Charles Lloyd Returns to the Lobero as Santa Barbara's Musical Autumn Peaks

Charles Lloyd, 88, returns to the Lobero Theatre on Thursday with a band featuring guitarist Bill Frisell, bassist Larry Grenadier and drummer Kweku Sumbry. The saxophonist has spent the year touring festivals, including a featured September slot at the Monterey Jazz Festival marking the 60th anniversary of his live album Forest Flower — recorded on that same stage. He closed his Monterey set with the title tune and, as one observer noted, seemed to linger on the coda, not wanting it to end.

2026 carries another Lloyd anniversary with a local hook. Twenty years ago, his trio with tabla master Zakir Hussain and drummer Eric Harland recorded the album Sangam live at the Lobero, engineered by Dom Camardella of Soundesign for ECM Records. This year Lloyd released Sangam & Friends, a tribute to Hussain, who died in 2025; the record includes a live track from a 2014 Lobero concert.

What does a father-daughter recital tell us about Brazilian music?

Sérgio and Clarice Assad played Campbell Hall last week as part of the UCSB Arts & Lectures series, framing a selective history of Brazilian culture through song. Sérgio, half of the renowned guitar duo with his brother Odair, and Clarice — a vocalist, pianist and increasingly performed classical composer — opened with Ismael Silva's "Se Você Jurar" and worked through Luiz Bonfá's "Menina Flor," Hermeto Pascoal's "Bebê," Jobim's "Chega de Saudade," João Bosco's "O bêbado e o equilibrista" and Sérgio's tribute to his wife, "Angela."

The family thread ran through the evening. "It is such a pleasure to be onstage with my daughter. I spent 60 years in life playing with my brother…" Sérgio said early in the show. Clarice interjected: "So the next 60 years will be with me." Sitting at the piano, she played the guitar's open strings — EADGBE — and added: "I've had this sound in my head since I was a child. It's the sound of my life." The set moved through Milton Nascimento's "Cravo e Canela," Piazzolla's "Yo Soy Maria" and Carlos Lyra's "Influencia do Jazz," closing with an encore pairing of Jobim's "Corcovado" and Gershwin's "The Man I Love."

Clarice Assad's local footprint is growing. Camerata Pacifica gave the world premiere of her Petite Suite for accordion and chamber group, and her music appeared at the Lobero last year with the Sphinx Ensemble.

Where does the Folk Orchestra Santa Barbara go next?

Into its milestone 10th season's second phase, with Scottish music at three venues this weekend: Trinity Episcopal Church, St. Marks-the-Valley in Los Olivos and the Presidio Chapel. Leader Adam Phillips — whose season opener reworked '60s pop, including "Paint It Black" on bagpipes and Josh Jenkins's Mohan veena (a Hindustani slide guitar) — arranges "Skye Boat Song," "Scotland the Brave," "Loch Lomond" and new music by Galen Fraser, son of the celebrated Scottish fiddler Alasdair Fraser, a past visitor to the group.

What else fills the calendar?

• Opera Santa Barbara opens its three-opera season with Verdi's Rigoletto at the Lobero: Friday night, Sunday afternoon and the following Tuesday.
• The Music Academy of the West's "Mariposa" series continues with "Humor and Harmony," pairing MAW alum cellist Nicholas Canellakis ('01) with pianist-composer Michael Stephen Brown, including Canellakis's short film My New Cello.
• SOhO hosts Santa Barbara Acoustic's 10th-anniversary season Monday with guitarist Alexandr Misko and Forest Bailey; the Santa Barbara Jazz Society's Sunday session features pianist Jeremy Siskind and vocalist Lia Booth.
• Tuesday brings the Tannahill Weavers, the Scottish band from Paisley, running 58 years and praised by the New York Times as "an especially eloquent mixture of the old and the new."
• Trinity Episcopal Church's Music at Noon series (Friday, 12:15–12:45) offers "Vocal Motets from the Renaissance to the Present" with organist Thomas Joyce and singers Becky Hoffman, Jennifer Johnson and Holly Hoffman.

With Lloyd anchoring the week and the opera season launching, Santa Barbara's autumn harvest of music runs at full tilt for at least another couple of weeks.