UCLA Live’s New Season Has Quality Look

You can say this about David Sefton: He’s adaptable. After taking some strong hits--including some from this column--regarding the programming he devised for his first season as UCLA performing arts director, he has been quick to correct some of his earlier missteps by presenting a vastly improved UCLA Live schedule for the 2002-’03 season.

The jazz and world-music choices are distinct levels up from last year’s on-again, off-again selections. And, to give credit where credit is due, Sefton was correct when he noted at last week’s news conference that “we only had a few months to put that schedule together, and in the arts-presenting world, tours are often in place a year ahead of time.”

The problem with the 2001-’02 season, in fact, had less to do with quality than with quantity and emphasis. Arriving from a high-visibility London arts background that was strongly engaged with pop culture, Sefton’s initial approach to jazz and world-music scheduling led many to wonder whether UCLA’s historically strong association with these genres would be left behind or experience dramatic shifts in accent.

It didn’t help to alter that view when he opened the season by joining the Mingus Jazz Orchestra and artist-in-residence Elvis Costello in a shotgun marriage of disparate entities. Nor did the paucity of world-music artists and the seeming lack of promotional interest in their appearances seem to bode well for their future at UCLA.

But we can be thankful for adaptability. The 2002-’03 schedule restores both world music and jazz to prominent positions. And the choices--with one caveat--are generally first-rate, sometimes more than that.

The “more than that” category belongs to the Dave Holland Big Band (Oct. 3), perhaps the least high-visibility act on the schedule, but one with a great potential for creative payoff. There is also a largely successful effort to cover a wide range of stylistic areas in the lineup, ranging from Herbie Hancock (March 26) and Pat Metheny (Nov. 16) to Bireli Lagrene (March 13) and a group of musicians (Bebo Valdes, Eliane Elias, etc.) from the Latin-jazz documentary “Calle 54” (Oct. 10). Capping off the jazz schedule, there’s an appearance--look out for emotional fireworks--by eccentric jazz diva Nina Simone (March 7).

“We think that’s a big step forward from last year’s program,” says Sefton, “and a real indication of how we view the importance of jazz.”

In the world-music arena, similarly good choices prevail in a dramatic expansion of bookings, topped by appearances by Brazilian singer-songwriter Caetano Veloso (Oct. 29 and 30), the magical voice of Malian Salif Keita (Nov. 2), Senegalese master Youssou N’Dour (May 1), and cellist Yo-Yo Ma with the Silk Road Project (Nov. 1).

Other entries in the eclectic list of performers include Israeli folk singer Chava Alberstein (Oct. 1), legendary Cuban singer Pablo Milanes (Nov. 21), the Kodo drummers (Feb. 4-6), the Afro-Cuban All Stars (Nov. 14), Palestinian artist Simon Shaheen and Quantara (March 9), sitarists Vilayat Khan and Shujaat Husain Khan (May 8), the Orquestra Ibrahim Ferrer (April 1 and 2), the European klezmer band Kol Simcha (March 16) and a calypso evening featuring the Mighty Sparrow, Calypso Rose and David Rudder (Oct. 12).

That’s a strikingly impressive group of global artists. But let’s go back to that slight caveat mentioned above.

It’s this: What is missing in the programming for both genres is the sort of envelope-stretching, thematically expansive efforts that are in other areas of the UCLA Live calendar, especially dance and theater. Misguided though the combining of Costello and the Mingus orchestra may have been last year, it at least represented an attempt to bring some out-of-the-box thinking to the presentation of jazz.

More would be welcome. Sefton, with his European perspective, is surely aware of the existence of such innovative ensembles as Italy’s Instabile Orchestra, France’s Orchestra National de Jazz, Holland’s Willem Breuker Kollektief and Austria’s Vienna Art Orchestra (to name only a few), as well as the many fascinating performers who record for German’s ECM label. If UCLA (aided, one would hope, by the appropriate national consulates) can’t bring these compelling groups to American audiences, who can?

In this country, one doesn’t have to look any further than the artists who appear at Rocco’s cutting-edge jazz room in Hollywood or who are recorded locally by companies such as Cryptogramophone to find some fascinatingly inventive music. And if Sefton--who seems eager to bring younger listeners to UCLA programs--wants to expand that desire to jazz, all he has to do is check out the audiences who turn out for any appearances by, say, guitarist Charlie Hunter or the ensemble Medeski, Martin & Wood.

In world music, the 2002-’03 schedule already includes Tabla Beat Science, with its intriguing combination of Zakir Hussain and Ustad Sultan Khan with Bill Laswell and Karsh Kale. More of this mixing and matching would be welcome.

Sefton clearly has interest in all these areas, but he also pointed out that he has only now completed his first full season of programming, learning and building as he goes.

“We’re really only beginning,” he said. “But if we do it right, you can expect the next season to be another step forward.”

Let’s hope so. It’ll all depend on how his adaptability continues to hold out.

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Music Ed: Boston’s Berklee College of Music has been offering prime music education since the late 1940s, with a list of alumni that includes hundreds of artists, functioning in every area of the music business. Later this month, from July 21 to 27, Berklee in L.A. will kick off its 13th season at Claremont-McKenna College in Claremont. The program offers instrumental and vocal instruction, ensemble work, improvisation and harmony classes, performance opportunities, and faculty clinics to 250 young musicians (starting at age 15).

Local students who have passed through the program include tenor saxophonist Teodross Avery (‘95), who made his debut as a leader on the GRP label a few days before his 21st birthday; Kendrick Oliver (‘95), who formed the “New Life Orchestra” while he was still a Berklee student; and drummer Abe Laboriel Jr. (‘93), who performed recently on television with the bands of Sting and Paul McCartney.

Berklee in L.A. students have the opportunity to audition for scholarships to attend Berklee as full-time students. Since the Berklee in L.A. program began in 1990, the college has awarded more than $550,000 in scholarships to participants. The session wraps up on July 26 with a student “carnival” of events including a vocal cabaret, ensemble concerts and guitar concerts on the Claremont campus. Information: (909) 592-0500.

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H.M.I. Ed: The Henry Mancini Institute offers a vastly different summer program aimed at older, professionally active musicians, mostly in their 20s. This year, in its sixth installment, the Mancini Institute will be directed by musician-composer Patrick Williams. The season will be dedicated to Jack Elliot, founder and director of the organization, who died last summer.

The monthlong program provides scholarships to 84 musicians selected by audition from more than 15 countries and 55 cities in the U.S.. They will perform in a series of concerts at UCLA’s Royce Hall from July 27 through a final fund-raiser Aug. 17. Among the guest artists are bassists Christian McBride and John Clayton, clarinetist Eddie Daniels, organist Larry Goldings, trumpeter Randy Brecker, the Peter Erskine Trio, guitarist Lee Ritenour, pianists Billy Childs, Roger Kellaway and Dave Grusin, and flutist Hubert Laws. Information regarding the free concert series: (310) 845-1900 or www. manciniinstitute.org.