Plugging In, Swinging Left

JAZZ, TUNED IN, TURNED ON: By some serendipitous fate, the new fall jazz season launches next week with a definite theme, having to do with the tasteful but unapologetic use of electricity. Young N’Awlins-born/NYC-based trumpeter Christian Scott brings his moody-groove sound to SOhO on Monday, and then the great John McLaughlin plays the Lobero next Thursday, September 20 with his fiery band the 4th Dimension.

Purists might cry foul or the other f-word-fusion-but by missing these shows, they’ll miss out on some serious and provocative new ideas, not to mention plenty of atmosphere and adrenaline. In this strange, transitional time in jazz, diverging musical paths are finding their own way-and their own audiences-in spite of the industry’s entropy.

McLaughlin’s long-awaited return to Santa Barbara makes for what will likely be the jazz event of this year locally. Even so, jazz proper has never known quite what to do with the stylistically restless and singular McLaughlin-one of the finest guitarists ever, period. From the evidence of last year’s Industrial Zen, this band will be considerably higher in the decibel and speed departments than McLaughlin’s subtler, acoustically-inclined projects. That list includes his Indian-oriented Shakti-and its latter-day revival Remember Shakti-and the acoustic, Brazilian-tinged Belo Horizonte project from 1981-which in fact was the last time McLaughlin played in Santa Barbara, also at the Lobero. Even earlier, his scorching Mahavishnu Orchestra played at the old Granada Theatre in 1974, a show indelibly imprinted on at least one impressionable teenager’s memory (ahem).