The Los Angeles Times from Los Angeles, California • Page 319

B4 i FRIDAY, APRIL 13, 2001 VC LOS ANGELES TIMES Thursday: Family Jaunts, Theater Notes Friday! Pop Scene, ClassicalJazz Saturday: Sights, Page Turner Ventura County classical pop scene rn cAboiit jazz Double Feast for the Ears Ventura Chamber Music and Ojai festivals are coming up, featuring sounds of Bach and the Americas. rt I At Home in the Spotlight i'y SMlilJl'J, film''- I rrf: Ojai pop vocalist Perla Batalla will give a concert for the neighbors. ByBILLLOCEY SPECIAL TO THE TIMES I've been here for years and I've seen it all and I think it's getting better. I love the fact there's some new, young, edgy stuff coming out. I like the cutting-edge stuff.

So I'm real excited about it and I think it's only going to get better, and Ojai is becoming quite a musical community. Music, theater, art that's why I'm here. Who goes to a Perla show? All sorts of people. All walks of life. It's really amazing I get teenagers and I get 80-year-olds.

What's the most misunderstood thing about you? That I'm like a little Mexican peasant woman. If people think that's where I'm coming from, then they have a lot to learn. DETAILS Perla Batalla at the Zalk Theatre, 8585 Highway 150, Ojai; 7:30 p.m. Saturday; $15; 677-5450. By JOSEF WOODARD SPECIAL TO THE TIMES The county's two big music festivals are looming on the horizon, and both have unveiled their plans.

The emphasis will be on Bach at the estimable Ventura Chamber Music Festival, running May 3 through 13, while the world-renowned Ojai Festival, set for May 30 through June 3, should be chock-full of contemporary treats, as usual. "Transcendent Bach" is the official title of this year's Chamber Music Festival. Although it's a little late for last year's 250th anniversary of Bach's death, we're not complaining. Bach is timely any time. Edward Murray will play the Goldberg Variations on harpsichord, and a performance of Bach's mass in minor, conducted by choral director Vance George, will be heard May 12 at the Ventura Theatre.

But Bach is only a small part of the festival news. Performers will include guitarist Pepe Romero, in recital and as a guest with the Rosetti String Quartet; a return visit by pianist Christopher O'Riley; the Empire Brass; pianist Bryan Pezzone; and others. The Sunday afternoon finale will bring lighter Latin material from noted guitarist Romero Lumbambo, percussionist Cyro Baptista and flutist Paula Robison. Meanwhile, the Ojai Festival looks like another feast. Esa-Pekka Salonen, maestro of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, returns to the helm for his second time.

Two years ago, in his debut as music director, Salonen focused on the music of his native Finland. This year, the focus turns broadly regional, with music of the Americas. The program includes works by the late, great Mexican composer Silvestre Revueltas, Brazil's Villa-Lobos, Cuba's Tania Leon (whom we heard and saw in Ventura last year as part of the "Musics Alive!" festival), as well as North American Aaron Copland. Guest performers will include soprano Dawn Upshaw, Cuarteto Latinamericano, pianist John Crossley and a tribute to Jobim with bossa nova legends Oscar Castro Neves and Dory Caymmi. John Adams, North America's premier composer of the moment, will be on hand for a symposium, and noted New York Times critic Paul Griffiths will lead "chalk talks." All in all, the festival forecast is blue skies.

DETAILS For more information on the Ventura Chamber Music Festival, call 648-3146 or check out www.vcmfa.org. For more information on the Ojai Festival, call 646-2053 or check out www.ojaifestival.org. In Search of Good Vibes: To find the jazz vibist Charlie Shoemake these days, you can visit your local music store, if it's well stocked, or your favorite online outlet. Or, on almost any Sunday afternoon, you can head up to Cambria, where he runs the jazz concert series at a beach-side restaurant called the Hamlet. It began in 1991, soon after the Texas-born Shoemake and his vocalist wife, Sandi, moved to the sleepy town just north of Mono Bay.

On Tuesday, you can hear Shoemake and his quartet, including guitarist Bruce Forman, when they play at SOhO in Santa Barbara. It's part of a Southern California tour promoting Shoemake's latest album, "Land's Shoemake came to Los Angeles as a young, aspiring pianist who had played vibes in high school. He returned to vibes with the help of famed vibist-pianist Victor Feldman. The Shoemakes lived in Los Los Angeles Times Guitarist Pepe Romero will play at Ventura Chamber Music Festival. Angeles for three decades, working in the jazz scene including a seven-year stint in George Shearing's group starting in the mid-'60s.

"There was so much opportunity and so much action in the '50s," Shoemake said. "It just continued to deteriorate. I had gotten lucky because I'd gotten the thing with Shearing in the '60s. At that time, the best thing for a young player was to get with an old star. You were protected that way." By 1990, Shoemake said, "there really wasn't anything else for me to do in Los Angeles.

I had gotten as much recognition as I was possibly going to get. The jazz scene is not great in LA. Actually, it's a little better now." Then came Cambria. "Luckily, Sandi and I made some nice investments and we got to a point where we didn't need music for an income," Shoemake said. The "Famous Jazz Artist Series at the Hamlet" includes Harold Land, who will appear May 6.

Shoemake's career has the marks of a self-starter. He seems to have done it his way. "I'm probably the only Republican jazz musician around," he said, laughing. "I am into the idea of doing it yourself, and not expecting any help from anybody. old cliche of the American work ethic is work harder than your competitors and you'll do great." DETAILS Charlie Shoemake with Bruce Foreman at SOhO, 1221 State Santa Barbara; 8 p.m.

Tuesday; Season's Close: The Lobero Theatre's first official season of jazz concerts comes to a close tonight with the local debut of one of the finest jazz singers on the scene, Shirley Horn. To call her a singer is only part of the story, in that Horn's style is tightly integrated with her subtle sensibilities as a pianist. Horn is living proof that life can begin after 50. She took years off from the music scene to raise a family and came back in the '90s with a series of popular albums, including the hot-selling "Here's to Life" in 1992. Her gentle yet powerful song-interpreting skills were apparent to Miles Davis, who supplied a trumpet cameo on Horn's 1990 album, "You Won't Forget Me," shortly before his death.

Horn, in turn, made an impressive Miles tribute album in 1998, "I Remember Miles," which earned a Grammy. Her new one, "You're My Thrill," reunites her with arranger-songwriter Johnny Mandel, who also did the honors on "Here's to Life." DETAILS The Shirley Horn Trio at 8 tonight at the Lobero Theatre, 33 E. Canon Perdido Santa Barbara. Tickets are 963-0761. Josef Woodard, who writes about art and music, can be reached by e-mail at Jotlnfoaol.cofn.

Santa Barbara's favorite green-thumbed rocker, Spencer the Gardener, will play tonight at Nicholby's in Ventura. Spencer Barnitz offers his own brand of "spy movie music from the beach." This will be his first local appearance in four months. Barnitz has been making original danceable rock pretty much since he graduated from Santa Barbara High School, including stints in groups such as All Night Longo, the Tan and the Wedding Band before forming STG in 1989. In its prime a few years ago, STG toured up and down the California coast from San Diego to the Bay Area, selling CDs and selling out shows. One of the few Santa Barbara bands that made a dent in Ventura, STG's shows at Charlie's in the early '90s were legendary.

"What happened is that the Wedding Band and Spencer the Gardener have merged," Barnitz said. "We've never really gone away we've just been playing parties here and there, but not really much in Santa Barbara. So with the two of them mixed together, it's sort of like a rhythmic army." a ton of money. We're just driven to do this enough so we can all hang out together and have a really great time. Unlike several other musicians we both know, sounds as If you have achieved perspective.

Yeah, and that to me is great success. If you can do that and live a life where you just eat great food and hang out with your friends that's what it's all about. In the summer, we hang out in the backyard a lot having barbecues. How many Perla albums are there so far, and how does the new one fit In? Three. It's not different because for me, recordings are a good sort of snapshot of who you are at a given moment and what your beliefs are.

And this is just in keeping with how I've hopefully grown as a person. When did you know you wanted to be a singer? All my life. My father is a singer he was a mariachi singer. So there wasn't much chance you were going to go Into banking? Well, you know, I tried everything. I went to law school and did really well; then a friend of mine from Harvard told me, "Please don't go to law school.

Pursue your music career now because when you're 60, law school will 'I went to law school and did really well; then a friend of mine from Harvard told me, "Please don't go to law school. Pursue your music career now because when you're 60, law school will still be there." PERLA BATALLA Ojai-based singer, above still be there." And when you're young, that's when you have to pursue the career because you need that kind of energy. How did you meet Leonard Cohen? My big break and the opening of everything was meeting Leonard Cohen, and that was thanks to Julie Christensen. They had auditioned everyone in L.A., then she suggested calling me. I went in to meet Leonard and it was really funny because he, of course, was dressed in black from head to toe, and I came in dressed in white from head to toe.

We immediately fell in love with each other and the rest is history. During my audition, we all sang and sang and sang and I thought to myself, "Even if I don't get this gig, this is the most fun I've had in a long time." That was in 1988, and I'm still working with Leonard. And you sang with Iggy Pop? Tell me an Iggy Pop story. I sang on the soundtrack for "Black Rain," and at the time I was touring with Don Was of Was (Not Was), and Don said he was going to work with Iggy and asked me if I wanted to sing backup. So we flew in and did that, and he's a great guy.

He is who he is with no apologies, and I love that. Describe Perla music. It's hard for me to describe my own music, but it's been described as world pop music that has a lot of spirituality attached to it. What do you think of the local music scene? Perla Batalla, she of the angelic voice, will make a rare local appearance Saturday night at the intimate Zalk Theatre on the campus of Happy Valley School in Upper Ojai. Batalla will be backed by her usual stellar cast of musicians as she attempts to sell you a copy of her latest album, "Heaven and Earth." Batalla has been a singer pretty much her whole life, performing with all sorts of people, including the Gipsy Kings and Iggy Pop, but her big break was when her friend Julie Christensen introduced her to singer Leonard Cohen.

She toured with him for many years (and still does occasionally) before moving from the sidelight to the limelight. Along with her writing partner, David Batteau, Batalla has been successful as an independent artist and regularly tours nationwide. This is her first local show in quite some time. The Ojai-based singer had stories to tell during a recent phone interview. Tell me about this show at the Zalk Theatre, a place no one who's not from OJal can ever And.

It's in Upper Ojai. It's kind of poorly marked, but all the people around here know where it is because of the Beatrice Wood mailbox the big pink mailbox. There are no lights, that's the problem, but I think there's going to be a banner out there. I've got a great group of musicians that I work with, such as Deborah Dobkin, David Batteau, Kevin McCormick and Greg Leisz, who plays with k.d. lang and Joni Mitchell, and Karen Hammack, who usually plays with Julie Christensen.

How does a person make a living as a musician here? Because all my touring is done not here. I just got back from Philadelphia, where I did a concert for 900 people, and a couple of weeks ago I was at Royce Hall and played for 2,000 people. Those are the types of concerts I do normally. And Ojai's great it's a great place to come home to it's really nice. How often do you hit the road? Since I have a 6-year-old daughter, I don't leave for any more than three or four days at a time.

The next time I go on the road is in May, and I'm going to do six dates in four days. So how does this work? Are you getting airplay or what? Well, my first record, "Meztiza," got a lot of airplay from NPR stations, and Amazon.com supported it and voted it best independent release of 1999. That was great because then through Amazon, I got all this marketing support, and their Advantage Program, which is for independent artists, is a great tool for people like me who are doing it on their own. Ever since then, it's been pretty steady. I travel all year round I'm touring but with a lot of thought about being home when I need to be.

That way, I don't overlap my husband Claud's shooting schedule. He's an actor who goes and shoots in Burbank every six weeks. So we have calendar meetings to be sure we don't overlap, and that way we can handle parenting and our careers. So It can be done? It can be done, yeah. Also, we're not driven by the idea that we're doing this for fame and DETAILS Spencer the Gardener at Nicholby's, 404 E.

Main Ventura; 10 p.m. today; 653-2320. There's certainly a viable option to writing a hit song and becoming a rock star for your 15 minutes of fame. New York folk-singer Priscilla Herdman considers herself a "song-finder," which means she's an interpretive singer whose repertoire spans centuries and continents. She will be at the Ojai Valley Woman's Club on Tuesday night in her first local appearance in a dozen years.

Herdman has recorded eight solo albums since 1977 and chooses her material, both traditional and contemporary, for all the right reasons strength of the lyrics, beauty of the melody and grace of spirit. One reviewer marveled at her "elegant, pitch-perfect voice." Herdman will accompany herself on acoustic guitar. DETAILS Priscilla Herdman at the Ojai Valley Woman's Club, 441 E. Ojai 7:30 p.m. Tuesday; $10 advance or $12 at the door; 646-5163..