ONE STEP BEYOND

Saxophonist John Zorn relinquishes curatorial duties at his no-frills Avenue C performance bunker to Andrea Centazzo for the first two weeks of the month. An intrepid, prolific, and somewhat enigmatic percussionist-composer, Centazzo has been releasing some of the world’s most uncompromising outside music on his Ictus record label since 1984. Purists will revel in Centazzo’s universe-creating, freely improvised duets with pianist Marilyn Crispell (April 4) and Zorn (April 15), and an April 14 drum trio with Andrew Cyrille and Barry Altschul should be seismic. But the whole thing will go touchingly meta tonight, when improvising guitar scientists Henry Kaiser, Davey Williams, Elliott Sharp, Marco Cappelli, Chris Cochrane, and Anders Nillson go head-to-head, via unreleased outtakes, with the musical ghost of the late free-improv guitar deity Derek Bailey (d. 2005) over the course of two heady sets.

Fri., April 6, 8 & 10 p.m., 2012