Apparently I picked the worst time possible to take a long weekend and skip town, because for the experimental jazz/rock fan there is something awesome happening every night for the next four nights. Check it out:

• Thursday, April 16: Composer/arranger Ed Palermo will be conducting the U.S. Army Blues ensemble in a program comprised entirely of the music of Frank Zappa. (What.) This takes place at 7:30pm in Brueker Hall at Fort Myer – 400 McNair Road, Fort Myer, VA.
• Friday, April 17: Cuneiform Records artist Beat Circus (Myspace), a rock ensemble whose current lineup includes all kinds of strings and horns (including a tuba), will be at Orion Sound Studios south of Baltimore. Opening is Fern Knight, with whom I’m not familiar but who are described as a mix of “Krautrock, UK folk, and early baroque and renaissance music.” Cool. Orion is at 2903 Whittington Ave., Baltimore, MD. Show at 8pm.
• Saturday, April 18: The Tiptons Saxophone Quartet (Myspace), plus drummer, performing at Orion. This sax quartet has a diverse, fun repertoire that “ranges from New Orleans ’second-line’ to jazz, Afro-Cuban to Balkan, klezmer and beyond.” Show at 8pm.
• Sunday, April 19: Japan’s psychedelic rockers Acid Mothers Temple (Myspace) hit DC9. AMT seems to be constantly on tour, and their shows are semi-legendary for their stoned-out, hazy heaviness. Also, Japanese psych-rock is pretty much just reliably crazy. Show is at 9pm, Sonic Suicide Squad are opening.

Photo of Beat Circus courtesy their Myspace page.

A new batch of good shit from Cuneiform Records only comes three times a year, so each time is worth noting. May will see Cuneiform put out:

• Led Bib – Sensible Shoes
• Miriodor – Avant!
• The Ed Palermo Big Band – Eddy Loves Frank
• Positive Catastrophe – Garabatos Volume One
• Upsilon Acrux – Radian Futura

Let’s see. This is all potentially good stuff. Perhaps most exciting (for me) is the Upsilon Acrux – this is a young avant-rock band who were once upon a time on D.C.’s own Planaria Records, whose last record Galapagos Momentum was a feast of heavy odd-time riffing. Miriodor are a Quebecois band who have a humorous and peculiarly Francophone take on avant-rock (you know it when you hear it); Ed Palermo has carved out a niche for himself reinterpreting Frank Zappa tunes, and by the name of this new album it doesn’t seem like anything has changed.

Then there’s the jazz. I know nothing about Led Bib, but apparently the Times (UK) said of them, “Sun Ra didn’t die in vain,” so that bodes well. Positive Catastrophe is a new group fronted by the always excellent Taylor Ho Bynum (and includes a favorite saxophonist of mine, Michaël Attias) and sounds really, really, interesting, purporting to combine Latin jazz and free/avant-jazz in a way that, as far as I know, hasn’t really been done before. Cool!