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Vieux Farka Touré at NYC's Highline Ballroom. (Copyright 2009, Steven P. Marsh)

Vieux Farka Touré showed New York on Saturday night that you can maintain tradition and still rock. Vieux and his band played a tight set to an audience at the Highline Ballroom that was enthusiastic despite the remarkably early hour. (The show started before 7:30 and was done by 10:15, a time at which typical African bands would just be getting warmed up!

Vieux carries on the Malian blues tradition style popularized by his father, Ali Farka Touré, but adds a few more modern elements. The result was an incredibly spirited show that had the crowd moving all night!

The BLK JKS (prounounced Blackjacks) from South Africa, played a reggae-tinged fusion-style music. While their sound was very different than Vieux’s, the two bands managed to come together at the end of the night to play “Sarama,” a tune from Vieux’s latest album, Fondo, ending in a friendly guitar battle — plagued by technical difficulties — between Vieux and BLK JKS guitarist Lindani Buthelezi.

The music dances and so does the band.

Vieux dressed for tradition, except for his footwear!

The BLK JKS open the show.

Vieux with members of his band and the BLK JKS.

Stew

As most fans of Passing Strange know, Stew, the narrator and co-creator of the hit Broadway show, has a teenage daughter.

But what they may not know is that Bibi Stewart is a teenager on a mission: She’s planning a community service trip to Ghana this summer and needs your help to pay for something that will shape her character for the rest of her life.

Bibi Stewart

There are just a few days left to donate to Bibi’s cause. She’s going to Ghana under the auspices of an organization called Global Routes. Here’s part of what she says about her trip. (Click here to read more and to make an online donation.)

The deadline is this Friday, June 5.

Tortoise will perform for free tomorrow night, less than 24 hours after a sellout show at The Bell House in Brooklyn.

It’s that time of year. The Bang on a Can Marathon, 12 hours of music featuring dozens of groups encompassing hundreds of performers, starts at noon tomorrow in the Winter Garden of the World Financial Center in Battery Park City as part of New York City’s River to River Festival.

The marathon was created by Bang on a Can, one of the nation’s preeminent new-music organizations. You might think of it as a more civilized, air-conditioned All Points West festival for contemporary composed music.

Click here for the full schedule.

It’s a come as you are, come-and-go event. You can check out what appeals to you or what you don’t know, and leave if you don’t like it. It’s programmed in two-hour chunks, so set times are not strict and things do get moved around. But acts almost always appear somtime during their scheduled two-hour window. For example, you can count on hearing Marathon headliners like Ryuichi Sakamoto and Tortoise in the 10 p.m.-midnight segment.

Everyone will have their preference, and here are a few of my picks:

• Noon-2 p.m.: BoaC co-founder Michael Gordon‘s seminal work Trance is on the schedule, performed by Signal, one of the best new-music ensembles around.
• 2 p.m.-4 p.m.: Todd Reynolds String Quartet will perform Stringsongs by Meredith Monk. Todd is an amazingly talented violinist, a patient and caring teacher and a good friend of Will You Miss Me When I’m Gone?
• 4 p.m.-6 p.m.: This is a segment rich with great stuff. Lionheart and Ethel perform excerpts from Phil Kline‘s John the Revelator, a multi-part work for quartet and voice that merges elements of the Roman Catholic Mass with popular music and takes its name from the well-known American traditional song. The Smith Quartet, whose work I don’t know, will be performing Gavin Bryars‘ The Sinking of the Titanic. And the Bang on a Can All Stars, the Marathon’s house band, will play new works by guitarist-and-composer Bill Frisell, who will join the band.
• 6 p.m.-8 p.m.: Ars Nova Copenhagen performs For love is strong by Pulitzer Prize winner David Lang, another of BoaC’s co-founders.
• 8  p.m.-10 p.m.: Ken Thomson, an amazingly energetic sax player and leader of Gutbucket, brings his 9-headed Saxophone Monster to the stage to perform his own composition, Rut. Athelas Sinfonietta Copenhagen & Ars Nova Copenhagen play Thirst by Julia Wolfe, the third BoaC founder. Another ensemble worth catching is Victoire, an electroacoustic quintet performing “Like a Miracle” and “I am coming for my things,” both writtend by Victoire founder Missy Mazzoli.
• 10 p.m.-Midnight: Pianist Ryuichi Sakamoto will perform new works of his alone and with the All Stars, who will also play Steve Martland‘s Horses of Instruction. It’s always worthwhile sticking around for the final act of the day, which this year is slated to be Tortoise, a Chicago-based post-rock instrumental ensemble. I’m not extremely familiar with this band, but I’m excited to see them live. They have sold out The Bell House in Brooklyn tonight. So if you don’t have tickets for that show, the Marathon is the only way to see Tortoise here until July 21, when they appear at Le Poisson Rouge.

A new feature this year is the Marathon live-Tweet team. Check Twitter throughout the 12 hours for updates and impressions from the team, filed with the #bangonacan hashtag.

Grizzly Bear with the ACME string quartet at Town Hall in New York City on Friday, May 29.

If there were any doubters in the crowd at Town Hall for the second and last night of Grizzly Bear’s stand at the Times Square venue, they were won over by night’s end.

The band had nearly perfect sound, and made even the looser, older songs, sound like sonic kin to the newer, fussier songs.

Poor, boomy sound that plagued the opening act, Here We Go Magic was absent from the headliner’s set. And a string quartet from ACME, an NYC-based new music ensemble, beautifully rounded out the Grizzly Bear sound.

Here We Go Magic.

Things will be a little slow on Will You Miss Me When I’m Gone? today. This blog’s entire management team (that would be me!) has been called to appear for Grand Jury service.

I’m doing my duty. Be back soon!

Friends and family of Jay Bennett gathered in Urbana, Ill., last night to honor the rock musician and former member of Wilco who died in his sleep over the weekend.

Among those who gathered was Edward Burch, a longtime friend of Jay’s and his collaborator on Jay’s first post-Wilco album, The Palace at 4 am.

According to a report on local TV station WCIA:

Jay Bennett wrote a lullaby for his baby niece 19 years ago. Now the lyrics are taking on new meaning. “So sleep now, my darling,” sang Edward Burch strumming his guitar. Burch wants to make sure his friend of 20 years rests in peace so he’s keeping his music alive. “He had such a great heart,” said Burch. “He wouldn’t just show me how to play the cord, but he would also explain why in musical terms it works the way it did.”

Here’s a clip of the report (you’ll have to watch a car-dealer ad before the report starts, but bear with it):

Vodpod videos no longer available.

New Yorkers marching on 14th Street in Manhattan at 6 p.m. today.

It’s a cliche, but it’s true. A picture is worth a thousand words. Pardon the interruption in the usual Will You Miss Me When I’m Gone? discussion of music and other performing arts.

Meg White

UPDATE: According to a statement on the White Stripes web site: “The wedding was officiated by the most reverend Benjamin Swank.” Swank is believed to be Benjamin “Swank” Smith, former drummer in the Soledad Brothers, a band that worked with Jack White.

Meg White and Jack White of the White Stripes must have had a good laugh when Meg decided to wed Jackson Smith in Jack’s Nashville backyard on Friday.

After all, Meg and Jack, ex-husband-and-wife, for years kept alive a tangled myth about their relationship, insisting that they were brother and sister, not ex-spouses who have continued to play together as the White Stripes long after their divorce.

Jackson Smith and his mom, Patti.

So it seems fitting that Jack would somehow factor into the wedding of Meg and Jackson, who’s the son of rock poet Patti Smith and the late MC5 guitarist Fred “Sonic” Smith.

The other couple to marry in the double ceremony were Jack Lawrence — bass player in The Raconteurs and The Dead Weather, Jack’s other bands — and his girlfriend Jo McCaughey, the Associated Press reports.

There’s no word yet on whether Jack played any active role in the ceremony or simply provided the venue.

Congratulations to both happy couples!

The reward to donors to the Save Paste magazine campaign now totals 91 rare and unreleased tracks by many of the artists that the cash-strapped indie music-and-culture magazine covers — in just the second day of the official fund-raising campaign.

Min Online (free registration required), a publishing industry newsletter, reports:

“It’s been going great all day,” says publisher Nick Purdy. “We have had nearly 1,000 people donating. We have been amazed.” Word got out about the magazine’s plight in advance of the planned donation drive and donations started coming in before Paste could send its plea to the subscriber list. Purdy says that months ago readers had already assured him they would be willing to come to the book’s aid if things ever got bleak. “They are aware of the realities of the business we are in. They emailed us and said if things every got bad at Paste, come to us first. We took them seriously. A lot of magazines couldn’t do this. It was time to see if the brand we built has that kind of value to people.”

Donors are also eligible for random drawings for prizes that so far include signed R.E.M. and Band of Horses posters, an ocean-view cabin on next year’s Cayamo cruise, and even a pair passes to October’s sold-out Austin City Limits Music Festival.

Donate here to help keep this important editorial voice afloat in these tough economic times.

Neil Patrick Harris (center) starred in the Tony Award-wining revival of Stephen Sondheim's Assassins.

Neil Patrick Harris will host the 63rd Annual Tony Awards ceremony, which will be telecast live on CBS from NYC’s Radio City Music Hall from 8-11 p.m. on Sunday, June 7, The American Theatre Wing has announced.

Neil Patrick Harris

Although Harris may be best known to many for his TV roles (Doogie Howser, MD and How I Met Your Mother), he’s no stranger to Broadway, starring in Proof in 2002, taking a turn as the Emcee in Cabaret in 2003 and tackling the dual role of The Balladeer/Lee Harvey Oswald in the Roundabout Theater Company’s revival of Stephen Sondheim‘s Assassins.

He’s no stranger to the Tony Awards telecast either, having appeared as a performer in 2004 and a presenter in 2006 and 2007.

While you’re waiting for the real Tony Awards to be announced, you can see how your views line up with those of other theatergoers by casting your votes on The New York Times’ interactive Tony Awards ballot.