Been a long time since the rock ‘n’ roll, for Robert Plant, and that’s not a bad thing. In his high-flying, high-singing youth, the Led Zep lead singer played the role of the hedonistic hero, the shirtless wonder who reached the high notes and repped youthful abandon in collusion with riff-meister genius Jimmy Page. At his certain age and seasoning, Plant is continuing a respectable second wind life as an Englishman squarely landed in the upper reaches of so-called Americana.
At the Arlington last week, with his project Saving Grace, Santa Barbara caught wind of the latest chapter in that Americana adventure, a logical evolution from his liaisons with Alison Krauss (heard at the Bowl in 2008 and 2022) and Patti Griffin (at the Bowl in 2011). His current female vocalist kindred soul is the gifted Suzi Dian, who intertwines beautifully with the un-Led-ed rock star. She is a wondrous singer, as heard on her gorgeous take on Gillian Welch’s “Orphan Girl” and many other songs, and unpretentious presence on stage — with the added bonus of wielding the mighty and unjustly underrated accordion!
Plant joked that they had adopted the nickname as the band “from the land of ice and snow,” quoting the line from the Zeppelin tune “Immigrant Song.” On the Zep subject, just as he creatively repurposed and bluegrass-ified “Black Dog” with Alison Krauss at the Santa Barbara Bowl years ago, Plant gave us folk-fluent arrangements of not-necessarily greatest hits material from the Zep book — “Ramble On,” “Four Sticks” (with its hypnotic 5/4 measures), “Friends” (from their most acoustic album, III), and the somewhat drearier stuff of “Baby, I’m Going to Leave You,” as a set closer.
The setlist swerved between Plant tunes from his fascinating discography as a solo artist and such covers as the sweet ballad “It’s a Beautiful Day Today,” by Moby Grape, bearing the local angle of Peter Lewis’s Santa Ynez Valley residency. With this latest stellar project, Plant continues to climb his stairway to late-career fecundity. You can quote me on that.
Surfing the Fairytale
At a Jack Johnson concert, it takes a little village of nonprofit vendors to complete the picture. There they were at the Santa Barbara Bowl’s by-now-famous “Jerry Garcia Glen” (where insiders know to “rub the nub”). A friendly gathering of causes dear to Jack were set up in a not abrasive circle of activism.
“Friendly gathering,” on an epic scale, is the operative term for a Jack Johnson concert happening — especially at the Santa Barbara Bowl before a Santa Barbara–centric crowd. As expected, Johnson and his allies — longtime cohorts keyboardist Zach Gill, drummer Adam Topol, and bassist Merlo Padlewski — sent shout outs to the component ‘hoods and villages making up our fair city/county.
This was a culmination, in a sense, of a big year in which Johnson has been riding the wave of an epic, global SURFILMUSIC tour celebrating the release of a very fine documentary on his saga thus far. We caught a teasing preview of the film at the Arlington a year ago, then a full screening with performance attached, at the Lobero before their tour launched in earnest. Somewhere in the middle, there was Johnson, appearing in a glowing story in The New York Times — in the “Style” section (link here), keying off of his veritable status as a new kind of “hopecore” lifestyle guru. The headline: “Stressed? Overwhelmed? Have You Tried Being Jack Johnson Instead?”
Last Saturday night’s Bowl show, opened by old pal G. Love — with open-tuned guitar; kinder, gentler country blues style; and good vibe-spreading ways — felt like a hopecore homecoming. Right up to the cusp of the Bowl’s 10 p.m. curfew, the band ended fittingly with “Better When We’re Together.” Jack and Co. gave us another hometown lovefest, a bath of warm fuzzies to ward off the evils of the “outside” world in progress, for a night. (Speaking of which, don’t forget to vote!)
On the way home from the Bowl, it felt proper to swing by Roy, the legendary eatery and music hang zone, which is sadly leaving us at the end of the year, after being nestled at 7 West Carillo Street since 1991. This was the spot where a fledgling Johnson cut his teeth before he became the Jack Johnson. And yet, thankfully, that guy is still with us.
On Grand on State
Good things continue to happen at Santa Barbara’s young jazz club experiment, The Grand on State, and the agenda has included strong contenders in the singer contingent. From the local pool, the list includes Lois Mahalia, Teka, Leigh Vance, Shawn Thies, and more. This Friday, October 9, the jazz vocal art gets a boost with the arrival of Los Angeles-based vocalist Janis Mann, with a special tribute to jazz vocal legend Carmen McRae, part of the club’s ongoing “visiting artist” series.
Mann’s career has found her in the company of such known names as Dianne Schurr, Ernie Watts, Roy Haynes, Peter Erskine and pianist Tamir Hendelman (coming to the Grand on October 16 with a Bill Evans tribute, incidentally). For a taste of her gift and sensitivity, check out her latest release, a duet aptly called Piano & Voice (hear here), with the fine veteran pianist Kenny Werner. At the Grand, she will be joined by Andy Lanham, piano, Lyman Medeiros, bass and drummer Steve Hass.
TO-DOINGS:
Santa Barbara has been pretty and privileged to see piano virtuoso Lang Lang from a seminal stage in his whirlwind career. No longer a precocious young wonder, the 44-year-old Chinese-born pianist makes one of his returns to town, Friday, October 9, at the Granada, as a fully grown and fully maturated artist, under the auspices of UCSB Arts & Lectures. His program heads down the middle of the standard repertoire, with Mozart, Beethoven and Liszt, and with turns towards things Spanish with Isaac Albéniz and Enrique Granados.
Santa Barbara Chamber Players, an up-and-coming new addition to the local classical ensemble scene, opens its season on Saturday, at Trinity Lutheran Church. On tap as the main event is Shostakovich’s Cello Concerto in E-flat, with Santa Barbara-based cellist Jakub Omsky in the soloist hot seat, and Westmont-based conductor Daniel Gee on the podium. Also on the program are Fanny Hensel’s Overture in C major and Mozart’s Symphony No. 40 in G minor.
Fans of bluegrass of the newgrass kind, who no doubt flocked to this week’s Punch Brothers show at Campbell Hall, are encouraged to mark calendars for this Friday, October 9, and the appearance of the hot young band AJ Lee and Blue Summit
Final Thoughts
It was sad to hear about the passing of Marcy Pauline Eckberg Tuttle, an always kindly and faithful usher at the Lobero Theatre and other venues around town — and therefore one of the peripheral cultural stars in our midst. The Iowa-born (go Iowa!) Tuttle made it to 95 years of age, and as mentioned in her obit last week, she was fond of a quote from her grandmother: “It’s a good life if you don’t weaken.” We’ll buy that, as we mosey toward the November election.
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