Sounds for every nighttime

This summer offers a couple of significant “first times since”: It’s the first time since the recession really hit, causing many to pull their belts taut, and the first since a new administration helped feed a renaissance in socially conscious, multicultural arts. Personal caution meets communal hope in many people’s everyday lives now, and it affects our leisure choices along with everything else.

Yet the healing power of organized sound remains the same. All over the Southland, old favorites return and emerging sensations debut. New albums and late-career gems hit the Internet (and those remaining retail outlets). People will gather to dance and to sing along to their favorite artists. No one trend captures the mood of mid-2009, unless it’s the bliss of having much from which to choose.

The following is a selection of some of the best bets for music-related entertainment in Southern California prior to Labor Day.

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Redheads go Greek

A long line of women with fiery tresses and sharp minds has populated the imaginary seacoast of bohemia. Two who have made their mark in pop take the stage at the Greek Theatre this summer. Neko Case appears Friday, offering material from “Middle Cyclone,” the sweeping, powerful spring release that took the indie favorite to a new level of fame. Tori Amos, the high priestess of mythopoetic pop, appears July 17 in support of her luscious new exploration of earthly pain and pleasure, “Abnormally Attracted to Sin.”

And speaking of redheads, Willie Nelson has a new album coming out Aug. 25, “American Classic,” a set of Tin Pan Alley tunes performed with the likes of Diana Krall and Norah Jones.

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Reel music

In midsummer swelter, there is no oasis like an air-conditioned theater. A slew of music documentaries and music-film happenings will keep Angelenos from breaking a sweat, even when they’re tapping their feet in their seats.

From Thursday to June 21, the American Cinematheque will screen rare footage from “The Secret Policeman’s Ball,” a concert series dating to 1979, which was originally organized by Monty Python’s John Cleese to benefit Amnesty International; featured artists include Bono, Eric Clapton, Peter Gabriel and Pete Townshend. “Youssou N’Dour: I Bring What I Love,” opening July 3, follows the Senegalese musician’s hardships to promote a more tolerant side of Islam with his album “Egypt.” And opening July 10, “Soul Power” documents the 1974 festival that brought together American R&B; acts such as James Brown and the Spinners with other renowned artists, including Miriam Makeba, in Southern Africa.

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The power of sisterhood

They played with Prince back in the day, but there’s much more to the dynamic duo of Wendy Melvoin and Lisa Coleman -- a great discography of their own; studio work with luminaries such as Seal, Joni Mitchell and Madonna; film and television soundtracks, including that spooky-perfect one from “Heroes.” Wendy & Lisa rarely play live, but they will do so Saturday at Largo, offering up wit, wisdom, laughs and probably some very special guests.

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Growin’ up

Is hard to do. But it’s kinda fun to watch and can make for some intriguingly awkward music. This summer, the Jonas Brothers continue their bid for power pop legitimacy with a world tour supporting the trio’s fourth album, “Lines, Vines, and Trying Times” -- a set inspired by the sexy Kings of Leon and guru-level hitmaster Neil Diamond and due out June 16. They’ll have a friend in the now-brunet and (so she says) “edgier” Ashley Tisdale, who leaves behind “High School Musical” for a more rock-oriented sound on her second album, “Guilty Pleasure,” set for release July 28.

Both Disney-related acts had better watch out for “American Idol” Jordin Sparks, though. At nearly 20, she’s already leaping into maturity with “Battlefield,” the Ryan Tedder-penned, Pat Benatar-inspired hit from her upcoming second album, out in July.

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From the Windy City

Chicago’s Wilco, on the occasion of its seventh studio effort, apparently has decided that trivialities like fancy album titles can be waved aside. The band’s latest, a self-titled collection, isn’t due for release until June 30 -- though it’s already streaming online -- and it doesn’t lead Jeff Tweedy and Co. down too many new roads. Still, “Wilco (the Song),” with its chorus of “Wilco will love ya, baby,” offers a wink of assured humor. The group plays a stand at the Wiltern on June 22, 23 and 25. Italian beef sandwiches are optional.

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Weezy rawks

The first single, the slurpy “Prom Queen,” was none too promising, but we’re willing to give Lil Wayne the benefit of the doubt when it comes to “Rebirth,” due out June 23. The Martian rap genius has been calling this much-delayed effort his “rock” project, though the sound might ultimately come closer to the Beastie Boys than, say, Metallica. Guests include Lenny Kravitz and Fall Out Boy -- but not Avril Lavigne, who denied rumors of her participation last month. Too bad, it would have been fun to hear the “Sk8ter Boi” girl and the “Lollipop” boy swap sneers.

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Top divas

Lightning bolts would fly, one imagines, should Aretha Franklin and Grace Jones ever encounter each other in a dressing room. These two musical queens might represent very different eras and aesthetics, but both emanate the kind of fierceness that doesn’t leave much room for competition. Luckily, each will claim her own night at the Hollywood Bowl this summer -- one month apart.

On June 26, Franklin brings her songbook of hits that shaped American history (and maybe the hat she wore when she sang at President Obama’s inauguration?) to town. Jones breaks out the jams that redefined both disco and 1980s rock on a July 26 bill that also features her spiritual children Of Montreal and Dengue Fever.

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Rave on

The 13th annual Electric Daisy Carnival is a dance music fest where happy excess lights up the night sky, with real amusement park rides and joy-inducing sets from electronica superstars. Featured artists at this year’s event, which takes place at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum and Exposition Park on June 26 and 27, include Groove Armada, Thievery Corporation, the Crystal Method, Paul Oakenfold, Infected Mushroom, David Guetta, Simian Mobile Disco and many more.

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Lovesexy

Fans of sophisticated R&B; know that romance is an art that presents infinite possibilities. This summer, two long-absent master practitioners return to enact a swooning revival. Retro-nuevo sophisticates are thrilling to “Pretty Wings,” the first single from “BLACKsummers’night,” the first album from Maxwell in eight years, to be released July 7. And for those who like a little New Jack Swing in their step, 1980s chart-topper Al B. Sure! offers the long-player “Honey, I’m Home” on June 23, ending a 15-year absence from the scene. You already might have heard his enticingly nasty, vaguely cross-cultural new single, “I Love It (Papi Aye, Aye, Aye).”

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Nightclubbing

For those who’d rather spend a few ducats getting into Spaceland than the back rows of the Hollywood Bowl, there are small club shows that’ll afford you every opportunity to get up close and dirty. Silver Lake’s hipster haven presents the inimitably named Natalie Portman’s Shaved Head on July 13 and the spooky poetics of the Handsome Family on July 25. At the Echo, Art Brut gets pithy June 19 -- and that’s after playing three nights at Spaceland, June 16-18; Shellac does double-duty June 20-21 and this summer’s slowly simmering hype, Micachu and the Shapes will prove or disprove themselves July 21.

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Free, alfresco

One summer pleasure in the Southland comes from wandering into a top-tier concert when all you meant to have was a picnic. There are great, free live performances all over the region, from the Levitt Pavilions in Pasadena and MacArthur Park to the Santa Monica Pier. Highlights this season include Mardi Gras Indian ensemble the Wild Magnolias at the Skirball on Aug. 6, oddball folk-rock innovators the Dodos at the Getty Center on Aug. 8 and Malian treasure Rokia Traore downtown at California Plaza on Aug. 15.

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Africa libre

There may be no more pleasurable sound in pop than the heady swirl created by the Senegalese band Orchestra Baobab. Founded at the dawn of the 1970s, Baobab invented its own highly imaginative Afro-Caribbean fusion but slipped into obscurity by the 1990s. Now rediscovered by Americans and reformed, it remains a must-see for those who love to dance, laugh or just listen. Orchestra Baobab makes a rare stop here July 30 at the Santa Monica Pier.

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Songbirds with style

It’s a real renaissance moment for English female artists, no matter the condition of Amy Winehouse’s beehive. Two albums that beautifully express different manifestations of British femininity hit the U.S. this August.

One is from recent Grammy nominee Imogen Heap, the Web-savvy artist whose delicate yet emotionally fearless songs recall electronica-based meditations of artists such as Tracey Thorn and Beth Orton; Heap traveled around the world to make “Ellipses,” only to complete it in her childhood home. At the brassier and sassier end of the spectrum, the Noisettes, a trio fronted by singer-bassist Shingai Shoniwa, makes a real impression with its Northern Soul-inflected second album, “Wild Young Hearts.”

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For whom the bells toll

Though we expect nothing as gasp-worthy as the Sacha Baron Cohen/Eminem moment at the MTV Movie Awards, there should be plenty of spectacle at this year’s Rock the Bells, unquestionably the biggest hip-hop show of the summer, which is due to roll into the San Manuel Amphitheater in San Bernardino on Aug. 8. Potent headliner combo Nas and Damian Marley will air material from their collaboration “Distant Relatives,” due out June 23, and Wu-Tang Clan alumni RZA, GZA and Raekwon, all cracked geniuses in their own ways, are also due to perform, as will a reunited House of Pain and the masters of sublime summer jams, the Roots.

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Joe’s blues

Joe Henry is a quiet hero of the Southland, consistently producing fascinating music -- as an artist and a seriously in-demand producer -- from his studio in South Pasadena. For his 11th album, “Blood From Stars,” he takes on a deceptively “pure and simple” musical form, the blues, and refashions it in his romantic, noirish way. Inspired by poets like Langston Hughes and Allen Ginsberg, Henry’s latest songs cut with a serrated edge and are made bloodier by a great band, including art-rock bigwig Marc Ribot on guitar. Anti- Records releases it Aug. 18.

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Margaret Wappler contributed to this report.

ann.powers@latimes.com

margaret.wappler@latimes.com