A graduate of the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz, New York-based Romain Collin has had the great fortune of working with the likes of jazz legends Wayne Shorter and Herbie Hancock. While Shorter and Hancock are some of the giants of fusion and crossover jazz, Collin opts for a much more distilled purity in his work and his dexterity with the piano showcases an erudite skill matched only by the discerning emotions that forge the bulk of his songwriting. Collin’s sophomore release, The Calling, is an album of warm crystalline beauty and the musician’s playing traverses a delicate line between a lush sea-bath swirl of scales and spiked, meditative crescendo highs. You can hear all of that in this clip, featuring a rendition of two of the numbers from the album, “Storm” and the title-track, performed live at Rockwood in New York. The short burst of “Storm” introduces the band before segueing into the next number (the album’s title-track) where Collin works an elegantly serpentine melody, circling around the nuanced underpinnings of Luques Curtis’ double bass and the crisp drumming of Kendrick Scott, executed with economy and restraint. The scales explore a haunted, intuitive search and the resonance and tension of the piece expands more and more as the number slowly builds toward the nine-minute mark. In no way is this pop music, but Collin has found a way to make his brand of jazz just as immediate – and instantly gratifying.

Several acts have been added to the 2013 Nelsonville Music Festival, including Lee Fields (& The Expressions), the Bindlestiff Family Cirkus, Joe Pug, You Black Kettle, Los Hacheros, and Flying Clouds of South Carolina, who are returning after a standout performance at last year’s festival. Though set times for non-headliners have not been announced, the full day schedule is available:

Thursday, May 30

Gogol Bordello (headlining set at 10:30 p.m.)
Wild Belle
Los Hacheros
Old Light
County Pharaohs
D-Rays
Hex Net
Unmonumental
Weedghost
JJ Reed
Michael Hurley
Chris Biester

Friday, May 31

Cat Power (headlining set at 9:00 p.m.)
The Coup
Lee Fields & The Expressions
He’s My Brother She’s My Sister
Los Hacheros
Nick Tolford & Company
Anais Mitchell & Jefferson Hamer
JD Hutchison
Reigning Sound
Screaming Females
Endless Boogie
Wooden Indian Burial Ground
Cotton Jones
William Tyler
Old Light
The Hiders
Michael Hurley
Anais Mitchell & Jefferson Hamer
Catherine MacLellan
Olentangy John
Adam Remnant
Cotton Jones
Todd Burge
JJ Reed
Leah Nairn
Emily Prince

Saturday, June 1

Wilco (headlining set at 10:00 p.m.)
Mavis Staples
Calexico
Sharon Van Etten
Jonathan Richman
Lucius
Flying Clouds of South Carolina
Honeycutters
Shilpa Ray
Wussy
Country Pharaohs
Sundresses
Wheels On Fire
You Black Kettle
Joe Pug
Michael Hurley
Jerry David Decicca
Lucius
Catherine MacLellan
Shazzbots
Todd Burge
Chris Biester

Sunday, June 2

John Prine (headlining set at 6:00 p.m.)
Tift Merritt
Field Report
Flying Clouds of South Carolina
David Wax Museum
Brown Bird
Catherine MacLellan
Jerry David Decicca
Rattletrap Stringband

Dear J.J. (I hope I can be so informal…):

Just wanted to let you know that I have really enjoyed your revamp of the whole Star Trek thing. Yeah, I’m one of the geeks. One of the nerds. One of the Trekkers, or Trekkies, or Trek-heads, whatever they want to call us. I was a bit too young to enjoy the original series the first time around (I was five when it premiered on NBC) but I do remember seeing bumper stickers on cars suggesting that the network “save” the show. By the time the crew of the Enterprise went cartoon, I was 12 and a huge sci-fi fan. I enjoyed these animated adventures, but it made me hungry to go back and see what came before.

“I only ask because I’m a real cunt in Spring / You can rent me by the hour.”

And then there was “Dance of the Seven Veils”, the gobsmacking fourth track on Exile in Guyville, and our first taste of Liz Phair’s unparalleled ability to be haughty, naughty, playful, and pernicious all in the same breath. It is also serves as our introduction to Phair’s more abstract tendencies, stringing together erotic and vaguely menacing imagery in deceptive lullaby rhyme. It’s an apt successor to the pseudo-sexual-spiritual interlude “Glory”, but “Veils” seemingly forgets all the gentility of its predecessor; here, rather, Phair is at her wryly seductive best, disingenuously self-flagellating as she voices her demands and desires so her male subject needn’t do the dirty work (and is perhaps is robbed of his own sure to be underwhelming response).

That Phair marries a relatively straightforward plea for her rocker lover to quit being such a bastard (“Johnny my love / Get out of the business / It makes me wanna rough you up so badly”) with overt references to the Salome / John the Baptist beheading myth / Biblical passage / whatever veracious weight you prescribe it (“I have got a bright and shiny platter / And I am gonna get your heavy head”) is testament to the cunning complexities of Phair’s composer mind. Phair cherry-picks her allusions here, making substantial use of sparse ingredients, and sets a peculiar—but purposeful—tone by invoking a provocative cultural signpost and pairing it with what would otherwise be a pedestrian tale of romantic frustration.

An Elvis song, let alone the schmaltzy classic “Can’t Help Falling in Love”, seems an odd choice at best for a rap sample (at worst, we’re talking Dipset “Built This City” territory). But Chicago rapper/producer Tree manages to flip the sample into a soul-trap hybrid that, I don’t know, just works. He spits gruff, elastic, occasionally pinch-voiced tough-talk and hippie street guru bars, slipping in affecting lyrics like “Drunk as hell, man / I probably shouldn’t have a pistol.” As much as the drill scene has dominated its recent rap coverage, Chicago is a city of many voices just like any other, and Tree happens to be, along with steadily rising Chance the Rapper, one of its more interesting and talented.