ON the Beat | Leo, Yo-Yo, and other Musical Matters that Matter

It’s a scientifically proven fact that the number increases as the years accumulate in our lives. Even so, it’s somehow hard to square the math on the fact that great American oddball guitarist Leo Kottke is 80. It’s partly because he has had such a boyish countenance for seemingly decades, only looking somewhat closer to his age in the past decade or so. Another factor is that his signature, syncopated style is so idiosyncratic in that it’s hard to peg him to any particular era or fashion.

On Sunday, Kottke returned to a warmly welcoming home of the Lobero Theatre, an ideal space to hear what he does for a living. This was not a slick and polished operation, with some fretboard gaffes and vocal gruffness (and an on-the-fly modulation on “Pamela Brown”) along the path, and some serious detours in his famously non-linear, between-song banter. At one point, during a monologue gone off the rails, he muttered, “You open your mouth, and you’ve left the dock already.”

But then Kottke has always been more about the power of feel and personal voice, warbles and all. He’s got some of the best warbles in the acoustic guitar biz.

At the Lobero, it was just one man, two guitars (6 and 12-string models), with quirky, sweet musicality and a dry, rambling wit, perfectly in sync with his ambling guitar style. For one, he puts a mumbly thumb — but always a propulsive one — to work, and has a great relationship with the low notes (especially on his 1990 album That’s What), as well as the high ones.

On Sunday, he called up old favorites, going back to early in a career launched in the late ‘60s, including women-geared vocal odes “Louise,” “Pamela Brown,” “Julie’s House,” and the driving instrumental rollick and roll of “Bean Time,” “Last Steam Engine Train,” “Snorkel,” and “Vaseline Machine Gun” with its nimble mix of finger work and slide guitaring.

His songs can masquerade as if fairly rooted in existing genres, related to country, folk, and the netherworld of acoustic guitar lore, with jazz harmonic spices along the way. Still, he keeps throwing curveballs and smoke screens into the works. At the Lobero, for instance, a late set gem was an as-yet unnamed tune that featured courtly abstraction and tonal deviations more than elsewhere in the set. We could hear echoes of the music of Brazilian composer Villa-Lobos and Cuban Leo Brouwer, buzzing in the realm of Kottke land.

After the no-name number, he went to “Julie’s House,” and then suddenly announced, “That was the end of the set. I would like to play the encore now, so we can all go home at the same time.” Enter/exit with “Vaseline Machine Gun,” a very fine and energy bunny way to bid adieu, until next we meet the youthful octogenarian.

Yo-Yo Ma Embraces the Here and Musical Now

Santa Barbara has been fortunate to have regular encounters with the man of the cello, worldly music, and humanist idealism Yo-Yo Ma over many years and many different projects. This comes thanks in part to the renowned cellist’s tight connection with UCSB Arts & Lectures head Celesta Billeci, who retired last year after an illustrious 25-year career. Last year at the Arlington, Ma melded music, talk, and a “this is my life” panorama — his biographical life and evolution of his affirmative life philosophy — in an “Evening with Yo-Yo Ma” package.

When he returns to town on Sunday afternoon, February 22, at The Granada Theatre, the context will be something special again: a rare solo recital program devoted to new music. In a program, commissioned by Ma for A&L, the cellist will perform fresh sounds from South African cellist Abel Selaocoe, the Pulitzer Prize–winning Caroline Shaw, and even a new piece penned by Ma himself. Sunday’s outing has the markings of a not-to-miss occasion for music lovers of diverse interests and degrees of seriousness.

Jon Cleary & The Absolute Monster Gentlemen/ Cha Wa | Photo: Courtesy

A&L’s other offering in the next week heads down to New Orleans, by way of one of its prime proponents, keyboardist, and friendly mischief maker Jon Cleary. Did we mention that Cleary is, in fact, British? Sometimes, there is no passion like that of the smitten outsider. He has passed through Santa Barbara before in his high-octane sideman mode, backing Bonnie Raitt at the Santa Barbara Bowl and elsewhere. But at Campbell Hall on Thursday, February 26, Cleary heads up the band humbly known as The Absolute Monster Gentlemen.

Doubling up the N’Awlins pleasure principle, the evening will also feature opener Cha Wa (Mardi Gras Indian tribal talk for “we’re comin’ for ya”), who stir together funk, second line, and jam time grooves, in a gumbo rooted in the Crescent City.

TO-DOINGS:

Jlin + Third Coast Percussion | Photo: Courtesy

In another A&L presentation worth taking note of, tonight (February 19) at Campbell Hall, musical traditions and tools merge when Jlin + Third Coast Percussion (TCP) takes the stage. Grooves and chamber music manners meet through the collaboration of the classically trained electronic musician Jlin and the versatile free-thinking TCP. Expect music by Jlin, Philip Glass, Mozart, and David Longstreth, presenting a world premiere piece.

Also, tonight, fans of trad jazz, and just a plain good time with no jazz-listening training required, are advised to head over to the Lobero for one of countless 805 visits by the Preservation Hall Jazz Band. New Orleans musical culture is in the house again, but representing music of another time and the very seeds of jazz, still relevantin all itsgood-timey glory.

Another live jazz alert: Check out the always impressive SBCC Jazz Big Band contingent when a big band show lands at SOhO on Monday night.