Highly evolved goth rockers Current 93; OG sax addict Ornette Coleman

Industrial-goth legends Current 93 are playing just two gigs in the United States this year, and both of them are going down right here. However, if you are considering attending, please do not dust off your lacy black robes and smear obsidian-shade lipstick across your kisser. Sure, David Tibet and his now-22-year-old project are (along with Coil and Nurse With Wound) some of the original innovators of both industrial and goth. But Tibet is also an ever-evolving vocalist, musician, and composer whose newer work transcends the industrial-goth tag. Current 93's early aesthetic, characterized by icy mechanical rhythms and tape loops of quasi-religious chanting, has subtly morphed into an equally dark yet more atmospheric acoustic-based music, which is appreciated by both industrial-goth traditionalists and such hippie-fried folkies as Simon Finn and Bay Areabased Six Organs of Admittance, as well as the doom-metal duo Om, all of whom are opening for Tibet and Current 93 when they perform on Friday and Saturday, Nov. 4-5, at the Great American Musical Hall; call 885-0750 or visit www.gamh.com for more info. -- Justin F. Farrar

Sun Lee

Ornette Coleman.

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More About

• Ornette Coleman
• Simon Finn
• David Tibet
• Six Organs of Admittance
• Electronic Music

Even casual jazz fans have probably heard of, if not actually heard, Ornette Coleman . They may remember reading somewhere about how the saxophonist ushered in the golden era of avant-garde exploration in the early '60s by freeing up melodies from the rigid harmonic constraints of "playing the changes" (that's jazz-speak for the concept of tying every note to a complementary chord, so the music sounds neat and orderly). While Coleman's fluid approach to composition and improvisation is far from tidy, it's arguably more honest and compelling -- always here-and-now -- than old-school methods. Which is why, at 75, he's still an essential force in forward-jazz, even though he hasn't recorded a new album in nearly a decade. While his exceptionally lyrical, nonclichéd ballads (like "Lonely Woman") have been widely covered by scores of adventurous saxophonists who long to grasp his soaring melodic style, it's Coleman's multilayered, almost preternatural rhythmic structures, which have reached the outer limits in recent years, that pose the greatest challenges -- and rewards -- for players and listeners with wide-open ears. Hearing is believing. Find out for yourself when the Ornette Coleman Quartet performs on Saturday, Nov. 5, at the Nob Hill Masonic Center; call 776-1999 or go to www.sfjazz.org for more info.-- Sam Prestianni