Drake, on tour
Lil Wayne's Young Money Entertainment is like a finishing school would be, were swearing actively encouraged there. And while Wayne himself was unavoidably detained for much of 2010, his proteges performed magnificently in his absence. Nicki Minaj created a strong female identity. Her opposite number, male counterpart and all-round runaway success, however, is Drake. An MC both amusing and ribald, but also with the odd pang of conscience, Drake is having his cake and eating it: enjoying fame's spoils, while also providing a Robbie Williams-style commentary on their effects. The successes have been considerable – dating Rihanna; becoming one of GQ's Men Of The Year – but they've also been artistic; his borrowing of Lil Wayne's drawl among the only flaws in his hip-hop/R&B hybrid. He's a class act, too. These are rescheduled dates: last time, he cancelled when his mum was ill.
O2 Academy Glasgow, Tue, Wed; HMV Apollo, W6, Fri
John Robinson
(Not) The Track And Field Winter Sprinter, London
2010 was a pretty good year for old-school indie music: the coyly-stated passions, lo-fi recordings, and knock-kneed imitation of 1960s studio masters as much a feature of some of the year's most charming music as it was in 1986. The Track And Field Winter Sprinter dates back to a time when indie's fortunes weren't so fair, and, now curated by the Fortuna Pop label, sees in the new year with an optimistic outlook. Things begin with Shrag and retro-poppers the Loves, and continue with Comet Gain on Wednesday. Darren Hayman, who headlines Thursday with his group the Secondary Modern, was an anomaly when he emerged with former band Hefner in the mid-to-late-90s, but emerges now to find that his work is finding its most sympathetic audience.
The Lexington, N1, Tue to Thu
JR
Teeth Of The Sea, London
Centuries ago, you'd have found Teeth Of The Sea as the sentinels lighting bonfires to warn of impending invasions. These being more sophisticated times, the Londoners confine themselves to doing much the same, but in a format you'd loosely have to call post-rock. This, though, isn't by any means the tidy, complex and slightly jazzy business that term can sometimes entail. Instead with Teeth Of The Sea, it's all about the feeling and all in the build up, a barometric disturbance before the churning of the storm – a state that in the late-90s we'd have attributed to "pre-millennial tension", but which now sounds like a pretty terrifying protest music, an impression not dispelled by the odd baleful, quasi-military cornet blast. Their thundering tribal drums and antique synthesizers scream Stonehenge, of course, but the sensory experience far outweighs any reservations.
Madame Jo Jo's, W1, Tue
JR
Mozart Unwrapped, London
It's going to be hard to escape Mozart this new year. Radio 3 is broadcasting all of his works in the first 12 days of the year, while this weekend sees the launch of Mozart Unwrapped at Kings Place. The biggest so far of the Unwrapped series, it runs through the year, some 40 concerts parcelled up into 11 week-long strands. Jonathan Cohen's programme with the Orchestra Of The Age Of Enlightenment, soprano Sophie Bevan and fortepianist Kristian Bezuidenhout features the piano concerto K467 and the 39th Symphony, while on Thursday Colin Davis conducts the Aurora Orchestra in the 36th Symphony and a couple of concert arias with soprano Fflur Wyn.
Kings Place, N1, New Year's Day & Thu
Andrew Clements
Neil Cowley/Finn Peters, Dorking
Two cutting-edge but groove-driven UK jazz groups, helping the BBC celebrate Jazz Line Up's 10th anniversary in a live broadcast. Pianist Cowley moved toward a more complex and subtle music with his Radio Silence album, a venture beginning with an almost free-improv speculativeness that turns into expansive, Bad Plus-like anthems, flamenco associations, and slowed-down funk. Flautist and saxophonist Finn Peters, on the other hand, spans the worlds of John Coltrane and the soul-jazz horn players, and has worked with Dizzee Rascal, Matthew Herbert and classical group Noszferatu. His latest venture is a collaboration with computer-music guru Matthew Yee King.
Friends Provident Social Club, Thu
John Fordham
Scott Hamilton Quartet, London
Scott Hamilton, the Rhode Island tenor sax man, missed a generation in his jazz evolution – his age destined him to be a postbopper, growing up like the late Michael Brecker in John Coltrane and Wayne Shorter's shadows, but he preferred the song-shaped lyricism of the saxophonists that had passed by long before. Hamilton began recording in the late-70s, deploying a lustrous, smoky sound, and a meticulous sensitivity to the implications of standard songs that hardly any jazz horn players his age were bothering to cultivate. Thirty-odd albums later, Hamilton still eases his way around the same dance – with an ever more refined skill that makes it increasingly irrelevant whether his materials are dated or not. He's recently showed an interest in Hammond organ blues, and in partnership with British virtuosi like Alan Barnes, has swept freely across the jazz composers' landscape, notably Duke Ellington's.
Pizza Express, W1, New Year's Day to 7 Jan
JF
