The Five Best Concerts in L.A. This Week

By LA Weekly Mon., Sep. 17 2012 at 3:39 AM

Categories: Los Angeles Concerts

Dirt Bird -- See Tuesday

Monday, September 17

Josh Nelson
VITELLO'S
Josh Nelson looks much younger than his 34 years but has already become a seasoned veteran and one of the most respected pianists on the L.A. music scene. Nelson's talents are strong enough to have won him a job as Natalie Cole's primary touring pianist worldwide for the last several years, while he's continued to compose and record his own material, a practice dating back to his first album, at age 19. Vitello's in Studio City is home to a semi-regular Monday "Discoveries" series featuring Nelson, which allows him to add guest players to augment his regular trio. Tonight Nelson features NYC-based Philip Dizack, regarded there as one of the hottest young trumpeters on the East Coast. Nelson's musical knowledge has won him praise and fans both young and old, and tonight should serve as another example of exactly why. --Tom Meek

Tuesday, September 18

Dirt Bird
BOOTLEG THEATER
With their ethereal, operatic harmonies and their semi-classical blend of harmonium and piano, local duo Dirt Bird conjure dreamy idylls that sound like they could be from another time. But Claire McKeown and Athena LeGrand's songs aren't linked to any one specific era, nor do they belong to a distinctly predictable retro genre. Instead, their "classical experimental folk gothic minimalist skiffle" reveries are drawn just as much from the modern pop world as they are from proper choral tradition. "How will we survive on Spaceship Earth?" they wonder on the icy-beautiful ballad "Buckminster Fuller," their shimmering harmonies trailing behind them like gauzy white clouds. --Falling James

Bombino
THE MINT
As you might have seen at his debut appearance at the Hollywood Bowl last summer, Tuareg guitarist-songwriter Omara "Bombino" Moctar is an ax shredder of quite unusual chops and point of view. He's earned critical raves all over the Sahara and recently in the West for his singing and playing, an acoustically lyrical but electrically badass mastery of the guitar -- a cross between fellow Africans Tinariwen and Ali Farka Touré, laced with rocky blues à la John Lee Hooker and Jimi Hendrix. Given extra heft by the socially conscious themes rooted in his people's armed struggles for independence from the brutal tyranny of government forces, Bombino slays on his 2011 Agadez (Cumbancha), his scorching jams blended with traditional Tuareg song forms and toughed-up trance grooves. --John Payne