Sun. April 29

Boston Jazz Week kicked off with a big bang performance at Berklee Performance Center from Max Weinberg and a slew of others last weekend, a benefit for the New Orleans Habitat Musicians Village. That was the first of about 150 gigs spread out over 50-plus venues - part of  the first Boston Jazz Week since 1983. Mark Harvey (in photo) – a trumpeter, composer and music teacher at MIT – is co-producer. Then (as part of the Jazz Coalition) and now. The festival concludes Sunday April 29. “We started it in ’73,” he says, “and ran it for ten years, an all-volunteer thing that ran out of energy.” But there’s been a burst of renewed energy. with Harvey co-founding Jazz Boston and putting on this event. The goal is the same as it was back in the day: “To publicize the breadth and depth of the jazz scene as it exists and bring in special things for the week. The major clubs are putting shows; there are special concerts at colleges. The nature of this is to celebrate our own wealth of artists.”
What’s changed, Harvey says, is that he hopes this event will be a destination event – the way First Night has become – and that people who take in some of these shows realize cool jazz concerts happen throughout the year.
“Jazz is becoming more and more what people said in the ‘70s – that jazz is America’s classical music,” says Harvey. “That’s sometimes understood as jazz being parallel to it or supplanting it. What I see is a generation shift toward jazz where, wen people get into their 30s, a lot of people say ‘I’d like to hear something that takes my ears in a different direction.’ And they gravitate toward jazz. It doesn’t mean you have to give up rock ‘n’ roll.”
Harvey says his band, the Aardvark Jazz Orchestra, incorporates rock ‘n’ roll, blues and more into its rep. Although, for their Jazz Week gig at the Museum of Fine Arts Sunday at 3:30, they’ll be playing Duke Ellington’s music, it being Ellington’s birthday.
One thing Harvey digs about Jazz Week is that it encompasses virtually every kind of style, venue and price range. (Also, it covers a wide geographic area, basically inside the Rte. 495 belt.) Check out the website below for a listing of all concerts.

Jazzboston.org
 

Sun. April 29

Look, the chances of us getting up early on a Sunday morning are next to nil. We did way too much early Sunday time in Catholic Church as a child to consider that a great option as an adult. (Mum, Dad, how come the Protestant kids don't have to go to church?) But we realize the world is not us and there are morning people out there and if you are, strongly consider this: Go take a walk in the cemetery! Not just any cemetery. Go to Forest Hills Cemetery at 10 a.m. Sunday April 29 for a "Literary Walking Tour with Anthony Sammarco." Boston, as you must know, spawned a lot of well-known authors, and you'll visit the gravesites of e.e. cummings, Susanna Haswell Rowson, Eugene O'Neill, two generations of the Taylor family (former publishers of our former place of employ, the Globe), and more. Forest Hills is a marvelously tranquil and stimulating place. The landscaping is breathtaking, the grave stones marvelous (some of them) and the sense of history is palpable. We have done these kind of tours before - just not in the morning - and leave them feeling enriched and engaged, in worlds past and present. Admission: $9. Stick around until 2 p.m. at go to the "Poetry at the Chapel" program at Forsyth Chapel with Thomas Lux, Diana Der-Hovannessian, Ifeanyi Menkiti and Harris Gardner. Sven Birkets calls Lux "one of the poets on whom the future of the genre depends," and all these local folks have cred. Might be the perfect way to top off the walking tour. Admission: $5.

96 Forest Hills Ave., Jamaica Plain, 617-524-3354 foresthillstrust.org

Sun. April 29 - Tues. May 1

 Hot on the heels of the Boston Underground Film Festival comes the Independent Film Festival of Boston. You cannot say Boston lacks for diversity or experimenting when it comes to exhibiting non-mainstream movies. As far as we're concerned, there are places we'll go and places we won't. For instance, we didn't go  to the Brattle Theatre tonight Saturday April 28 at 9:30 p.m. to see "Zoo," a documentary about men who love animals and not in the way we love our cats Trevor, Lucy, Slugger and Solo. We're told it's not sensationalist or explicit - and we know that world is out there - but, well, our curiosity has limits. You, on the other hand, may be more curiouser. The IFFB - which also takes place at the Somerville Theatre and Coolidge Corner Theatre - is where you can explore territory that usually remains unexplored (by most of us). Call it the Anartica of film. The festival closes May 1 at the Coolidge with the world premiere of "Brooklyn Rules." Movies tend to start around noon and screen through around midnight at the aformentioned venues. On Saturday, there's two discussions - "Realities of Independent Filmmaking" and "Non-Theatrical Distribution for Filmmakers" - starting at 12:30 p.m. at Jimmy Tingle's Off Broadway. There's a slew of films so you're going to want to check descriptions and times at their website below and decide what you want to take a chance on. Hey, "Spiderman 3" isn't open yet ... Tickets are around $9.

Festival site: ifffb oston.org Coolidge, 290 Harvard St., Brookline, 617-734-2000, coolidge.org Brattle, 40 Brattle St., Cambridge, 617-876-6837, brattlefilm.org Somerville, 55 Davis Square, 617-625-5700 somervilletheatreonline.com

Sat. April 29

 Occasionally, we give shopping tips in this space. Shopping is entertainment, right? The Punk Rock Flea Market is certainly that. Ben Sisto (of Honeypump and the Milky Way Lounge & Lanes) started this activity in 2002 with ten tables and 30 customers. It was done in conjunction with Sisto's alma mater, Mass. College of Art. The Flea Market has now up for the tenth time, and they've figured 40 tables is the ideal space for you to browse for vintage t-shirts, badges, records, memorabilia and the like. You know the drill: Someone else's junk, your treasure. (We have some back-in-the-day, battered punk rock badges from the late-'70s that are doing us no real good but we can't just bear to part with. Also the Sex Pistols first two 45s, "Anarchy in the U.K." and "God Save the Queen.")  Adding to the atmosphere are djs Claude Money, Eli "Paperboy" Reed and Mark Pearson. The event starts at 11 a.m. and shuts down at 5  p.m. Saturday April 29. It's at the Mass College of Art's Pozen Center. Sisto calls it "socially responsible capitalism" and apologizes that his mum won't be there providing her vegan baked goods - she'll be in New Orleans singing with her band. (The photo is from the sixth Flea Market. The blonde is Becca and the guy to her right is the Wrecking Crew's Ralph DiNunzio.)

621 Huntington Ave., 617-784-6115 myspace.com/prfm

Sat. April 28

Keyboardist Erik Lindgren has played in a boatload of genres - from punk to avant-garde - during his years on the Boston music scene. But he's always nurtured a taste for left-of-center, non-commercial projects. That hasn't made Lindgren (in photo) a millionaire, but it has allowed him to put forth a slew of cool projects in front of inquisitive audiences. Lindgren's latest is what he calls his "rockin' chamber ensemble," The Frankenstein Consort. Flutist Lea Botta, clarinetist Cory Silva and bassoon player Mark Finklestein join Lindgren at Rutman's Violin Shop, a block from Symphony Hall, on Saturday April 28 at 8 p.m. On tap: Fresh arrangements of Birdsongs of the Mesozoic songs (another Lindgren group), works by Raymond Scott, who scored many Warner Bros. cartoons, a hip-hop remake of Edgar Winter's "Frankenstein" and much more. A donation of $5 is asked. Bonus fun: Go across the street to Tiger Lily after the gig, pay $7.60 for any dish, and mix with Erik and the others. Lindgren sums it up thus: "Offbeat chamber music + Malaysian food = A Darn Fun Nite Out." We concur.

11 Westland Ave., 508-947-7378 sfzreocrdings.com