ON the Beat | Blues We Can Use

Mike Zito | Credit: Courtesy

Over decades, many a Saturday night has been basted in the blues of a serious order, thanks to the hoary Santa Barbara Blues Society (SBBS), sneaking up on its 50th anniversary next year. The venues have changed, but the mission and the service remain. The Carrillo Recreation Center, steeped in history and outfitted with a spring-loaded dance floor, has been a more than happy home for several years now, and long may that relationship run.

Breaking slightly with tradition, the SBBS’s next Carrillo Rec show, featuring steamy fine bluesman Mike Zito, lands on a Thursday, May 28, but Saturday night vibes are sure to transpire. The St. Louis native Zito, now 55, excels on the borderland where deep blues and rock ‘n’ roll converge, with his dirty-toned Les Paul issuing fistfuls of gutsy riffs without a bottleneck, and sings with proper grit intact.

As for proof in numbers: His résumé includes a discography more than 20 titles deep and a mantle supporting 14 of the coveted Blues Music Awards, so far, and his tune “Big Mouth” (hear here) has racked up more than 7 million hits on Spotify. So far. But the real deal comes in the form of his live show. Be there.

Late breaking news: Famed guitarist Jimmy Vivino, ex-of Canned Heat and also Conan O’Brien’s musical right-hand hipster, was announced as a special guest on the date.

Botany and Ivories

Katya Grineva performing in Lotusland’s Theater Garden | Photo: Josef Woodard

A funny and entrancing thing happened in the middle of the picturesque Theater Garden of the fantastical garden wonderland that is Lotusland recently. Suddenly, a Steinway grand piano appeared in the makeshift “stage” area of this dreamy, mostly ceremonial theater setting, and a fine New York–based pianist, Katya Grineva, was on hand to give a recital of mostly classics on a spring afternoon.

She was flanked by the family of stone gargoyles, who seemed duly serenaded. And in keeping with the nature of music in the outdoors culture (as Ojai Music Festival goers can attest to), there were ambient sonic collaborators here, in the form of birdsong, traffic whir, and the occasional plane overhead.

Representing the first such public music concert on these grounds in a decade, “Music in Paradise: a Piano Concerto” was officially a fundraiser for the world-renowned garden — always a good cause — and for the small-ish gathering of listeners, it was somewhat consciousness-raising. As Grineva told the crowd, she sensed some synchronicity in the fact that she made her Carnegie Hall debut in 1993, the same year Lotusland opened its gates to the public.

Casual classical fans were in for a treat through her understated approach to items from the classical 101 syllabus — Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata, Debussy’s Clair de Lune, Schubert’s Ave Maria, and Ravel’s slow-mo crescendo exercise, Boléro. But she opened the proceedings with one of the few rarely played works on the program, nature-lover Hildegard von Bingen’s O Glistening Sunlight. Grineva scored another nature-centric note with the fluttering filigree of Liszt’s St. Francis of Assisi Preaching to the Birds.

Another lesser-known work this afternoon, Ravel’s A Boat on the Ocean, had a fluid, rumbling impressionist quality well suited to the surroundings. Its wave-like musical energy illustrates the title, suggesting a boat on the ocean.

Throughout, Grineva projected an assured artistry and sensitive touch, although a few of her denser runs were surprisingly fuzzy, with a breezy “good enough” factor disrupting the overall good impression of her recital. Classical music listeners of any seriousness in Santa Barbara are a spoiled bunch for the size of our town. Through the agencies of CAMA, UCSB Arts & Lectures, and other institutions, we are regularly treated to some of the finest classical artists in the world, such as the recent return of masterful pianist Yuja Wang. In classical culture here, mistakes in public can thus seem more egregious than they might seem elsewhere.

That said, though, the magical quality of the afternoon, in sight and sound, made us a forgiving bunch. All in all, the event was a special and lovely sight-sound rarity, and an idea whose time had come and will hopefully be repeated.

TO-DOINGS:

The very aptly-named new sensation of a jazz club called Grand on State — anchored by a stellar Steinway grand in a prominent spot on State — is fast becoming a buzzworthy spot. This Saturday, a late-breaking booking brings the new venue into the realm of a starring attraction-featuring address, with the arrival of jazz notables Tom Scott and Roger Kellaway.

See the story here.