This version of ON the Beat was initially emailed to subscribers on September 14, 2023. To obtain Josef Woodard’s music publication in your inbox every Thursday, enroll at impartial.com/newsletters.
As a ripe launch for the brand new season of the much-cherished ¡Viva el Arte de Santa Bárbara! collection, the highlight turned to an artist with notably deep roots within the collection. Perla Batalla, the Ojai-based and world-traveled singer, was truly the inaugural artist right here in 2006, the beginning of certainly one of Santa Barbara’s most rewarding cultural enterprises. The collection and four-day residency, sponsored by UCSB Arts & Lectures, focuses on Mexican regional and different Latin American-related music and dance. Batalla suits the invoice completely.
Lower to 2023, and Batalla returned in excessive and energized kind, with a flexible band in tow, that includes go-to Los Angeles pianist Karen Hammack, guitarist Gilbert Gonzalez on nylon-stringed guitar, and Michael Velasquez on electrical bass. As Batalla defined, they’d carried out eight live shows in colleges, together with the customary live performance stops at Isla Vista Faculty, Guadalupe Metropolis Corridor, and with a climactic, free-to-the-public, grand finale on the Marjorie Luke Theatre.
On this Sunday night, Batalla handily took cost as she sashayed onto the stage after the band warmed up with a Latin-ized model of Sonny Rollins’ already innately Caribbean “St. Thomas.” Batalla is blessed with an assured and matured vocal instrument, wealthy, sonorous, and deep. For sure, she can also be fluently bilingual, which lent a particular influence given the context and goal of this collection.
As she advised the group (in English and Spanish), she is of blended blood, Argentine and Mexican, and celebrated her heritage together with her 1998 album Mestiza. Aptly, the setlist touched on songs from each side of the border, from a funk-spiced variation on mariachi to Nat King Cole’s bolero association of “Nature Boy,” with visits to merengue, salsa, and elsewhere on Mexican music soil.
Late within the present, Batalla served up a potent studying of the ranchera traditional “Sabor a mi,” and from one other nook of Mexican favorites (together with her personal and her father’s), she introduced the home down — and to its toes in a standing ovation — for her stirring tackle “Cucurrucucú paloma,” penned by Tomás Méndez in 1954 and now a timeless treasure of Mexican music.
Familia is necessary on this band, which additionally options Batalla’s husband (a tv chef) Claud Mann on percussion, and with vocal cameos by her gifted daughter Eva. Eva first graced the stage on a tune which additionally included a brand-new poem by Santa Barbara Poet Laureate Melinda Palacio, whose new piece is an eloquent prayer and lament for migrant youngsters, and a quest to “redeem them.” “On the river, we are going to float on a tune,” Palacio intoned, resonating with the musical environment on the Luke.
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Perla Batalla and her band carry out as a part of UCSB Arts & Lectures’s ¡Viva el Arte de Santa Bárbara! | Credit score: Isaac Hernandez -
Perla Batalla with a younger visitor at ¡Viva el Arte de Santa Bárbara! | Credit score: Isaac Hernandez
One in every of Batalla’s claims to fame, and a pivotal portal to her worldly profession, was her time as a background vocalist, together with fellow Ojai-connected singer Julie Christensen, within the legendary Leonard Cohen’s band within the early ‘90s. She has gone on to take part in lots of a Cohen tribute challenge. As she advised the group, Cohen advised her that Spanish was his favourite language — simply the sensuous sound of it, regardless of his lack of linguistic grasp.
She returned the gesture by delivering a model of his traditional “Dance Me to the Finish of Love,” a la Cha Cha, and partly in Spanish. For an encore, the band waxed balladic on the theme of Cohen’s anthem “Hallelujah,” warmed up by the dialogue of mom buying and selling verses with daughter.
Nonetheless to return within the new “¡Viva el Arte” season: Folklórico de Los Ángeles (October 13-15), Mariachi Reyna de Los Angeles (January 19-21), Quitapenas (March 8-10), and Jarabe Mexicano (Could 17-19). Information right here.
Alt-Nation Voltage, in Doug Mode
We all know Solar Volt as mainstays and pioneers of the obscure alt-country universe, with lateral linkages to Uncle Tupelo and Wilco (lengthy story). The person in cost, with the gruff however pleasant and simply twangy sufficient voice, is Jay Farrar, however for the second, Solar Volt’s highlight is on one other mutant-twang king completely: the late, nice Doug Sahm, to whom they devoted the brand new album Day of the Doug. Sahm (1941-1999) was a one-of-a-kind nation and style confounder, whose lengthy profession ventured by means of the Sir Douglas Quintet, the Texas Tornados and … Doug Sahm.
A Solar Volt present is at all times price a go to, particularly in a compact house similar to SOhO, the place the band stops on Tuesday, September 19 as a part of their Day of the Doug tour. It will likely be the evening of the Doug in our humble seashore city.
To-Doings:
Folks Orchestra of Santa Barbara goes Medieval Sept. 23-24: anticipate them to carry out some uncommon devices. | Credit score: Courtesy
Followers (and fans-to-be) of the distinctive and at all times invigorating Folks Orchestra of Santa Barbara, be on the alert subsequent weekend, September 23 on the Trinity Episcopal Church and September 24 on the Presidio Chapel for the subsequent journey cooked up by mastermind and multi-instrumentalist, multiculturalist Adam Phillips. Phillips takes on a myriad of various musical points-of-focus with every live performance. This day trip, the FOSB goes Medieval, with music from numerous factors European and Scandinavian. Information right here.
For a not-alt nation menu, head to the Chumash On line casino on Friday, September 15, when mainstream nation star Dustin Lynch touches down within the 805. His chart-topping hit checklist contains “Small City Boy,” “Ridin’ Roads” and “The place it’s At.”
