Though tonight's performance at the Millennium Stage is officially listed in the DC Jazz Festival's program as "German Jazz All-Stars," that description is only one-third correct. The leader, bassist, and namesake of the Pascal Niggenkemper Trio is the only German in the ensemble. Niggenkemper is a member of the rich music scene of Cologne, and plays with the kind of droning but rhythmically free bass throbs that are associated with fellow Cologne artists Can. He also makes use of liberal borrowings from European classical (in which he is also thoroughly trained) and world-music elements to create a formidable avant-garde music whose density belies its small-group lineup. That small group, by the way, features two cohorts of similarly diverse (and arty) musical interests, the Belgian saxophonist Robin Verheyen and the American drummer Tyshawn Sorey. Difficult music it may be, but it's nonetheless intoxicating stuff that may lead you to chase down music you never thought you had the slightest interest in. The Pascal Niggenkemper Trio performs at 6:00 PM at the Kennedy Center's Millennium Stage, 2700 F Street NW. Free.

Koan

Young avant-garde jazz drummer Tyshawn Sorey’s stunning new disc contains little drumming and even less jazz, but plenty of avant-garde. Koan is a minimalist project primarily for guitar and bass that moves slowly and plainly, like a sonic desert landscape;  it makes its points with stark texture and in-the-moment harmonies that linger far beyond the moment of creation. Like the Zen mystical element for which the record is named, Koan is a meditative musing that taps into both the brain and the spirit, perplexes both, and mesmerizes them anyway.