Love in Exile: Arooj Aftab, Vijay Iyer, and Shahzad Ismaily
A 2023 Grammy Award-winner, Pakistani-American singer and songwriter Arooj Aftab thrives by blurring borders, figuratively and literally. Her past collaborators range from shape-shifting singer-songwriter Cautious Clay to former Encinitas sitar great Anoushka Shankar, with whom Aftab this year shared a Grammy nomination for Best Global Music Performance.
Aftab has two like-minded creative foils in Indian-American pianist, band leader and composer Vijay Iyer — a 2013 MacArthur Foundation “genius grant” honoree — and Pakistani-American synthesizer player and electric bassist Shahzad Ismaily.
Noted for his work with such diverse artists as Feist, Laurie Anderson, Yoko Ono, the band Ceramic Dog and Morocco’s Master Musicians of Joujouka, Ismaily suffers from ectodermal dysplasias. It’s a rare genetic disorder that prevents him from being able to regulate his body temperature, a condition that has sometimes led Ismaily to perform partially or entirely in the nude.
He, Iyer and Aftab have been working as a trio, off and on, since 2017, the same year Iyer was the music director at the Ojai Music Festival. Aftab sometimes sings in a freewheeling band led by Iyer, whose day gig is as a music professor at Harvard University.
Released this year, “Love in Exile,” is the trio’s first album together. Its richly textured soundscapes alternate slowly unfurling instrumental passages with Aftab’s understated singing. The result is a case study in how intently listening is just as crucial for musicians as the notes they play. It remains to be seen where these three uniquely skilled artists take their intimate, intensely atmospheric songs on a concert stage — and how well it works in an outdoor setting — but the possibilities are enticing.
8 p.m. Tuesday. Epstein Family Amphitheater, UC San Diego 9500 Gilman Drive, La Jolla. $35–45. amphitheater.ucsd.edu
Peter Buck (left) and Scott McCaughey are San Diego-bound with their band, The Baseball Project.
(Scott Dudelson / Getty Images)
The Baseball Project, with Rookie Card
It’s been 12 years since R.E.M. called it a day, and the band has shown no sign of reconsidering its decision. But two of R.E.M.’s co-founders — guitarist Peter Buck and bassist Mike Mills — do re-team periodically in The Baseball Project, a group they launched in 2007 with musical pals Scott McCaughey, Steve Wynn and Linda Pitmon.
The band’s name is more than figurative, as such songs as “Satchel Paige Said,” “Sometimes I Dream of Willie Mays” and “Fernando” attest. “Disco Demolition” will bring smiles to anyone who recalls the riotous, on-field vinyl record-burning debacle that followed a1979 Chicago White Sox/Detroit Lions’ game in the Windy City’s Commiskey Park.
The Baseballl Project’s fourth album, “Grand Salami Time,” came out in June and combines baseball-inspired songs that draw from punk, power-pop, psychedelia, country and more.
The band’s current set list includes at least one song that should resonate with baseball-savvy San Diego music fans, the near-classic “Ted F***ing Williams,” as well as the Northern California-adjacent “They Are the Oakland A’s”
8 p.m. Tuesday. The Music Box, 1337 India Street, downtown. $27 (must be 21 or older to attend). musicboxsd.com
Don Byron Quartet
How skilled and versatile is clarinet master Don Byron?
A quick look at his discography provides a compelling answer.
Byron’s superb 2012 album, “Love, Peace and Soul,” focuses on songs by gospel-music pioneer Thomas A. Dorsey. Byron’s 2006 album, “Do the Boomerang,” is a potent salute to the music of R&B sax great Junior Walker, while Byron’s 2000 album, “A Fine Line: Arias and Lieder,” not only features compositions by Puccini, Chopin and Schumann but also by Stevie Wonder, Ornette Coleman and Roy Orbison.
For good measure, Byron has performed as a guest on albums by everyone from Living Colour, Burt Bacharach and Anthony Braxton to Allen Toussaint, Suzanne Vega and former San Diego trumpeter James Zollar.
The rarity of Byron’s San Diego performances — he last played here 20 or so years ago — makes his Thursday return especially welcome, all the more so with a band that includes bass great Mark Helias.
7 p.m. Sept. 21. UC San Diego’s Park & Market, 1100 Market St., downtown. parkandmarket.ucsd.edu/events/