Double-Header on the World Folk and Blues-infused Rock Circuit

This edition of ON the Beat was originally emailed to subscribers on May 16, 2024. To receive Josef Woodard’s music newsletter in your inbox each Thursday, sign up at independent.com/newsletters.

Santa Barbara’s often-busy live music calendar can get in the way of a good time for avowed eclectics in town, in terms of soaking in the worthy goods on a given night. But last Saturday night, it was logistically possible to engage in fruitful crosstown traffic and take in bold offerings from two important local institutions — the season-finale of the Folk Orchestra of Santa Barbara (FOSB), at Trinity Episcopal Church, and the Santa Barbara Blues Society’s stellar Nikki Hill show, in the secular dance-ready chapel of the Cabrillo Recreation Center. It was a hot night of genre-hopping and culture-hopping.

The 20-plus piece FOSB, founded and led by Adam Phillips, remains one of the more intriguing, unusual, but ever-enjoyable aggregates around town for the past eight-ish years. Last weekend, it closed the season with a “greatest hits” program, dubbed Favorites! This meant that, rather than focusing on a particular culture or theme, it was a stylistic, free-range affair. Thus, the menu bounced from the feisty opening fanfare of the Spanish “Cantigas” to the burnished and poignant Americana anthem “Shenandoah,” from the Galician “Muiñeira de Chantada” to the Mexican classic “El Rey” (with Phillips busting out robustly in song).

My favorite moment came just after intermission, when we caught a rare Santa Barbara teaming-up of the Swedish nyckelharpa (played by go-to harpist Laurie Rasmussen) and the rotary wind-driven reed instrument the hurdy gurdy, with Phillips at the controls, on the Icelandic tune “Trøllabundin.” And there was the trusty blues tune “House of the Rising Sun,” retooled into a nervous nelly up-tempo raver, jam-packed with 16th notes. The audience joined in, dutifully, on the group’s traditional closing song, “The Parting Glass,” parting with sweet sorrow and sweet memories.

After FOSB, I buzzed down Anacapa Street to catch the second set from the electrifying Nikki Hill, Memphis-an by way of North Carolina and retro-Tina Turner-esque rock-soul-blues wailer by way of timeless firepower and appeal. Adrenaline hit the stage as soon as Hill hit the stage with her ace band (including her husband, Matt Hill, on guitar alongside award-winning picker Laura Chavez).

Nikki Hill is less a down-the-middle blues artist than a torch-keeper of the tradition of the blues-infused offshoot where rock ’n’ roll and edgy soul spice are key. She belongs in the category of “singers who could open up for the Rolling Stones,” echoing the intensity of Turner and current heroine Bettye LaVette (see her with the Stones on tour now).

Hill also has a way of getting a grip on your senses on a fast tune, then kicking things into even higher gear, tempo- and heat-wise, to the point where one’s head feels ready to explode. In a good, cathartic way. Let’s hope Hill and gang return to play Santa Barbara again soon, maybe in the smaller pressure cooker of SOhO? To catch her live is the real deal.

Choral Society, Nostalgic and New

When the grand Santa Barbara Choral Society culminated its season last Sunday afternoon, a sense of déjà vu wafted through the hosting environs of Trinity Lutheran Church. Along with a both rousing and dutifully contemplative performance of Fauré’s Requiem, the chorus paid an encore visit to the accessible contemporary fare of music by Ola Gjeilo and Chrisopher Tin’s jubilant “Waloyo Yamoni,” featuring impressive and jazz-tinged tenor Jimmer Bolden.

Both composers also capped off the group’s 75th season closing concert a year ago, then in the embracing sanctuary of the First Presbyterian Church. The tactic heeded the notion that a proven crowd-pleasing program deserves an encore performance.

As usual, director JoAnne Wasserman finely culled the choral and orchestral forces on hand, with the added spatial dimension of pipe organ (played by David Potter) up in the rear, from the choir loft. The concert opened, in fact, back in the choir loft, with Potter and flutist Kathy Marsh performing Fauré’s ever-popular “Pavane.”

Fauré’s Requiem (with baritone Michal Dawson Connor and soprano Elissa Johnston as soloists) is a lighter and more lyrical model in the literature of popular and established examples, and was movingly brought to life here, up to its peaceable sigh of a finale.

Zooming up to the business of living composers, Gjeilo’s “Dark Night of the Soul” draws on the melding of a minimalist chug factor and neo-romantic piano interludes.

Gjeilo’s “The Ground” conveyed a contemporary language nuzzling up against musical theater, a bit too comfortable for comfort in a classical setting. Tin’s resume includes video game accolades, which you can hear in his writing, but only a crusty curmudgeon could avoid the sure, buoyant charm of his Swahili water ode “Waloyo Yamoni,” even the second time around.

Season of the Serious Squeeze

Serious accordion fans (we know who we are) have had reason to celebrate, on either side of the fall-to-spring classical concert season. Last fall at the Lobero Theatre, CAMA’s “Masterseries” opened with a fascinating encounter between the bedazzling accordionist Hanzhi Wang, performing with and alongside mandolinist Avi Avital.

On Friday, May 17, accordion — a grand instrument still less respected in America than in Europe — again seizes the spotlight due when Camerata Pacifica closes its season in a concert featuring a world premiere of Clarice Assad’s ink-still-wet Petite Suite for Accordion, Clarinet, Cello & Percussion, which the composer describes as bringing together “elements of French chanson and Latin-American music, combining classical and jazz notation with room for improvisation by the accordion player.” Accordionist Julien Labro, with an illustrious and evolving résumé, will do the honors as soloist. Assad herself is part of a powerful and poetic dynasty, as the daughter of the great Brazilian guitarist Sergio, half of a duo with his brother Odair, and Clarice’s gifted singer-guitarist aunt, Badi.

TO-DOINGS:

This weekend, on Saturday and Sunday afternoon, the a cappella wonder that is Quire of Voyces presents its annual spring concert, titled Furusato. A diverse program features music of Stephen Paulus and the Japanese folk song “Furusato” (arranged by Philip Lawson) — anticipating a summer tour of Japan. Notable local composers are also in the mix, between composer-in-residence Stephen Dombek presenting the premiere of his “Mass for Six Voices” and Emma Lou Diemer’s “Be Still.”

At the moment, there is a suspended chord in the house of Voyces. For many years, the group boldly led by Nathan Kreitzer has enjoyed the idyllic and spacious acoustic/ambience of the old worldly St. Anthony’s Chapel, at the Garden Street Academy. With news of the property going up for sale, the future of the symbiotic relationship of ensemble and chapel home is in question. All the more reason to savor this weekend’s concert in this special space.

Speaking of the Trinity Episcopal Church, the enlightened sanctuary — a hot spot for musical performances of a certain type — will present one of its lunch concerts on Friday, May 17. For this program, the church’s fine organist Thomas Joyce (worth going to church for on his own merits) will perform Baroque trios on organ and harpsichord, along with Stephen Hammer on baroque oboe and Kenneth Munday, baroque bassoon. Be there, from 12:15 to 12:45 p.m.

This week, the inspirational series known as ¡Viva el Arte de Santa Bárbara! closes out its season by bringing to town the group Jarabe Mexicano, which abides by its agenda to celebrate “Bordeño soul celebrating the roots music of the U.S.–Mexico border region.” In our current state of border angst and fragility, such an agenda is as relevant as ever. As the tradition in this glorious 18-year-old series, the group will give master classes and educational offerings, along with free-to-the-public performances at Isla Vista School on Friday night, Guadalupe City Hall on Saturday night, and a climactic concert at Marjorie Luke Theatre on Sunday evening.

As a longtime fan of the Luke shows, I can vouch for the waves of warmth, cultural sympatico, and musical nourishment that await in that room. Not to mention delicious Mexican pastries, post-show.

Jazz pianist of note Marcus Roberts returns for another twofer of appearances this week, in a “jazz gig” with his trio (drummer Jason Marsalis and bassist Rodney Jordan) at the Lobero Theatre tonight, May 16, and then celebrating the 100th b-day of Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue with the Santa Barbara Symphony this weekend (see story here).

Vocalist-keyboardist wizard Jacob Collier, still a twenty-something after all these years, returns to Santa Barbara with his full-fledged, fully charged band at the Arlington Theatre on Sunday, May 19 (see story here).