie

Nobody begrudges indie bands the help of a superstar producer the way they used to, so this New York-based guitar-pop quartet with the wincingly earnest name only earned props for getting Flood and Alan Moulder to helm their sophomore effort, Belong. Initially boosted as neo-shoegazers, and literary neo-shoegazers, too boot, on the new album the group comes off as a progressive power pop outfit with more pedestrian concerns. That Kip Berman’s girlish whisper pushes to the front of the churning instrumental mix indicates that lo-fi just won’t do any more, but he also sounds more honestly in love, when love happens to be the topic. The band necessarily loses much of its appealing spunk in the bargain, but it’s impossible to listen to these songs and not be reminded of the producers’ past glories, the U2 roar of the title song, the Depeche Modish bounce of “Heaven’s Gonna Happen Now.”

Feb. 17 at 7:00, Shibuya Club Quattro. ¥5,000. Smash, 03-3444-6751.

Messin’ with sweetness

Alan Palomo’s musical methodology seems to be: When in doubt, add more. At their core, his songs are light and playful, but by the time he gets finished with them and the voice he uses to carry the melody lines, they’re dark, murky affairs orbited by satellites of fizzy effects. He processes his vocals through what sounds like a paper shredder, presumably because it sounds that much more pleasant when cooing the chorus in relatively unaffected fashion. This sort of thing apparently strikes some as being psychedelic, though one could make an argument that it’s more psychotic, or at least neurotic. Palomo has a genuine talent for writing and arranging, and his restless fiddling could have the effect of making the listener feel as if she’s trapped in the middle of a game arcade, but game arcades can be as fun as they are loud.

Feb. 21 at 7:30, Daikanyama Unit. ¥5,000. Smash, 03-3444-6751.

But still pretty cool

Looking and sounding like something out of a David Lynch movie, Lana Del Rey (Lizzy Grant to her parents) emerged fully formed last year as an Internet meme first and music video star second. As far as her musical talents go, we’ll have to wait until early this month when her debut album is finally released, but based on the two songs that have made her reputation so far, “Video Games” and “Blue Jeans,” her appeal is formidable. The husky voice, languorous, string-laden arrangements, and retro melo-pop formulations combine for a satisfying whole that delivers Del Rey’s potent sexuality. She pins her love on her object of desire’s preference for “bad girls,” thus doubling back on what makes her intriguing, at least to guys. Girls may find her sense of drama off-putting, so it will be interesting to see who shows up for this club appearance. These days young Japanese women go for the sultry foreign female singers, while young Japanese males still prefer children.

Mar. 8 at 7:00, Duo Music Exchange, Shibuya. ¥5,500. Smash, 03-3444-6751.

Nobody’s acolyte

While jazz hasn’t stood still during the past twenty years, its subset, jazz vocals, seemed to have quit growing sometime around 1975 when Al Jarreau and Bobby McFerrin got a big jiggy with it. California native Gretchen Parlato, the first vocalist to ever study at the Thelonious Monk Jazz Institute, in a way takes off where Cassandra Wilson was headed in the early 90s and has since abandoned for art song. With her nasally, languid singing style, Parlato invokes intensity in closed spaces, and since she writes most of her material rather than rely on the canon she’s able to assert her personal take on what jazz means. Mostly what it means is interacting with her musicians in a way that most young jazz vocalists, with their dedication to the text, would probably find self-indulgent. Parlato favors “jazz” over the “vocal” component, and is less interested in clarity of tone and getting the words across than in the pure musicality of her instrument: The head and the heart perfectly joined.

Feb. 21-23 at 7:00 & 9:30, Cotton Club, Yurakucho. ¥6,500-8,500.
Box office, 03-3215-1555.

Called on to testify

Bobby Womack has been around a long time. He was one of the gospel-to-pop pioneers of the 50s and played guitar in Sam Cooke’s band. He even married Cooke’s widow just a few months after the singer’s death, an event that probably made him more famous than “It’s All Over Now,” a song he wrote for his group The Valentinos but which was picked up by a young British blues band called the Rolling Stones and became their first Top 40 hit. A writer, arranger, and studio musician who worked with some of the greatest soul and rock artists of the 60s, Womack didn’t really make it as a solo act until the 70s, and even then his success was hit-and-miss, even after the monumental “Across 110th Street.” If anything, it was fellow musicians who kept him working. Everybody from the J. Geils Band to Ron Wood to Chaka Khan covered his songs and used him as a sideman because he always brought something ineffably real to the proceedings. No pop musician alive now can claim as diverse and solid a legacy.

Feb. 22 & 23 at 7:00 & 9:30, Billboard Live Tokyo, Roppongi. ¥10,800 & ¥12,800. Box office, 03-3405-1133.

Pop for nerve endings

As boy-girl retro pop duos go, Cults doesn’t have the transgressive cachet of Sleigh Bells or the seasoned attitude of the Kills, but they attracted attention faster than either of those two groups did when they started out, and it’s because they’re catchier without being predigested. The single that made it possible, “Go Outside,” is disposable, and its positioning as the second cut on their debut album allows the listener to appreciate the more complex but no less catchy “Abducted” first. The distinction is important since it’s obvious Cults want to be taken seriously, but a better showcase for Madeline Follin’s pure alto is the ballad “You Know What I Mean,” which delivers in drama what the Sleigh Bells opt for in texture and the Kills in bombast. The duo’s songwriting savvy is best exemplified by “Walk at Night,” which actually has a melody I’ve never heard before. Is that possible?

Feb. 15 at 7:00, Daikanyama Unit. ¥5,000. Creativeman, 03-3462-6969.