GOINGS ON / SANTA BARBARA : Dancing Drums : San Jose Taiko had the beat back when few other Japanese drum groups performed for Western audiences.

What do you get when you cross the symbolic, traditional Japanese taiko (or drum) style with Latin, jazz and Afro-Cuban rhythms? You get San Jose Taiko, a music-dance-theater group from, where else, San Jose.

The group will perform at 8 p.m. Friday at UC Santa Barbara’s Campbell Hall.

When San Jose Taiko formed in 1973, it was just the third such Japanese drum group in the country. Now there are about 40 in the United States and Canada. “It’s really kind of developed over the past 15 years,” said Roy Hirabayashi, the group’s artistic director. “ Taiko in general has caught on.”

Because most of San Jose Taiko’s members are third-generation Japanese-American, the group doesn’t attempt to stick to the traditional form of drumming. Few of the members had any experience with taiko before they joined.

“Many members have visited Japan, but few have lived there,” Hirabayashi said. “Members joined the group for different interests--very strong traditional interests, very strong musical interests. We have engineers, teachers, people from different walks of life.”

San Jose Taiko is now on the college circuit. After its stop at UCSB, the group will visit Cal Poly Pomoma and UC Irvine. General admission for the show at UCSB is $16, $14 and $10. Call 893-3535 to reserve a seat.

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Continuing with the Japan-UCSB connection, the University Art Museum on campus will host a Japanese Family Day Festival from 1:30 to 4 p.m. Saturday. There will be demonstrations of Japanese crafts and martial arts as well as music and dance performances and displays of kites and kimonos. Tours of the museum’s flower basket and 19th-Century woodblock print exhibits will be given. Admission is $3 for adults and $2 for children. For more information, call 893-2951.

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Second City, the 33-year-old comedy ensemble that can boast of such former members as Gilda Radner, John Candy, John Belushi, Dan Aykroyd, Martin Short, Jerry Stiller and Anne Meara, among many others, has a national touring company. That company will wend its way to Santa Barbara’s Lobero Theatre for a show tonight at 8 p.m. The theater is located at 33 E. Canon Perdido. General admission is $17.50. Call 963-0761.

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The Santa Barbara Museum of Art’s tribute to British director Sir Carol Reed will continue tomorrow with a 7:30 p.m. showing of “The Third Man.” The 1949 movie, starring Orson Welles and Joseph Cotton, won an Academy Award for best photography and a grand prize at the Cannes Film Festival.

On Monday the film series will movie to UCSB’s Campbell Hall for a 7 p.m. showing of “Our Man in Havana.” On Wednesday it will be back to the museum for a 7:30 p.m. screening of “Oliver.” Nicholas Wapshott, political editor at the Observer of London and author of a biography on Reed, will introduce the films. Admission to each of the movies is $5. For more information, call 963-4363, Ext. 336.

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Pianist Roy Eaton will give what he calls a “Meditative Chopin” concert Friday night at the Side Street Cafe in Los Olivos. Eaton, a practitioner of Transcendental Meditation, apparently designed the program as a way of looking into the spirituality of Chopin’s work. Eaton will also play some Scott Joplin tunes. The concert will begin at 8:30 p.m. The cafe is located at 2375 Alamo Pintado. Admission is $8 and reservations are recommended. Call 688-8455.

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Former California Angels and Chicago White Sox organist Shay Torrent will perform American folk songs at a patriotic concert Saturday night at Westmont College. The college’s vocal and instrumental ensembles will join in with marches by John Phillip Sousa, folk songs by Stephen Foster, works by Aaron Copland, Dixieland jazz, barbershop harmony and spirituals. Apple pie, cider and popcorn will be served. The show will begin at 7:30 p.m. in the college’s Murchison Gymnasium. Admission is $5. The school is located at 955 La Paz Road. For more information, call 565-6040.

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Bernadette Millet of Bernadette’s Restaurant in Montecito and Jean Pierre Lemanissier of Antoine’s in Newport Beach will be the chefs Monday night at a benefit dinner for the Central Coast Foster Parent Assn. The six-course gourmet French dinner will be held at Restaurant Bernadette’s, 1155 Coast Village Road. Tickets are a tax-deductible $125. For more information, call 969-1456 or 967-1777.