Concerts: Janelle Monae, Kesha, more
It’s another action-packed week for live music in the Bay Area. Here are some of the tuneful options for fans in the San Francisco, San Jose and Oakland areas:
Fantastic Negrito: The Oakland blues/R&B/roots music sensation, whose real name is Xavier Dphrepaulezz, has been on an amazing ride over the past few years. It started when he won NPR’s highly prestigious Tiny Desk Contest in 2015, creating a huge amount of advance buzz for his 2016 release, “The Last Days of Oakland,” which went on to win the Grammy Award for best contemporary blues album. Fantastic Negrito releases his new album, “Please Don’t Be Dead,” on Friday, the same day he performs at the Fillmore in San Francisco. Details: 9 p.m.; $22.50; www.livenation.com.
Janelle Monae: The multitalented artist has been busy with movie projects, notably “Moonlight” and “Hidden Figures,” in recent years. But she did find time to release her first full-length studio album in some five years — “Dirty Computer” — which she’ll support on Saturday at the Masonic in San Francisco. St. Beauty is also on the bill. Details: 7:30 p.m.; $55-$99.550; www. livenation.com.
Kenny Chesney: The multiplatinum country crooner is heading back to the Bay Area, so get ready to sing along to such favorites as “She Thinks My Tractor’s Sexy” and “You Had Me from Hello” on Wednesday at Shoreline Amphitheatre at Mountain View. Old Dominion is also on the bill. Details: 7 p.m.; $34.25-$134.25; www.livenation.com.
Flying Lotus, Little Dragon: This intriguing electronic music doubleheader is set for the Greek Theatre in Berkeley on Saturday. Instrumental band BadBadNotGood is also on the bill. Details: 7 p.m.; $49.50; www. ticketmaster.com.
Kesha and Macklemore: The two hit-makers bring their co-headlining tour to the Shoreline Amphitheatre at Mountain View tonight. Wes Period is also on the bill. Details: 7 p.m.; $30.50-$126.50; www.livenation.com.
‘Boris’ haunts S.F. Symphony
The San Francisco Symphony’s semi-staged opera productions have become must-see events. This week, music director Michael Tilson Thomas, his orchestra, and the S.F. Symphony Chorus under Ragnar Bohlin continue the tradition with “Boris Godunov,” Mussorgsky’s bone-chilling dramatic opera inspired by Pushkin’s haunting tale of the 16th-century czar.
James Darrah, who staged the symphony’s brilliant performances of Britten’s “Peter Grimes” and Bernstein’s “On the Town,” returns to direct, with video projections by Adam Larsen, lighting by Pablo Santiago and costumes by Emily Anne MacDonald and Cameron Jaye Mock. Russian bass Stanislav Trofimov heads a large cast in the title role.
Details: 8 p.m. today and Friday, 2 p.m. Sunday; Davies Symphony Hall, San Francisco; $35-$159; 415864-6000, www.sfsymphony.org. — Georgia Rowe, Correspondent
Chanticleer celebrates 40th anniversary
It’s been 40 years since the late Louis Botto founded Chanticleer, and the Bay Area’s own 12-man chorus is celebrating the landmark occasion in style, wrapping up its 40th anniversary season with a special concert titled “Then and There, Here and Now.”
The program includes music spanning the ensemble’s history, with contemporary works by Matthew Aucoin, Mason Bates, Steven Stucky and Chen Yi, as well as early music by Palestrina, Byrd and others. The seasonending concerts at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music mark the final performances of Chanticleer’s longtime bass, Eric Alatorre, who has been with the group for 28 years. He’ll be missed.
Details: 8 p.m. Friday-Saturday; San Francisco Conservatory of Music; $20-$60; 415-392-4400, www. chanticleer.org. — Georgia Rowe, Correspondent
The Barrio is swinging
The Bay Area has been a hotbed for Gypsy swing, the jazz style created in 1930s Paris by Romani guitarist Django Reinhardt and French violinist Stephane Grappelli, for more than two decades. But the scene has never seen a band quite like Barrio Manouche, which combines the irresistible Hot Club pulse, the naked emotional intensity of flamenco, and the harmonic insights of post-bop jazz.
Founded by the brilliant Spanish guitarist Javier Jimenez and his brother, percussionist Luis Jimenez, the seven-piece band features musicians from France, Brazil, California and Quebec. With a new album distributed by Six Degree Records, “Aires de Cambio,” Barrio Manouche is set to break out of the Bay Area. The group performs Friday at Freight & Salvage, celebrating La Peña Cultural Center’s 43rd anniversary, and returns to its long-running bimonthly Club Deluxe residency next month in San Francisco, playing the second and third Saturday in July.
Details: 7 p.m.; Freight & Salvage, Berkeley; $15-$30; 510-644-2020, www.thefreight.org. — Andrew Gilbert, Correspondent
Happy birthday, Jello
It’s time to celebrate one of the most important Bay Area musicians of all time — Jello Biafra.
The punk-rock legend, who led the immensely influential Dead Kennedys from 1978 to 1986, turns 60 on Sunday and you’re invited to his big birthday bash that night at the Great American Music Hall in San Francisco.
Headlining the occasion is the man himself, performing with his Guantanamo School of Medicine outfit. The band has its own discography, which includes such offerings as 2013’s “White People and the Damage Done.”
Yet, many attendees will be hoping that Biafra also includes a few Dead Kennedys nuggets in the mix at the Great American.
That’s understandable, given that the Biafra-led Kennedys ranked as one of the greatest punk-rock acts of all time. In particular, the band’s debut studio album, “Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables,” is as fine a punk album as you’ll ever hear.
So don your party hats and come out to wish Biafra a happy birthday. The Phantom Limbs and the Darts are also on the bill.
Details: 8:30 p.m.; $18-$20; www.slimspresents.com. — Jim Harrington, Staff
Price is right for Greaseland
Veteran soul singer Billy Price just keeps getting better, and the company he’s been keeping has taken him into some mighty deep waters.
Since first gaining attention touring and recording with Telecaster guitar pioneer Roy Buchanan, Price has released a string of strong albums. But he made a major leap with 2015’s “This Time for Real” (Bonedog Records), an album he co-led with the great (and now late) Chicago soul singer Otis Clay, which earned a Blues Music Award for best soul blues album.
Price celebrates the release of his new album, “Reckoning” (VizzTone), on Friday with guitarist Kid Andersen, who produced the project at his bustling Greaseland Studios in San Jose. They’re joined by the Greaseland All-Stars, featuring keyboardist Jim Pugh, drummer Alex Pettersen and bassist Jerry Jemmott.
Details: 6 p.m.; Poor House Bistro, San Jose; no cover; 408-292-5837, www.poorhousebistro.com. — Andrew Gilbert, Correspondent
A timely revival from South Africa
With a lot of talk in the air about resistance, complicity and outrage fatigue, it seems as good a time as any for a revival of “A Lesson from Aloes,” a 1978 drama by South African playwright Athol Fugard. The drama is set among black and white activists under apartheid who wonder how much fight is left in them and how much they still have in common, or ever did.
Weathervane Productions is producing a new revival of Fugard’s play at Z Space, directed by former San Jose Rep artistic director Timothy Near. Founded by Wendy vanden Heuvel, who also co-stars in the three-person play as traumatized English South African Gladys, Weathervane previously co-produced the Kilbanes’ “Weightless” and the Bengsons’ “Hundred Days” with (and at) Z Space.
Also starring in “Aloes” are prominent local actor Adrian Roberts, as recently imprisoned black activist Steve Daniels, and Broadway performer Victor Talmadge as liberal white Afrikaner bus driver Piet Bezuidenhout.
Details: Through Jun. 29; Z Below, San Francisco; $20-$50; 415-626-0453, www.alessonfromaloes.com. — Sam Hurwitt, Correspondent