Backbeat

Once upon a time, before there was the Fab Four, there were the fractious five: John, Paul, George, Pete (the pre-Ringo drummer) and Stu. Stu? According to Backbeat - a bumpy but thrilling joy ride without brakes through Beatles prehistory - Stu Sutcliffe, John's art-school mate, was many things to the many people who saw him play guitar in Hamburg rathskellers circa 1960. From Paul's perspective, he was a posturer and nonmusician who kept the group from really rocking. From John's adoring vantage, the promising painter was a hipster in shades who gave the Beatles that indefinable edge.

Saturday at the Chestnut Cabaret, the distance between North America and Haiti could have been measured in dance steps. Many Americans in the crowd, getting their first taste of Haitian compas music from the masterful 11-piece Tabou Combo, jerked and twitched like fish on the beach. They tried vainly to fit their steps - which were clunky, and clearly informed by the stiff backbeat of Western pop - into the music's fluid, uninterrupted pulse. The sizable Haitian crowd, meanwhile, used small, silky-smooth motions.

Simon Shaheen, the Palestinian American composer and master oud and violin player, has charisma and a virtuoso's confidence. One product of that confidence was his inclusion of sidemen whose credentials could be considered equal to or even greater than his. During his Saturday-night show at the University of Pennsylvania's Zellerbach Theater, Shaheen entered into a taqsim, or extended duo improvisation, with percussionist Michel Merhej, a...

Sometime during the final piece of Kenny Garrett's second set Sunday, Zanzibar Blue morphed into a hip-hop club. Garrett and his awesome backing trio - pianist Kenny Kirkland, bassist Matt Reeves, drummer Jeff "Tain" Watts - were playing a boogaloo backbeat. After he finished an inspired solo, saxophonist Garrett started a chant. "Go Jeff," he taunted, urging the crowd to chant along. As Watts drummed up a storm behind the vocals, Garrett offered simple, casually stated b-boy rhymes.

At times during vocalist Angelique Kidjo's set Tuesday night at Equator, the basic pulse was overtaken by an urban, international cross-talk, as though the Paris-based band was trying to please every possible world-music constituency. There were African talking drums and scratchy reggae guitars. A heavy rock backbeat carried the vague hint of double-time samba. Prominent keyboard sounds included South American wooden flute and thick horns reminiscent of Parliament-Funkadelic. More than one selection contained a hip-hop-style breakdown.

At times on previous tours, Ben Harper has appeared torn between delivering troubadour-style calls to enlightenment and kicking out impulsive party jams designed to make listeners forget the world's troubles. Not anymore. Saturday at the Mann Center, headlining a bill that included the like-minded Jack Johnson, Harper found ways to align the seemingly irreconcilable impulses. He derided power and arrogance ("Excuse me, mister, is that your oil in the sea?") over a positively blissful reggae groove.

There was a time, in the '80s, when those obsessed with the enigmatic studio-pop outfit Steely Dan would have settled for any chance - a three-hour "Bad Sneakers" marathon - to see their idols perform live. Now, six years into a comeback built around regular touring, the thrill of watching guitarist Walter Becker and keyboardist Donald Fagen lead well-compensated session musicians through the hallowed hits has dimmed a bit. It's not a lack of energy: Thursday at the Waterfront Entertainment Centre, the principals and their 11-piece Steely Dan Orchestra 2000 interpreted warhorses "Peg" and "FM" with a fervor some acts reserve for their latest material.

For too many years, Senegal's Youssou N'Dour has been forced to justify his every note. He has crafted an international music based on West African rhythm, but is not hemmed in by conventional African folk forms. Although much of his work has been pioneering and has reflected the discipline of Beatles- influenced pop, he has been branded an opportunist - the engineer of accessible, crossover confections. Thursday at the Chestnut Cabaret, N'Dour did not act like a man burdened by the need to prove himself.

HRT, Michael Nyman's new score for Relache has a jaunty optimism that might suggest the relief some women experience after taking hormones. But, no, this HRT doesn't refer to Hormone Replacement Therapy. The acronym stands for High Rise Terminal, a linguistical term for the way some English speakers end sentences with rising inflections. No matter the title, the music - rife with rising, questioning phrases - is enjoyable on its own, although the ensemble's performance last night at the Annenberg Center's Harold Prince Theater was short on refinement.

Ten years have passed since a young British director, Ian Softley, came across some photos of the Beatles before they became famous and instantly knew he had a movie on his hands. The dramatic photos were taken by German art student Astrid Kirchherr back in 1961, when the Beatles were playing seedy clubs and strip joints in Hamburg. She fell in love with the band's shy bassist, who wore dark glasses constantly and actually wanted to be an artist, not a rock star. His name was Stuart Sutcliffe, and pop historians often refer to him as the fifth Beatle.

Pop Gurrumul (Dramatico . . ) An indigenous Australian singer-songwriter blind from birth, Geoffrey Gurrumul Yunupingu has become an unlikely breakout star across the world since releasing this hour-long debut album at home and in Europe. He's duetted with Sting on French TV, opened by personal request for Elton John at the Sydney Opera House, and seen the album go double platinum and win several awards in Australia. Rightly so: Singing primarily in regional dialects of Australia's Arnhem Land Aboriginal Reserve, Yunupingu's voice is transfixing and somehow universal.

Simon Shaheen, the Palestinian American composer and master oud and violin player, has charisma and a virtuoso's confidence. One product of that confidence was his inclusion of sidemen whose credentials could be considered equal to or even greater than his. During his Saturday-night show at the University of Pennsylvania's Zellerbach Theater, Shaheen entered into a taqsim, or extended duo improvisation, with percussionist Michel Merhej, a...

There may be no bulletproof formula for creating a hit, but the record industry has some rules for following one up: Get back into the marketplace as quickly as possible. Seize every passing promotional opportunity. Especially in urban music, where tastes change with the weather, even the most thinly veiled rehash is welcome - if not encouraged. Jill Scott didn't heed that script. The native Philadelphian poet, singer and songwriter hardly rushed to develop the follow-up to 2000's Who Is Jill Scott?

At times on previous tours, Ben Harper has appeared torn between delivering troubadour-style calls to enlightenment and kicking out impulsive party jams designed to make listeners forget the world's troubles. Not anymore. Saturday at the Mann Center, headlining a bill that included the like-minded Jack Johnson, Harper found ways to align the seemingly irreconcilable impulses. He derided power and arrogance ("Excuse me, mister, is that your oil in the sea?") over a positively blissful reggae groove.

You know summer is treating you right when you abandon the details and begin thinking in ever bigger pictures. That's a challenge for music critics - we tend to itemize and categorize, ranking experiences by all kinds of crazy measurements in futile attempts to situate what we're hearing in a fixed spot of the cosmos. This season, I tried to resist that impulse, and instead kept a running notebook for those stray ideas - little observations about new artists, old records I came to appreciate again, moments when the most poised individuals fell apart or did something crazy, sexy or cool.

It's not just the material that crashed the gates and damaged the boundaries. It's not exclusively what you gravitated to again and again, the comfort food of the CD stack. The year's "best" is a highly subjective combination of the stuff that held you awestruck and what sustained you in your hour of need. The music that kept you driving at 2 in the morning, destination unknown. Part journal and part travelogue, the following list represents what I consider the highest achievements in a very good year, music that hit me hard enough to demand further consideration, then actually rewarded that attention.

There was a time, in the '80s, when those obsessed with the enigmatic studio-pop outfit Steely Dan would have settled for any chance - a three-hour "Bad Sneakers" marathon - to see their idols perform live. Now, six years into a comeback built around regular touring, the thrill of watching guitarist Walter Becker and keyboardist Donald Fagen lead well-compensated session musicians through the hallowed hits has dimmed a bit. It's not a lack of energy: Thursday at the Waterfront Entertainment Centre, the principals and their 11-piece Steely Dan Orchestra 2000 interpreted warhorses "Peg" and "FM" with a fervor some acts reserve for their latest material.

Sometime during the final piece of Kenny Garrett's second set Sunday, Zanzibar Blue morphed into a hip-hop club. Garrett and his awesome backing trio - pianist Kenny Kirkland, bassist Matt Reeves, drummer Jeff "Tain" Watts - were playing a boogaloo backbeat. After he finished an inspired solo, saxophonist Garrett started a chant. "Go Jeff," he taunted, urging the crowd to chant along. As Watts drummed up a storm behind the vocals, Garrett offered simple, casually stated b-boy rhymes.

HRT, Michael Nyman's new score for Relache has a jaunty optimism that might suggest the relief some women experience after taking hormones. But, no, this HRT doesn't refer to Hormone Replacement Therapy. The acronym stands for High Rise Terminal, a linguistical term for the way some English speakers end sentences with rising inflections. No matter the title, the music - rife with rising, questioning phrases - is enjoyable on its own, although the ensemble's performance last night at the Annenberg Center's Harold Prince Theater was short on refinement.

By the time soul sensation Maxwell reached his encore Friday at the Theatre of Living Arts, he'd long abandoned hopes of entertaining the capacity crowd. The 22-year-old New Yorker had been forced to leave the stage twice when the sound system's power supply failed, and by the end of what was obviously a frustrating night, he was out to save face. He wanted redemption. He got it. The encore, "Gotta Get Closer," started out as a simple pop song with a gospel-like "amen" chord sequence.