Shamim Allen is away this week, at the Montreal International Jazz Festival, so I offered to cover for her and she e-mailed me some live music suggestions.

If Shamim is there, the Jazz Fest is obviously the place to be, only about two hours from the northern Adirondacks and featuring a 12-day schedule so ridiculously packed it might be easier to list who’s not playing. The price of entry to various venues ranges from free to about $80. On the Fourth of July Dave Brubeck, who is 88, will perform “Take Five,” which is 50.

Closer to home, there’s an open mic tonight at Grizzle T’s in Saranac Lake. It starts at 7:30 p.m.

On Friday, July 3, the holiday weekend gets rolling with Lake Placid’s annual I Love Barbecue festival, featuring amazing local musicians all weekend, including Stoneman Blues Band, Sven Curth and Lowell Bailey. If you like the Ramones, you’ll especially appreciate Loud and Stupid, which takes the stage at 3 p.m. Sunday.

The first concert of the season at Meadowmount School of Music will be held at 7:30 p.m. Friday. Meadowmount is boot camp for classical music’s future string stars, and the location is remote, pastoral and camplike, complete with screens and mosquitoes. The summer school is located at 1424 County Route 10, in the town of Lewis. There’ll be another concert Sunday July 5. $7 adults, $4 seniors/students. See www.meadowmount.com for a full schedule.

Also Friday a trio from the Celtic band Inisheer will be playing at O’Reilly’s Pub in Saranac Lake 8-10 p.m.

SATURDAY, July 4

There’s free music pretty much anywhere you can find a parade or fireworks. Here are just a few suggestions:

From 1-3 p.m. Inisheer plays the bandshell at Mid’s Park on Mirror Lake, in Lake Placid.

Long Lake will be hosting an open acoustic jam at the town beach at 2 p.m. (The North Country Preservation Jazz Band will play in the evening.)

Atlantic Crossing, a Vermont-based band playing Celtic roots music of New England, Canada and the British Isles, will perform at Bolton Landing’s Rogers Park at 5 p.m. Saturday.

Puttin’ on the Ritz plays pre-fireworks in Raquette Lake, at the school.

Shamim will return to play with the Dust Bunnies in Saranac Lake’s Riverside Bandshell at 7 p.m., before the fireworks. The Bunnies’ friends Big Slyde are playing the Waterhole patio, about 100 yards away, at the same time.

There’ll be square dancing in the North Country Squares Building of the Clinton County Fairgrounds at 7 p.m. in Morrisonville.

If you like your Fourth of July fix of patriotic marches, the 45-piece Floyd Community Band will be playing at the waterfront park in Old Forge at 7 p.m. Saturday, before the fireworks.

The heavy (in a good way) blues trio Crow Party will rock the annual boogie fest at the Recovery Lounge in Upper Jay, starting at 8 p.m.

Mathematicians, a band with a strong Adirondack following, will be playing at HOTSHOTS on South Street in Glens Falls on the Fourth of July with Beware the Other Head of Science. It’s an 18+ show, doors open at 9 p.m., and show starts at 10 p.m.

Aiseiri is playing at O’Reilly’s Pub after the fireworks over Lake Flower, in Saranac Lake.

SUNDAY, July 5

Inisheer plays at 6 p.m. on the Peru Village Green.

Artwork: Mathemeticians