Roadtrips

From the minimalist, fractured funk of hitmaking production duo the Neptunes to 'N Sync's glitch-strewn dirty-pop guise, the pop mainstream is frequently more arresting than what passes for the avant-garde these days. And some Amer-indie underground experimentalists are now openly, lovingly taking their cues from the producers atop the pop charts -- especially from the vanguard of R&B and hip-hop, where minds and behinds get tweaked on a regular basis.

Take Warn Defever, who for more than a decade has been soundscaping under the name His Name Is Alive. The latest disc to be released under that moniker is Someday My Blues Will Cover the Earth (Beggar's Banquet) -- languorous boho-soul with the shapely organic earthiness, if not quite the jazzy sophistication, of Jill Scott. Or maybe more like what you'd get if Timbaland had scored an Ida album. Indeed, a couple members of Ida show up on the disc, for which vocals are handled by Defever's girlfriend, Lovetta Pippin -- a young, black, gospel-trained singer whose powerful voice Defever frames with the scatological, frayed beat-clusters and cymbal ticks of ultramodern black pop. Warn and Lovetta are at the Middle East (617-864-EAST) in Cambridge on Friday and the Met Café (401-861-2142) in Providence on Saturday. And if you want a reference point, Jill Scott arrives at the FleetBoston Pavilion (617-931-2000) in Boston on Tuesday.

Still, there's nothing on His Name's Someday as crucial as the better moments of the new Destiny's Child disc. And that's one reason to be excited about MTV's inaugural TRL tour. If any indication can be gleaned from DC3's performance on Letterman a few months ago -- no backing tracks, all live instruments, sacrificing precision for the far greater good of drama and raw power -- this could be one of the year's highlights. For the tour, which hits the Tweeter Center (617-931-2000) in Mansfield on Friday, Destiny's Child are joined by St. Louis lunatic Nelly, Ruff Ryder queen bee Eve, P-Diddy pop-tart girl-groop Dream, and teen-R&B sensations 3LW.

The storied Newport Jazz Festival (401-847-3700) returns to Fort Adams State Park this weekend; Friday's kickoff at the Newport Casino features jazz diva Diana Krall and the Roy Haynes Group. On Saturday, Krall returns to headline the Fort Adams mainstage with Dave Brubeck, Roy Hargrove, and Bill Cosby conducting an all-star ensemble dubbed "Cos of Good Music"; Ravi Coltrane, the Sun Ra Arkestra, and Big Bill Morganfield are among those on the second stage. On Sunday it's a crowd pleaser with the eternal Ray Charles, Natalie Cole, Wayne Shorter, and Chuck Mangione; the Slip, Uri Caine, James Blood Ulmer, and Los Hombres Calientes head up the second stage. Charles warms up for Newport with a gig at the Calvin Theatre (413-584-2310) in Northampton on Friday and, on Saturday, a free show on the town green (203-946-7821) in New Haven.

Meanwhile, the Slip are also on board for the hippie confab Berkshire Music Festival (888-325-BERK), which runs Friday through Sunday in Great Barrington, placing jam cats including moe., Les Claypool's Frog Brigade, and Galactic alongside hip rootsy folks like Robert Randolph and Olu Dara and throwing e-commerce splicers Lake Trout and Wax Poetic into the mix.
-- Carly Carioli