Lagoon Music

Jazz pianist John Alaimo will give a sunset serenade on Sunday, August 31, when Pam and Jim Butterick open their home at 359 Barnes Road for a benefit evening of music on the Lagoon. From 6:30 to 10 p.m., there will be great music and light refreshment and, with luck, a lovely sunset over the lagoon.

A donation of $50 will be taken at the door to benefit the Steeple Fund of the Federated Church in Edgartown. For details, call the church office at 508-627-4421 or the Buttericks at 508-693-6871.

Three questions came to mind as I headed out this past Friday to see Berklee College of Music students and faculty work their therapy magic on the Island. One, can you ever get high school kids to sit around and pay attention? Two, is there a career in music therapy? And three, can nursing home residents carry a beat?

Vineyard Haven Band

Begins Summer Practice

The Vineyard Haven Band has started rehearsing for its 138th season of Sunday evening concerts, which begin June 29 at Ocean Park in Oak Bluffs, alternating with Owen Park in Vineyard Haven.

Other venues this summer include the Old Whaling Church in Edgartown and the Tabernacle in Oak Bluffs.

New musicians are welcome to join the returning members by attending rehearsals at 7:30 p.m. on Monday evenings at the Sailing Camp Park off Barnes Road.

The Chappaquiddick Summer Music Festival concludes its 2008 season on Thursday, August 7 at 8 p.m. with a performance by violinist Jennifer Koh and pianist Ieva Jokubaviciute. The program includes sonatas by Mozart, Brahms and Bartok.

Get Island musicians riffing about what makes a chord-sparring, memory-jarring, above-par, raise-the-bar jam session here, and the name Maynard Silva inevitably comes into the conversation.

First it was Owen Bennion’s two front teeth vs. a steel basketball pole. Then it was Matt Ungaro’s left ear vs. a moth of undetermined species.

With a voice frequently compared to Joni Mitchell’s, Nancy Jephcote is gearing up for the release of a solo album this fall — but you can hear the Vineyard singer, songwriter and award-winning fiddler at a concert at 8 p.m. tonight, Friday, August 15, at Katharine Cornell Theatre in Vineyard Haven.

Well known for her work with the Flying Elbows fiddle band, songwriting has long been another side of this versatile performer’s offerings. Paul Thurlow and Brian Weiland will add instrumentals and vocal harmonies.

Music will not be the only thing sizzling this summer at Outerland, the nightclub and live music venue at the Martha’s Vineyard Airport: Smoke’n’Bones Restaurant, opposite Tony’s Market in Oak Bluffs, is coming to Outerland for the summer season starting tonight.

This will be Smoke’n’Bones’s third location on Martha’s Vineyard. Their new locale at Outerland will be known as Smoke’n’Bones Up-Island.

Girls Guns and Glory

Boston-based band Girls Guns and Glory plays Friday at the Offshore Ale in Oak Bluffs on Friday night from about 10 p.m.

The band won a Boston Music Award last year and in 2008, the WBCN Rumble — the first roots, rock and country act to ever win the Rumble. One of just four unsigned acts in the Top 40, their latest disc, Inverted Valentine, is currently number 16 on the National Americana Music Association Chart.

The Aquinnah Public Library will be host to a community celebration on Saturday, August 30, from noon to 3 p.m. The event is free and will be held on the grounds of the library on State Road in Aquinnah. In case of rain, the event will be held inside the old town hall across State Road.

Two musical guests will perform: the Wampanoag tribe’s own Black Brook Drummers will perform at noon and Sol y Canto, a popular Latin music group from Cambridge at 2 p.m.