BEST BETS FRIDAY 10/27

8pm

Jazz

Abbey Lincoln has been a vital presence in jazz since her intensely declamatory voice burst out of the grooves of Max Roach’s “Freedom Now Suite” in 1960. Currently celebrating her 70th birthday, she is one of the last survivors of the generation of great jazz singers who emerged in the post-World War II years. In more recent recordings--such as the just-released “Over the Years”--Lincoln has emerged as a kind of jazz griot, writing songs filled with personal advisories about the perils and pleasures of love and life.

* Abbey Lincoln, the Jazz Bakery, 3233 Helms Ave., Culver City. Friday through Sunday at 8 and 9:30 p.m.; $30 on Friday and Sunday, $35 on Saturday. (310) 271-9039.

all day

Movies

Wipe your nose and run for the hills, the Blair Witch is back. Four young people take a themed tour and encounter more spooky goings-on in “Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2,” the sequel to 1999’s surprise hit, “The Blair Witch Project.” The indie horror film’s runaway success taught the movie industry the power of the Internet as a marketing tool and spawned numerous imitations and parodies of its distinctive visual style. Award-winning documentary filmmaker Joe Berlinger (“Brother’s Keeper,” “Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills”) takes the helm for the second of a planned trilogy.

* “Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2,” rated R for violence, language, sexuality and drug use, opens Friday in general release.

8pm

Music

Opening a new season for the Doheny Soirees, part of Chamber Music in Historic Sites, the Rossetti String Quartet returns with a program listing quartets by Beethoven, Ravel and Dvorak. * The Rossetti String Quartet plays in the Doheny Mansion, 8 Chester Place, Los Angeles, 8 p.m. $45 to $66. (310) 954-4300.

8pm

Dance

Since he formed it in Philadelphia eight years ago, Rennie Harris PureMovement has become the nation’s leading concert hip-hop ensemble, impressing audiences and critics (including those at Cal State L.A. in 1995 and ‘96) with choreography that respects hip-hop’s cultural origins while taking it onto new theatrical turf. In “Rome and Jewels,” Harris and company reconceive “Romeo and Juliet,” juxtaposing quotes from Shakespeare and “West Side Story” with new rap poetry, original music, glimpses of Philly gang life and plenty of dancing. The 11-member company also performs “Rome and Jewels” at the Carpenter Center in Long Beach on Nov. 4.

* Rennie Harris PureMovement in “Rome and Jewels,” Schoenberg Hall, UCLA campus, Westwood. 8 p.m. Also Saturday, 8 p.m. $30. (310) 825-2101.

8pm

Dance

Legendary for the quality of its school, the Perm State Ballet is known to balletomanes as Russia’s third-largest classical company. Until now, however, it has never danced on U.S. stages. Its Southland visit offers the familiar pleasures of the full-length “Swan Lake” and “Giselle”--but with a totally unfamiliar slate of major dancers, plus the company’s own orchestra. Will such current Perm ballerinas as Elena Kulagina, Natalia Moiseeva and Yulia Mashkina match the artistry of such stellar Perm alumni as Nadezhda Pavlova of the Bolshoi or Olga Chenchikova and Lubov Kunakova of the Kirov? Only one way to find out. . . .

* Perm State Ballet, Cerritos Center for the Performing Arts, 12700 Center Court Drive, Cerritos. “Swan Lake,” 8 p.m and Saturday at 2 and 8 p.m. “Giselle” Sunday at 2 p.m. $32 to $47. (562) 916-8500.

8pm

Dance

Fifteen years ago, Julio Bocca won the gold medal at the Fifth International Ballet Competition in Moscow and he’s been an international star ever since. A member of American Ballet Theatre since 1986, and a guest artist worldwide, he now arrives with Ballet Argentino, a group of Bocca compadres that previously visited the Southland in 1994. Their current repertory (to be repeated at the Alex Theatre in Glendale Nov. 3 and 4) includes “Adagietto” (Mahler/Araiz), “Suite Generis” (Handel, Haydn/Mendez), “Sinfonia Entrelazada” (Mozart/Bigonzetti), “Tango Vivo” (Piazzolla/Stekelman) and the grand pas de deux from “Don Quixote” (Minkus/A. Lojo, after Petipa).

* Julio Bocca and Ballet Argentino, Orange County Performing Arts Center, 600 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa. 8 p.m. Also Saturday, 2 and 8 p.m.; Sunday, 2 p.m. $12 to $68. (714) 556-ARTS.

10:30pm

Pop Music

Oscar D’Leon has a live album out, but even a quality recording won’t give you the experience that the veteran salsero provides in person. The Venezuelan singer returns to the Hollywood Park Casino, where he provided a crash course in concert dynamism and Afro-Cuban tradition last spring.

* Oscar D’Leon, Hollywood Park Casino, 3883 W. Century Blvd., Inglewood. 10:30 p.m. $25 in advance, $30 day of show. (310) 330-2841.

Freebie

The distinguished Southern California-based ensemble Bach’s Circle plays a program honoring the 250th anniversary of the composer’s death, 8 p.m. in the Recital Hall at Los Angeles Harbor College, 1111 Figueroa Place, Wilmington. This program will be repeated Sunday at 3 p.m. at Pacific Unitarian Church, 5621 Montemalaga Drive, Rancho Palos Verdes. (310) 372-4222.