Jazz Etc. / Paul de Barros
B-Shoot will be flush with world music

KATE POWERS Bebel Gilberto, daughter of Joćo Gilberto, brings her bossa-electronica mix to McCaw Hall at 4:30 p.m. Monday.

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When it comes to blues, Bumbershoot has always been on the money (honey). Jazz, on the other hand, traditionally has been a few dollars short, and world music surprisingly flush.

Those trends hold pretty well this year.

On the Blues Stage (Mural Amphitheatre), fans have two shots at hard-working, tough-shouting, gap-toothed blues mama Koko Taylor, who plays 7:45 tonight and 2:15 p.m. tomorrow.

On the subtler side, Jackson, Miss.-based Bobby Rush brings on his jokey, jump blues at 4:45 p.m. Sunday, and Terry "Big T" Williams, a delta blues man from down the road in Clarksdale, rolls in at 6 p.m. Monday.

Another B-Shoot fave, Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown, opens wide at 8:45 p.m. Sunday.

And don't forget the band that started the jump revival, Roomful of Blues, at 8:15 p.m. tomorrow, or local bottleneck slide guitar prodigy David Jacobs-Strain at 12:15 p.m. Monday.

Jazz acts this year mostly cater to nonjazz fans, with jam bands and rock/jazz at the fore. Paramount is The Bad Plus, a popular piano trio that started out mixing jazz interactivity with rock passion but has since succumbed to the showboating of hard rock drumming and impress-the-innocents pianistics — "Liberace with Ginger Baker," as one wag put it. The Baddies play at 8 p.m. Sunday and at 1:45 p.m. Monday in the Northwest Court Lounge.

More honest is the infectiously funky electric jam band Soulive, with the added attraction of Seattle's own vocalist Reggie Watts, at 8:15 Sunday on the Bumbrella stage. And if funk's your thang, you won't want to miss organ trio master Lonnie Liston Smith, who gets down twice in the Northwest Court Lounge, at 8 p.m. today and 2:15 p.m. tomorrow.

Spoken-word artist Ursula Rucker cuts deep, from both the perspective of feminism and race. Rucker holds forth twice, at 8:30 p.m. tomorrow in the Northwest Court Lounge and at 2:30 p.m. Sunday on the Literary Stage.
 
The great (very loud) New Orleans jam band Galactic shakes at 5:15 p.m. Monday on the Bumbrella Stage, and the popular local jazz-inflected jam band Critters Buggin' hosts an all-star jam finale there at 7:30 p.m. Monday.

If straight-ahead, post-bop jazz twists your twig, the Northwest Court has two acts for you: the marvelous Matt Jorgensen +451 at 4 p.m. Monday and the excellent local pianist Victor Noriega at 2 p.m. Sunday.

Bebel Gilberto is the big news on the world-music front, with her mix of her father João's sexy bossa whisper with a whiff of electronica. Gilberto performs at McCaw Hall at 4:30 p.m. Monday.

More familiar are longtime reggae stars Toots & the Maytals, who perform on the Mainstage at 1 p.m. Monday, followed by the Marley Brothers at 3 p.m. Burning Spear is at the Bumbrella Stage, 8:45 p.m. today.

A welcome Rising Stars of Hawaii show features ukulele monster Jake Shimabukuro, young slack key guitarist Makana and vocalist Raiatea Helm, at 2:30 p.m. Sunday in McCaw Hall. The great Cape Breton fiddler Natalie MacMaster follows the Hawaiians at 8:30.

Out on the Bumbrella stage, don't miss Persian ney (flute) player Omar Faruk Tekbilek, who hoists ancient Sufi music into the present, at 6:45 tomorrow, and the driving, hypnotic guitar and vocals of Zimbabwean pop star Thomas Mapfumo, with his Blacks Unlimited at 9 p.m. tomorrow.

Another welcome African visitor is master drummer and longtime Portland resident Obo Addy, who brings his Afro-pop band, Kukrudu, to the Bumbrella Stage at 2:30 p.m. tomorrow. The trance-dance set will find the popular DJ Cheb I Sabbah there at 4 p.m. Sunday.

Paul de Barros: 206-464-3247 or pdebarros@seattletimes.com