A TASTE FOR GUMBO AND COUNTRY : Los Lobos and Jimmie Dale Gilmore Will Top Off an Interesting Sampling of Sounds

Los Lobos and Jimmie Dale Gilmore are the top names on this year’s Taste of Orange County music roster. There’s strength elsewhere in the lineup, too, as Taste presents an interesting array of national acts and local performers in jazz, rock, country and R&B.;

Los Lobos, which headlines at 9:30 p.m. on Friday, has long been one of the most diverse and accomplished bands on the roots-rock scene. In recent years, it has become one of the most restlessly adventurous in a genre where established performers are prone to stay with what’s tried and true. The 1992 “Kiko” album, and this year’s avant-garde “Latin Playboys” offshoot by Lobos David Hidalgo and Louie Perez, are evidence of that. While Hidalgo and Perez gain acclaim for their experimentation, it shouldn’t be forgotten that the band’s other singer-songwriter, Cesar Rosas, is one of the best writers of modern blues songs of the past 10 years.

Gilmore, who plays Sunday at 4:30 p.m., is a Texas singer-songwriter who combines a deep sense of country and rock tradition, an unforgettable voice, and a highly philosophical outlook informed by a long immersion in Hindu thought. Forget Garth Brooks and the other zillion-selling Nashville formula-mongers--if you value country music with a distinctive vision, Gilmore’s two most recent albums, “After Awhile” and “Spinning Around the Sun,” are as good as it gets.

Also notable on the Taste schedule is Craig Chaquico, the former Jefferson Starship guitarist who switched gears last year and came up with a lyrical album of mainly acoustic guitar instrumentals. Guitarist Norman Brown’s new funk-jazz album, “After the Storm,” is the first release on Motown Records’ new subsidiary label, MoJazz. Boy Howdy, a Los Angeles-Orange County band, has made a national splash lately with its rocked-up country music. The program also gives such solid Orange County club attractions as Missiles of October, the Derek Bordeaux Group, the Mike Reilly Band and oldies meister Greg Topper a chance to stretch out on bigger bandstands than usual.