Scandinavia may not leap to most people’s minds when they think of centers of jazz creativity, but over the last 30 years the region has provided a remarkable stream of improvisers who have pushed the boundaries of the tradition. By drawing on their own heritage of classical music, Lutheran hymns and Scandinavian folk songs as much as on the blues-based structures of American jazz, they’ve produced what’s come to be known as the “Nordic tone”—a sort of Scandinavian blues that is cooler, more meditative and marked by a much greater use of silence than its US counterpart. The Norwegian pianist Tord Gustavsen has been considered a prime example of this—JazzTimes even called his trio “the quietest band in the world”—but his most recent CD, Being There, shows him equally capable of gospel-tinged dance rhythms and up-tempo Spanish numbers. Backed by bassist Harald Johnsen and the remarkably subtle touch of drummer Jarle Vespestad, Gustavsen should be an excellent chance for Buffalo audiences to hear a rising musician who represents the Nordic tone at its best. The concert is preceded by a lecture at 7pm on the history of ECM, the German record company that is at the center of it all.

Join some of our community’s greenest thumbs and goldest hearts this weekend at Grassroots Gardens’ First Annual Harvest Festival and Fundraiser. The community-based gardening program has worked with both public and private sectors to create vegetable and flower gardens throughout the city, concentrating especially on the neediest neighborhoods on Buffalo’s east and west sides. The cost of implementing just a single garden can run up to $3,500—a bargain when you see how elaborate some of them are—so funds run tight and the organization is always looking for donations, whether of money, time or labor. From its beginning in 1995, Grassroots Gardens has taken charge of over 75 vacant lots, many in the city’s most economically challenged areas, building gardens that not only beautify the community but provide fresh produce to families and even serve as “living classrooms” to residents and their children. Visit www.grassrootsgardens.org for details on programs, classes and events. The fundraiser ticket cost includes beer and wine for those 21 and older, and hors d’oevres donated by Allen Street Hardware, Betty’s, Cecelia’s Ristorante, Quaker Bonnet Eatery, Room For Dessert, Shango and TruTeas. Special thanks go to Flying Bison Brewing Company, Urban roots and the Karpeles Manuscript Museum.

If you’ve ever been exposed to any of the varieties of Roma music, from the small-combo gypsy jazz popularized by Django Reinhardt and Stephane Grappelli to the raucous, brass-driven bands popular in Eastern Europe, you know what intoxicating stuff it is. So you won’t want to miss the free screening of the music documentary When the Road Bends: Tales of a Gypsy Caravan, which kicks off UB’s International Education Week on Monday. The film is a record of a concert tour across the US by five Romani bands. Because their culture exists in a diaspora, these musicians are in many ways more disparate than they are similar, and filmmaker Jasmine Dellal examines their interaction on the tour. She also expands our experience of them by returning with them to their various homelands in Romania, Macedonia, Spain and India. The New York Times says, “As a music document and as a labor of unabashed love, [it] could hardly be better,” while the Village Voice notes “This joyous portrait…deserves to have its brilliant colors, lavish costumes, and vivacious musical numbers seen on the big screen.” The screening will be followed by a performance by Buffalo’s own gypsy swing quartet Babik.

On the eve of World War Two, 10,000 Jewish children from Germany, Austria and Czechoslovakia were sent by their families to the realtive safety of England. Most were placed immediately in foster homes with English families but had to sacrifice their language, their culture and sometimes their religion. Next week a panel discussion will discuss the kindertransport, as the campaign to save these children was called, and its impact upon a generation of young European Jews. The panelists are historian Maxine Seller; Saul Elkin, artistic director of Jewish Repertory Theatre, which is producing Diane Samuels’ play Kindertransport later this month; and Carrie Tirado Bramen, acting executive director of the Humanities Institute at UB. Students from Buffalo’s Academy of Visual & Performing Arts will read letters written by children living in England to their families in Germany, and Vera Leibovic will relate her own experience as a child on the kindertransport. The event is cosponsored by Jewish Repertory Theatre, the University at Buffalo Humanities Institute, and the Buffalo and Erie County Public Library. Visit jewishrepertorytheatre.com for more information.