On Entertainment A Dreamer in Sound

by Steven Libowitz

Charles Lloyd reported that he wasn’t in good shape when we connected by phone last week. But it wasn’t a physical issue ailing the octogenarian saxophonist-composer who back in the late 1960s enjoyed one of the first million-selling jazz albums. It was a spiritual sadness after hearing that Wayne Shorter had died overnight.

“We were good friends and colleagues,” Lloyd said, recalling an hourslong jam session the two participated in an L.A. hotel, when both bands they belonged to were in town at the same time decades ago. “He was five years my senior, but he was younger than springtime, a genius with a big imagination and a big heart.”

While Lloyd’s fame was not as sustained or extensive as Shorter’s, the jazz great has carved out a more than respectable career that has seen him play with jazz artists of all ages over the years – emerging from the hilltop home in Montecito he has shared with his photographer wife Dorothy Darr for almost 40 years, with a new burst of creative energy at once contemplative and soulful.

Lloyd’s next hometown gig at the Lobero on Friday, March 10, celebrates his 85th birthday five days later as part of the theater’s 150th anniversary. Here’s an excerpt from our conversation:

Q. Does Shorter’s passing have you thinking of your own mortality?

A. We’re all just passing through. This is not our home – you can’t build a house on a bridge, and we could be called home at any time. So what I have to do is continue to live in the now and realize that I’m blessed to be a music maker in this lifetime. I’m aware of the temporality of so-called life on the planet, so I try to work on my character and work on my sound. I’ve got experience, but I still have that beginner’s mind, that Buddhist thing of being able to see the freshness all the time. I meditate and I try to stay out of folks’ way, and I like the quiet and solitude I have been blessed with here in the mountains where I can do my work. I’m motivated to continue to go deeper into my art form, which has been a quest all my life.

You’ve put together a special trio to play with for the concert at the Lobero. Some old friends in pianist Jason Moran and bassist Larry Grenadier, but also a new face in the great drummer Brian Blade, who has won Grammys during his time with both Chick Corea and Wayne Shorter.

It’s an amazing voyage to go on with Brian, who is probably the greatest living young drummer, an extremely sensitive percussionist. We’ve had mutual love and respect for each other over the decades but have never played together before. He’s flying in from Shreveport (just for the concert). It’s a very special formation, a holy group coming together for the night, which I think will be deep and quiet and sensitive. I’ve written lots of new music. Now it seems it will be dedicated to Wayne.

Playing at the Lobero has become almost an annual affair for you, and I know how much you love the history and acoustics. I’m imagining it has extra meaning to be playing there again.

I’m told that I played the Lobero more than any other artist, which really means something to me when you look at those photos in the green room of people who have performed there over the years. When I came out here (to California) from Memphis and New York, I thought that with the beauty of music, I’d be able to change the world. That was my dream … We’re more polarized than ever … but I’m still a dreamer in sound. So, I just try to bring forth some deep truths, these elixirs of the infinite, with love and gratitude and grace and humility, to share with falsely represent a government agency, and even a sheriff’s deputy could be subject to disciplinary action if he did so. And if the operation were approved by a legal authority, why attach to the camera’s tags saying they’re from Public Works?

Concerning the closing of Los Padres National Forest, a lot of local residents are either practicing civil disobedience or are unaware of the order. It’s going to be hard to keep them away from their cherished trails. For example, on any given day, quite a few hikers can be found on Cold Spring Trail and the Ridge Trail. No signs are at the beginning of these trails stating the forest is closed. People who took the Ridge Trail to get to the hot springs may have ended up being photographed in a pool of hot water, or in the act of undressing, and may not have been aware of it!

It’s sad that some people think they have the right and power to disrupt the lives of people who are seeking the healing power of nature.

After the hot springs became popular, residents in the area have been unhappy with hikers parking their cars in the vicinity of the trailhead and have illegally placed rocks in the public right-of-way.

The cameras may be an effort to scare people from using the trail.

Those residents have a lot of clout. Their actions have led to restrictive parking at the trailhead (two-hour parking during weekends, and parking lot closure at dusk), as well as county rangers being placed there. Cold Spring Trail and the Ridge Trail haven’t been a problem to them, and backpackers can still leave their cars overnight at the trailhead serving them. These busier trails have no rangers stationed explaining the forest is closed.

There are a lot of unanswered questions.

Bryan Rosen, Montecito

Don’t Rename ‘The Raft’

As a member of a five-generation Montecito family who has now become an “old-timer” Montecito resident, I have had to adjust to my old familiar places having their names changed:

The Coral Casino, formerly always called just “the Casino,” is now called “the Coral;” Montecito Union School is now called just “MUS,” and the long-standing Miramar Hotel is now often referred to as “Rosewood.”

But please, please, please new Montecito residents, don’t start calling the future new Miramar Hotel “swim platform” –which has always been, until recently, in the sea in front of the Miramar Hotel each summer for at least the past 80 years – anything but its long-time name: THE RAFT. This is its name, and it carries a proud history!

Thank you,

Sally Bromfield

Hot Take on the Hot Springs

It is good that the MJ questioned local authorities about the cameras at the hot springs, but the responses were very inadequate in my opinion. It is still unanswered why hidden cameras with fake I.D. tags were placed in a national forest in an area where nudity is known to occur. The response mentioned vague issues about water diversion, debris flows, and people building soaking “tubs.” The only water being diverted from the hot springs is by the Montecito Creek Water Company. Some people have moved around rocks at the hot springs to make a few pools. But those are only temporary in nature, as they are changed or obliterated when heavy rains come and large rocks are moved about. No damage is done to the environment by moving a few rocks to make pools.

Most of the article dealt with forest closure. It is high-handed and a power grab to order a public forest closed and is only the latest example of authorities using “health and safety” concerns to trample on people’s freedoms. The authorities are treating residents as children, and that is bad.

Clint Belkonen

Mystery on Butterfly Beach

I like to think of myself as a local history buff. I get my hands on as many local history books as possible and love reading about all the people and things that have come before me (I’ve got to thank Lost Horizons bookstore in the Upper Village for the constant supply of literature). It turns out that for an area with not too many people, plenty of surprising and fascinating things have happened here, and many interesting people have called the South Coast home.

That’s why I was surprised when I visited Butterfly Beach on Friday afternoon, March 3, to see something I don’t recall ever reading about. The beach’s destruction thanks to the recent storm was quite shocking, but it did reveal what seems to be the remains of an old pier or dock amongst the rocks.

I was even able to get up close to one of the pylons, which appeared to still be anchored in the ground, though bent. It had a rusted metal coating, with wood sticking out the end.

Very curious, upon arriving home I whipped out my trusty The Days of the Great Estates by David F. Myrick. Though the book has no information on Butterfly Beach specifically, it does have a map of the area from 1899 behind the front cover.

Although it was a bit squished right inside the book’s binding, I was delighted to see a pier marked right in the spot I had been standing on the beach! I think the letters are “P.D.” I have no idea what that refers to, and none of the other piers on the map (both Stearns and the grouping used for Oil Drilling in Summerland) are marked by any letters at all.

The words “Country Club” also appear above the pier, and I recall reading that there were golf links located in the area back then, though most of the course was just sand. I tried to find more information on the Internet, but typing in things like “Butterfly Beach Montecito History/ photos” just returns TripAdvisor and Yelp reviews. I did stumble upon Brad Bayley ’s website “Santa Barbara Vintage Photography,” which provides many great pictures of the Biltmore and Montecito Country Club back when they first opened, but alas, none of Butterfly Beach.

Looking again at The Days of the Great Estates , but this time to the back inner cover, there’s a map of the area in 1937. By this year, it seems, the pier had vanished.

I thought I might reach out to the readers of Montecito Journal for more information. Does anyone know about this mysterious piece of Montecito’s past, that existed from at least 1899 but was gone by 1937?

Sullivan Israel