Photo shows Gao Hong and Shubhendra Rao (photo Martin Longley)

 

Paul Simon: Under African Skies: Brooklyn Academy Of Music

This old popular singer of renown elected to take over the Brooklyn Academy Of Music for a month, instead of opting for a few nights at Madison Square Garden. The ambitious idea was to run three concept productions, the first dedicated to songs from his 1998 Broadway musical The Capeman, the last concentrating on his mainline singer-songwriter output, with this middle run devoting itself to the Afro-Brazilian phase that rejuvenated Simon's career in the late-1980s. That's essentially the Graceland and Rhythm Of The Saints albums. The other crucial aspect was that Simon wasn't going to necessarily sing his own songs, often stepping aside whilst a guest artist takes on his role. This has the effect of emphasising Simon as a composer-figure, a poet who dedicates his tongue-twisting lyrics to singers willing to learn these acrobatic phonetics. Unfortunately, Brazil's Milton Nascimento was taken ill at the last moment, and couldn't travel to New York. His place was taken by local resident Luciana Souza. The show opens with South Africa's a capella choir Ladysmith Black Mambazo, their silken-leather tones accompanied by synchronised leg-kicks and graceful soft-shoe swayings. Simon's band has been together for a decade, but some of its players have been with him for forty years. Bearing in mind the nature of the night's music, mention must be made of jazz drummer Steve Gadd and Brazilian percussionist Cyro Baptista.

The notion of having others interpret your songs can have its disadvantages. As soon as David Byrne hits the stage, it becomes apparent that Simon's voice (or personality) hasn't really been projecting. Byrne isn't even singing lead vocals at first, but he's the one we watch as he starts up his puppet-swing-hips dance. When he actually takes the lead for I Know What I Know and You Can Call Me Al, it's amazing how he manages to turn them into Talking Heads songs, throwing his head back in a call-and-response routine with the backing singers. Simon's conversational delivery is well-suited to Byrne's own declamatory style, and the effect of hearing David deliver You Can Call Me Al must rank amongst the most weirdly unsettling experiences in popular music. He works the crowd in a way that's not really within Simon's reach, and this lifts the band up at the same time, actually helping to liven up a gig that has, by this time, started to flag slightly. Simon then bounces brightly through his peaks, singing Diamonds On The Soles Of Her Shoes and Graceland to climax the gig. Ultimately, this whole guest-spread strategy provided its own excitement, and its own problems, in equal measure. Simon triumphed as a composer and auteur, but lost out in terms of his own performing authority.

Asha Bhosle: Carnegie Hall

A sense of occasion hung over this gig. One of India's greatest artists, with a recording career spanning over six decades, and surely its most ridiculously prolific Bollywood playback singer, appearing in one of the globe's most prestigious venues. It's also the first time that I've seen her perform. Unfortunately, even these shining circumstances couldn't rescue what was an exceedingly disappointing show. Was it the muffled mixing that took the edge off her sweetly soaring voice (mentally filling in the gaps, it still seems like she's in fine vocal form), also reducing the (copious) between-song talk to a mumble that seemed directed towards the front five rows? Was it the acoustics of Carnegie Hall itself, which aren't ideal for amplified guitars, keyboards and percussive thunder? Was it the cheesiness of the backing band (we love cheese, but this wasn't of the necessary variety)? Was it the sheer slow pacing and anti-entertainment properties that surely should have been in place for a gig which proffers songs from an industry which is the epitome of 'entertainment'? Maybe on another night... All this said, Bhosle has the demeanour of a young girl, losing few of her playful qualities. She's surprisingly mischievous, entering into a series of routines with her guest co-singer Amit Kumar. He's the son of the late Kishore Kumar, who was Bhosle's duet-partner on many of her old recordings. Inevitably, the evening climaxes with their rendition of Hare Rama Hare Krishna, the best known of her twelve thousand or so songs, and one which is almost impossible to fail in its purpose.

Etran Finatawa: Symphony Space

Up in the Upper West Side is the Symphony Space theatre, its performing area idiosyncratically open-plan, Niger's Etran Finatawa are making their New York debut. Their name means 'stars of tradition', and they came together in 2004. In terms of undulating desert blues, Mali's Tinariwen are the leading combo worldwide, but with the release of a new album, Desert Crossroads, and an increasing international touring presence, Etran Finatawa are now forging their own distinct reputation. Even though they're using electric guitars, their sound isn't so rock'n'roll. They have a more folkloric aspect, particularly in the vocal department, dedicated to the preservation of a nomadic Saharan farming lifestyle that's in danger of being eroded. Etran Finatawa's line-up represents the cultures of both the Wodaabe and Tuareg peoples, with three members coming from each group. The balance within the six-piece is between three electric guitars and an array of percussion, including a calabash bobbing in a bowl of water. Much of the vocal criss-crossing appears to come from the Wodaabe tradition, whilst the Tuaregs are more keyed into string progressions, leading to the desert blues sound that's now so loved outside the Sahara. It's a gradual building ceremony, acclimatising the audience to this particularised sound, and fully embracing them by the second set, which climaxes with encores and general crowd-going-wild behaviour. Their speciality is a mesmerisingly cumulative ritual-aura that needs time to cast its complete spell.

Hassan Hakmoun/Karsh Kale: Joe's Pub

Playing his first gigs in the unhingement-personified Djemaa el Fna square in Marrakech, at the age of four, Hassan Hakmoun has long since brought his Moroccan gnaoua traditions to New York, where he continues to play fairly irregular shows, with an album releasing profile now much lower than it was in the 1990s. Despite this, he remains an electrifying performer, thrumming his leathery three-stringed sintir, which tends to fill the buzzing subterranean bassman role in his band, and wailing with high-flying control, as if he's still standing in the middle of that lamb-trotter smokin' Marrakech square. Hakmoun's regular combo features global-guru percussionist Adam Rudolph and keyboardist Jamshied Sharifi, who specialises in a mouth-synth tube which facilitates a snaking flute-impersonation technique. He nimbly sidesteps kitsch with his decorative warbles, managing to synthesise the spirit of the souk.

Indian-American drummer and percussionist Karsh Kale delivers the late set at Joe's Pub, and at first, his band sounds like any other jangle-guitared, third-rate indie-rock miserablists. It's only when Kale moves from conventional kit to his tabla platform that the style shunts over to a more hypnotising India-rock, building up to several levels of climactic energy. He's still made his sound less 'ethnic', compared to a few years back, meaning that the competition is shifted to another battlezone entirely. If Kale could offer something unique, it was always his blending of Indian pop/classical tradition with rock and dance beats. There's little point in him crowding out a dirge-rockin' field that's already overpopulated with mundane practitioners. Anyway, all's saved by showtime's end. Just about...

Gao Hong: Carnegie Hall

There's an increasing tendency for Chinese pipa proponents (and there are an increasing number of these, traversing the Western prairies) to parade a repertoire that, at least in part, pushes the art of original composition, as opposed to centuries-old tradition. This was the case with Gao Hong's pipa show at Carnegie Hall, held within the more intimate confines of its Weill Recital Hall, on a Sunday afternoon. This delicate Chinese lute-like instrument can be subjected to some surprisingly aggressive abuse, but all in the name of virtuoso expression. Its strings might look as though they're arrayed in fragile fashion, across the pipa's broad neck, but many of its young and female players are enjoying the fast'n'brutal strum, sounding powerful even when completely unamplified. Gao Hong is also a composer, and opts to invite along an extensive cast of musicians, deployed across a variety of playing permutations, in a programme that encompasses trad Chinese, Indian classical, Western avant garde and generally melodious fusion forms. This might have the disadvantage of losing sharp focus, but the gains are made in the name of variety and entertainment. There's a solo sequence, followed by Gao Hong's meeting with Indian tradition in a piece called Butterfly (why is Indian classical music, or its players, always so inflexible, so unwilling, or unable, to bend towards exterior modes? Most potential fusioneers are required to exist within the Indian time-zone, and this particular blending makes no exception). There's a less successful encounter with Western classical piano 'rules', soon followed by Gao Hong's duet with percussionist David Hagedorn, which explores the contrast between her pipa subtlety and his own thundering bass drums. Remarkably, the two players don't impede on each other's uncompromising volume variances. Even though some pieces succeed more than others, their confluences are invariably interesting to witness.

 Paul Simon plays at the Cornbury Festival, Oxford, on 5 July and Liverpool Pops, 6 July 2008.