A “who’s who” of performers in contemporary jazz will swing through Portsmouth this week in what performer Regina Carter describes as a really enjoyable, fun tour. Vocalist Kurt Elling, pianist Kenny Barron, violinist Regina Carter and guitarist Russell Malone, all ably backed by bassist Kiyoshi Kitagawa and drummer Johnathan Blake, both members of Barron’s working trio, will take the stage as the Monterey Jazz Festival All-Stars at The Music Hall on Wednesday, Feb. 10.

rated R

As directed by John Hillcoat (responsible previously for the grisly Outback western “The Proposition”), the screen adaptation of McCarthy’s novel cleaves mercilessly close to the original text. The brutally austere story of a man and his boy hardscrabbling their way to a distant sea on bag-wrapped foot across a blasted, collapsing (and decidedly American) landscape unfolds with a hushed, pensive deliberation.

a.k.a. ‘La venganza del sexo’
Productores Argentinos Asociados, 1967

This Valentine’s Day, why not treat your date to a showing of “The Curious Dr. Humpp?” Of course, make sure your date loves retro-sleaze and doesn’t mind bad dubbing and naked hippies.

His fans say no one understands Boston’s criminal underside like Chuck Hogan, author of several acclaimed novels, including “The Standoff” and “Prince of Thieves,” which won the 2005 Hammett Award, was called one of the 10 best novels of the year by Stephen King, and is soon to be made into a major motion picture called “The Town.”

Despite all of the stories that have been written, songs sung, and poems composed, we never seem to tire of love. It’s high-stakes poker where the odds are always stacked against us. When left holding only a single high card, or maybe even a pair, we continue to barter with our emotions, always refusing to fold. Our relentless pursuit is exquisitely explored in Joi Smith and Danica Carlson’s production, “Love,” at the Players’ Ring.

part social, part physical, part otherworldly, snowshoe hikes offer a reprieve from the cold, dark winter

In couples and families, solo and with pets, we travel in our cars to roadside trailheads, from Mt. Agamenticus to Vaughan Woods to Kingman Farm. It’s not enough to know the state parks and beaches that are listed in guidebooks. We quiz each other about undiscovered sites and local secrets, in search of ever more acreage where someone can disappear for an hour or so. Someplace not too far from home. Maybe where I can snowshoe? Or bring my dog? 

poet and activist Nikki Giovanni will headline multi-day MLK celebration, "Art as Struggle and Exultation"

Now a distinguished professor at Virginia Tech, Nikki Giovanni says she believes humankind has made significant progress toward reaching King’s vision for a just world, but there’s still a long way to go.

That work involves more than addressing race issues, alone. Freedom is a planetary pursuit, one that applies to all people, not just blacks and minorities. “Sometimes people forget that segregation was hard on white people, too, because you had to remember to be white,” she says.

For the fifth consecutive winter, folk duo Susie Burke and David Surette are hosting their Cabin Fever collaborative concert series. Burke and Surette will split the bill on January 30 with siblings Ari and Mia Friedman, a fiddle and cello duo from Boston.