Library Concert Series Ends on a Blue Note

Just drop him anywhere and he’s ready to play, John Hammond maintains, though the bluesman does own up that there are some gigs he enjoys more than others.

Last summer, for example, he was floored, he said, by the rapt attention and warm response his shows received at the San Juan Capistrano Regional Library, and he sounded truly dismayed that his Saturday appearance will be the last scheduled show there.

His show caps, for the present, a richly varied Multicultural Arts Series created and coordinated by librarian Jose Aponte, who is leaving to become director of the West Palm Beach Public Library in Florida. His departure has prompted cancellation of scheduled shows in the series and cast some doubt on its future.

Under Aponte’s leadership, the series averaged 25 shows a year during its five years--including adventurous bookings of African and South American music--and the county will be poorer culturally in its absence. Or, as Hammond put it, “What a drag. . . . Oh well, at least we’ll try to go out in style Saturday.”

Reached house-hunting in Florida, Aponte said he couldn’t bring himself to attend last Saturday’s performance at the San Juan Capistrano Library by Andean musicians Inkari. “I was on the verge of tears all night. It’s like losing a child.”

But unlike those in Orange County, he said, West Palm Beach officials are committed to supporting a “cultural renaissance” in the city. In Orange County last year, funding was dropped for the series, forcing Aponte and others to devote much of their energies to fund-raising and dealing with county bureaucracy. The county made no counteroffer to attempt to keep Aponte here.

Aponte said he’s confident the Capistrano program will get back on track, citing the abilities and drive of the program’s staff and Friends of the Library volunteers.

Sundarajan Mutialu, co-chairman of the Multicultural Arts Series Committee, said he hopes performances by African musician Obo Addy and Japanese drummer Kenny Endo will be rescheduled this summer, and the program will continue on at least a scaled-back basis. That hinges, he said, on the incoming (as yet unnamed) librarian, continued county and city approval, and the support of the community.

“This is a huge bump in the road, because this series was Jose’s dream,” Mutialu said. “But seeing the eyes of the little kids in the front rows at these shows, that’s reason enough for us to stick with this.”