Reed All About It

If Vinny Golia didn’t exist, the cultural left end of Southern California’s music scene would be a poorer place. For more than 20 years, the multi-reed player and all-purpose cultural lightning rod has performed and recorded with numerous groupings of his own, in addition to supporting new music endeavors. Increasingly, he has gained international renown in avant-garde circles, but he always comes home again.

Golia has been a fairly regular visitor to Ventura County in recent years. Whether appearing in others’ groups--as he did with Jeff Kaiser’s Double Quartet and various musicians in Art City blowouts--or on his own turf as a leader, Golia can be counted on for improvisational heat and free thinking. Hear his septet Saturday at Ventura City Hall, the start of the 1999 Ventura New Music Concert Series. The series has brought notable experimental and improvisational figures to town, under the auspices of the organization known as pfMENTUM, steered by Kaiser and Keith McMullen.

Golia has headed his Nine Winds label since 1977, releasing albums by a huge array of mostly West Coast-based musicians, and has taken up the independent-label cause with a crusader’s zeal. The latest release in his formidable discography is “Lineage,” with a quartet featuring the veteran, and venturesome, trumpeter Bobby Bradford, another respected jazz die-hard who has proudly called L.A. home.

In Ventura, Golia’s chamber-esque group will include cellist Guinevere Mischam, keyboardist Wayne Peet, trumpeter John Fumo, reed player Eric Barber, drummer Alex Cline, bassist Steuart Liebig and Golia on his usual mobile wardrobe of assorted reed instruments.

BE THERE

Vinny Golia Septet, at Ventura City Hall, 500 Poli St. Tickets are $7; 676-9660.

Worldly Sounds: The world came to Ventura last weekend when the seventh annual “Musics Alive!” series, put on by the New West Symphony, gathered its forces into a three-day mini-festival. The event closed with an enlightened bang Sunday afternoon at the Ventura Theater with “Indonesia Alive!,” featuring increasingly renowned American composer Lou Harrison.

But a strong, secondary theme looked to Argentina for inspiration, beginning on a light, festive note with “Tango Alive!” Friday night at the Pierpont Inn. The Argentine connection was enhanced with a sold-out chamber music concert Saturday night at Ventura City Hall.

For some reason, it took years for the series--which focuses on the common ground between world music traditions and contemporary music--to get around to Argentina. It’s an obvious choice as a global musical hot spot, especially given the meteoric rise of interest in the music of the great “king of nuevo tango,” Astor Piazzolla, since his death in 1992.

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At City Hall, we heard flutist Paul Fried and guitarist Randy Pile offer the four movements of Piazzolla’s “Historia del Tango”--very nicely played, if a bit lost in the reverberant acoustics from their perch halfway up the marble staircase. Pianist Eduardo Delgado closed the concert with Piazzolla’s “Adios Nonino,” played dynamically, if sometimes with an overheated emotionalism.

The reigning composer in Argentina’s art-music world in the 20th century, of course, was Alberto Ginastera. Although he spent most of his productive years in Europe, he never lost his link to his heritage, blending Argentine folk influences with modernist leanings. Delgado offered a wonderful expressive reading of Ginastera’s “Danzas Argentinas, Opus 2” of 1937: now tender, now spiced with little nuances of post-tonal musical thought.

To the side of these Argentine titans, we also heard songs of the more mild-mannered composer Carlos Guastavino. Though lesser known outside his native country, Guastavino has written lovely music of simple romantic appeal, as heard in tenor Gabriel Reoyo-Pazos’ sensitive treatments of five songs. For an encore, Fried and Pile played a piece by the non-Argentine Jacques Ibert. The focus got fuzzy, but the generous spirit prevailed.

“Musics Alive!” remains one of the more rewarding ongoing events of the Ventura County cultural scene, and the festival model may help reduce the sense of fragility in such specialty endeavors. Long may it fly.

Flutes in the News: Famed flutists are coming to the area this week, revolving around the more-or-less annual appearance of Jean-Pierre Rampal in these parts, at the Thousand Oaks Civic Arts Plaza on Sunday. The Camerata Pacifica, that bold chamber music organization led by flutist Adrian Spence, is sponsoring the event and supplying musicians.

Clearly, the flute, that often understated instrument, is out front for this occasion. Along with Spence, noted New York-based flutist Ransom Wilson and David Shostac, principal flutist of the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, will be on hand for multiple-flute pieces and showcase works from Rampal himself.

BE THERE

Jean-Pierre Rampal, at the Scherr Forum of the Civic Arts Plaza, 2100 Thousand Oaks Blvd. in Thousand Oaks, Sunday at 8 p.m. Tickets are $20-50; 961-0572.

Guitar Alert: Another notable show, in a week full of them, will be the recital by the acclaimed Cuban-born guitarist Manuel Barrueco at UC Santa Barbara’s Campbell Hall on Wednesday. Barrueco has distinguished himself, on record and in concert, as a commanding technician in the classical sense, with a taste for pop and jazz adaptations as well. Bach meets Lennon/McCartney meets Keith Jarrett, without apology.

BE THERE

Manuel Barrueco, at UCSB’s Campbell Hall, Wednesday at 8 p.m. Tickets are $12-$20; 893-3535.