Fall Arts: More Jazz

Mina Agossi
When: Sept. 9–10
Where: Dakota Jazz Club & Restaurant, 1010 Nicollet Mall, Mpls., 612-332-1010
A favorite on the French jazz charts, Mina Agossi mixes her love of jazz with hip-hop, rock, traditional folk music, and her original compositions. Known for using minimal accompaniment—drums and bass only—Agossi’s voice is her main instrument, and she used every bit of it to win over Dakota audiences last year.

Dhafer Youssef

When: Sept. 27

Where: Walker Art Center, 1750 Hennepin Ave., 612-375-7600

A virtuoso on the oud, a lutelike instrument from North Africa, Tunisian–born singer Dhafer Youssef plays a hypnotic, atmospheric type of music that draws on Sufi mysticism, Islamic culture, and European jazz traditions. Percussionist Satoshi Takeishi joins him in his Minnesota debut.

Pat Metheny Trio
When: Oct. 14
Where: Orchestra Hall, 1111 Nicollet Mall, Mpls., 612-371-5656
Grammy–winning jazz guitarist Pat Metheny has been playing for so long, in so many styles and genres that it’s impossible to pin a single label on him. Jazz. Rock. Fusion. World. Blues. Free. Metheny does it all, and what he sounds like on a given night depends a great deal on the people with whom he is playing. For this gig, Metheny brings with him his regular drummer, international superstar Antonio Sanchez, and  Christian McBride, one of the most creative bassists on the planet.

Christian Scott
When: Oct. 19
Where: Dakota Jazz Club & Restaurant, 1010 Nicollet Mall, Mpls., 612-332-1010
Named one of Billboard magazine’s “10 Faces to Watch” last year, twenty-four-year-old trumpeter Christian Scott is regularly compared with Miles Davis and Wynton Marsalis, but he is definitely forging his own artistic path. Scott writes all of his own tunes, which draw from jazz, R & B, and funk, and recently released his second album, Anthem.

The Bad Plus

When: Sept. 24

Where: The Guthrie Theater, 818 S. 2nd St., Mpls., 612-377-2224

Progressive jazz trio The Bad Plus has been called both the worst and the best thing to have ever happened to jazz. This show is technically the Minneapolis CD-release show for the band’s latest CD, Prog. The record was released in May, but a European tour kept the group busy over the summer. No matter what’s been said about The Bad Plus over the years, Prog, with its passionately reinvented covers of David Bowie, Rush, and Burt Bacharach songs and its original pieces by all three of the group’s members, is the self-actualized statement of a band that should be labeled as nothing other than progressive.