Jazz Instrumentalists’ Flying V Doubles the Pleasure

The local jazz concert series known as “Ventura Vanguard Jazz Club” hit a high, slightly offbeat note last week with the presentation of Flying V. With its unusual instrumentation--two saxes, two basses and two percussionists--and its seamless blend of avant-garde and mainstream stances, the group made a captivating noise.

Certainly it was one of the creative highlights of the jazz year in Ventura County.

In such an odd configuration, balance and interactive sensitivity help. The group was sometimes reminiscent of Jack DeJohnette’s Special Edition, a notable two-sax band without a chordal instrument. Paul Carman and Kim Richmond are fine horn players, tapping into various niches of jazz, Carman leaning toward experimentalism and Richmond toward boppish phrases (as on his tune “Frames”) and lush balladry (on “If You Could See Me Now”). Bassists Chris Symer and Trey Henry, likewise, are musically multilingual, from free improv sections to foundational work and tight unison lines (as on Carman’s skittering “What’s He Doing in There?”). Drummer Kendall Kaye was the sensitive straight man to the manic yet ever-musical Brad Dutz’s percussion antics.

Like many bands, this group came together serendipitously. Two established Los Angeles-based trios were doing a doubleheader gig and decided to play together instead of consecutively. As heard in the intimate basement space of the Laurel Theater, it’s an idea worth pursuing, developing and recording.

Festival Continues: The 11-day Ventura Chamber Music Festival, which opened a week ago, reaches its zenith this weekend. Tonight’s concert may be the festival highlight, as celebrated Spanish pianist Alicia de Larrocha gives a solo recital at Ventura College. De Larrocha returns as a soloist with the Festival Orchestra, a concert that also includes music by Ventura’s John Biggs and Burns Taft. Ventura College teacher and composer Cesar Mateus will have a new work premiered Saturday afternoon at the Church of Religious Science in a program called “Improv, Mozart and Mateus.”

The Rossetti String Quartet returns Friday night at the Mission, joined by English clarinetist Gareth Davis. Camerata Pacifica will perform a sold-out Mother’s Day concert Sunday morning, and the Second Avenue Klezmer Ensemble performs Sunday evening.

* Ventura Chamber Music Festival, through Sunday. Alicia de Larrocha, Ventura College Theater, on Loma Vista Road between Ashwood Avenue and Day Road, 8 p.m. today. The Rossetti String Quartet, with Gareth Davis, San Buenaventura Mission, 211 E. Main St., 8 p.m. Friday. Festival Orchestra with Alicia de Larrocha, Ventura College Theater, 8 p.m. Saturday. Camerata Pacifica, Ventura City Hall, 501 Poli St., 11 a.m. Sunday, sold out. Second Avenue Klezmer Ensemble, Serra Center at San Buenaventura Mission, 7 p.m. Sunday. (805) 648-3146. www.vcmfa.org.

Apparitional Family Tree: Henrik Ibsen’s “Ghosts” is a family portrait with a dark undercoating. It’s what we don’t see that ultimately defines the work’s stealthy emotional power. In the current production at the Ojai Center for the Arts, running through this weekend, the staging is fittingly simple and stark. Christopher Jones’ one-room set conveys a house on a Norwegian fjord in the late 1800s, as a back story unfolds through tortured lives.

The living characters are few, along with the ghostly presence of a patriarch who succumbed to syphilis after a sordid history of philandering. The upright and uptight Pastor Manders (played with apt stiffness by Jesse Lovejoy, also the director) admonishes and manipulates Mrs. Alving (Catherine Dain), and her son Osvald (Arnold William Geer), an artist who has crawled home from Europe, vainly dreaming of “love of life.” In the periphery, with their own secrets to bear, are the young maid Regine Engstrand (Brook Masters) and her scalawag of a “father” (Ron Rowe, lovably despicable).

Among the themes threading through the play are indictments of socially acceptable hypocrisy and repression, as well as the obstinacy of a less-than-savory fam- ily lineage, “the sins of the father visited upon the child.” Take away its moral implications and period piece specifics, and we’re still left with a hypnotic lament on its own dramatic terms, emerging intact in this admirable production.

* “Ghosts,” Ojai Center Center for the Arts, 113 S. Montgomery St., Friday and Saturday, 8 p.m. $12, general; $10, senior citizens and Art Center members. (805) 640-8797.

Art About Culture: The annual “De Colores” art show, at the California Oil Museum in Santa Paula, has expanded this year, giving a broader, too-rare glimpse of aspects of Latino life and culture.

Xavier Montes’ paintings of farm workers being visited by chummy skeletons convey easy mordant humor, while Gail Pidduck shows dignified portraits of farm workers in toil. Michele Flores’ “Ophelia” finds a woman floating in a body of water and a 19th century legacy of mystery. The photography segment ranges from Eugene Huguez’s candid shots of Carlos Santana and Cesar Chavez to Arturo Perez’s imagery of Mexico.

* “De Colores” art show, California Oil Museum, 1001 E. Main St., Santa Paula. Ends May 19. Viewing hours: 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Wednesdays to Sundays. (805) 933-0076.