I was excited to check out New York’s Ulu when they came to Summerfest on July 12. I knew that they’d played at RIBCO a few months back, and I’d heard a snippet of Live at the Wetlands, Ulu’s second album, recorded in November of ’99.

It would be easy to forgive the Bix Memorial Jazz Society if its leaders were looking past this weekend's Bix Memorial Jazz Festival. After all, next year marks the 100th anniversary of the birth of Leon "Bix" Beiderbecke, and the society has some big things planned, including a Caribbean Bix cruise in November 2003 and what's sure to be a blowout centennial festival next summer.

The photograph on the cover of Retrospective 1982-2002, the new overview CD by Cedar Rapids’ Gayla Drake Paul, might at first seem to be a concession to modern marketing. The photo, dating from 1988, shows Paul in a tank top and unzipped jeans, her hand reaching under her shirt, exposing part of a breast.

• Delightfully British in the campy flavor of go-go boots and paisley house dresses, my pick of the week is Zap the World by Death by Chocolate, released this coming Tuesday on the Jetset label. This fresh and sassy sophomore effort is fronted by Angela Faye Tillett, a time-traveling London pop girl channeling a splendidly droll vibe whether she's musing on the perfect scrumptiousness of Cinnamon Grahams cereal or her favorite "lime-green fitted blouse with rounded collar and puce cuffs.