Herbie & Smokey

There will be no topping the bracing buoyancy of Sam Rivers at the Vision Festival last week, but there's still hipness to be heard as the JVC Jazz Fest-New York week climaxes. James Carter, flashy dresser and slick windsman whatever horn he grabs, will rip up the repertorie of Pavement within the virtuosically funkadelic Gold Sounds at Irving Plaza June 21, opening for highly ironic power trio The Bad Plus. Smokey Robinson makes a comeback at Carnegie Hall June 22 which ain't jazz but never mind, while at the same time in Zankel Hall three flights down saxophonist Charles Lloyd will dare to float his aching melodic cries over just two percussionists-tabla wiz Trilok Gurtu and post-bop traps drummer Eric Harland.

I've already suggested that pianist Herbie Hancock's career retrospective at Carnegie June 23 will either be sublime or over-weight with talent. Having grown up wistfully listening to his Maiden Voyage, I won't miss it. One tasty alternative is the Brazilian jazz Trio da Paz with pianist Kenny Barron adding extra elegance for a fest-related night at the Jazz Standard.

June 24 the fest ends with a Latin blowout featuring many of the hottest mamboitas (trumpeter Chocolate Armenteros, flutist Dave Valentin) with Cuban master bassist Israel "Cachao" Lopez.

After that, try something other than jazz, like, the Julie Taymor production of Grendel, an operatic re-telling of the hoary Anglo-Saxon epic Beowulf from the monster's point of view, which seems like the must ticket of the Lincoln Center festival starting July 11.