Judy Wexler

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JAZZ CHANTEUSE-ERIE: Jazz singer Judy Wexler has been warming up the Los Angeles scene, going back to the late ‘90s. After spending years in the theater and acting game, she slowly succumbed to the jazz muse, but fell in love deeply. It happens. Jazz can be a lifelong affliction, for listeners and artists alike, even when the money prospects are slim. Art will out.

On Monday, the impressive spate of jazz vocalists at SOhO this summer continues with Wexler’s Santa Barbara debut. Wexler recently released her second album, Dreams & Shadows (Jazzed Media), a follow-up to her 2005 debut, Easy on the Heart, and both albums project technical and emotional intelligence, and a stubborn and admirable will to avoid the obvious. On her new one, aided by pianist-arrangers Alan Pasqua and Jeff Colella, Wexler flirts with a few non-standard standards, and tastefully, but makes a stronger impact taking on Burt Bacharach’s “One Less Bell to Answer” or Elvis Costello’s aptly named anthem to romantic ambivalence “Almost Blue.” Mature and fully-assembled, Wexler is taking her rightful place in the ranks of strong jazz singers on the scene.

FRINGE PRODUCT: In a perfect world—the kind we’re not getting in this ontological go-round—quirky-but-catchy singer/songwriter Sam Phillips would be a star. Then again, the hopelessly artful Phillips has always been blessedly outside the inner circles of commercial pop music. Now comes her latest album, Don’t Do Anything (Nonesuch)—the first she produced herself after splitting up with husband/producer T-Bone Burnett. It’s one of her best yet, and a solid candidate for 2008 10-best lists. So much for the theory that female artists need a knowing male producer to push the right knobs and mouse buttons. There is Phillips on the cover, in her typical anti-cheesecake pose, in the bathtub, but fully dressed (including suit coat and tie) and gazing at us with a combination of bemusement and mild defiance.

Musically, Phillips is calmly on fire, stirring in her unabashedly Beatle-esque sense of melody and song structure (check out the 2:17-long snort of pop bliss “Little Plastic Life”) and embracing a sonic palette balancing both grungy sounds and The Section (we heard them here, at SOhO). On the title track, “Flowers Up,” and “Watching Out of this World,” to name a few, Phillips exercises her uncanny art of keeping lyrics and themes both vague and pointed. She’s a magician, still.

THIS WEEK ON THE ACADEMY AGENDA: Each summer, classical music lovers have to postpone seasonal siestas and vacation mode, thanks to the riches of the Music Academy of the West’s six-week festival. This year’s concert programming is unusually contemporary-leaning, partly thanks to the classical birthday calendar. The late, great Olivier Messiaen would have been 100 this year, and we’re hearing more of his music in the 805 than ever. His Quartet for the End of Time was performed both at the Ojai Music Festival and by the Music Academy, and other Messiaen music has been filtering into the Lobero Theatre. This music sounds and feels good in that room. This Saturday, the orchestral concert—led by the celebrated Nicholas McGegan—includes Messiaen’s Un Sourire, amidst W. A. Mozart, Robert Schumann, and Jacques Ibert.

On today’s schedule (Thursday, July 17), the renowned Takács Quartet, a regular MAW visitor, gives a free concert in the auditorium of the Santa Barbara Museum of Art at 2 p.m. and another performance tonight at the Lobero Theatre, with programs mixing the old school/old world sounds of Josef Haydn and Franz Schubert with the West Coast premiere of a new string quartet by James MacMillan. Not bad for a tourist town.

TO-DOINGS: It’s a good week for strong female-led bands at SOhO. Next Wednesday, Bay Area-based Blame Sally stirs up their honeycomb-harmonious folk-pop sound, from a happy nook of the Americana world. On Sunday, the Brooklynite sibling-driven act known as The Bowmans will appear. Their raw yet sweet and harmony-enriched folk-country sound is hard not to love on impact.

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