Perla at TOCA

 

Perla Batalla Back to Beautiful Music Here and Now

 

     Music lovers are re-emerging from hibernation and venturing into the concert world once again. It feels so good to be back! There is a giddy joy when entering a place of music, feeling the awe of live sounds and the sight of other humans on stage and off. For me that meant a short trip to the under-rated Torrance Performing Arts Center and an amazing but cozy cabaret show by the brilliant singer Perla Batalla. The intimate George Nakano theater at TOCA is the perfect place for music with lyrics that matter and fine musicianship that the show possessed in plentiful supply.

   The concert was a fine sampler of the singer’s best stuff, drawing from albums and materials spanning several decades. There was “Cinema of Tears” and “Iberia” from the greatly lauded “Mestiza” record enhanced by the accompaniment of daughter Eva Batalla Mann who seems to have grown into a voice to match the mountains of her Mom’s Everest.  Perla has travelled the world singing and telling stories while glorifying the art of the great Leonard Cohen who she once sang with in his best years. She did him justice over and over at this show. Her reading of “Bird on the Wire” is perfection but the sweet surprises were a somewhat rocking “Aint No Cure for Love,” “the Partisan,” “Suzanne” and a duet of “Anthem” that showed the greatness of the poet. Batalla took no chances with a superb small ensemble including a terrific guitar/oud player Dimitris Mahlis, upright-bass man Mike Velasquez, renaissance gent/ percussionist Claud Mann and Karen Hammack on piano who could be a concert all on her own.

    You want divine singing, we heard that with a sublime “the Nearness of You,” Eva leading a percolating “I Can See Clearly Now” and a Mother’s Day hug to Perla’s dear Mom in “Gracias a La Vida” up tempo and out of sight as they used to say when I was young. Not that she needed it, but Perla had an Ace up her sleeve when she introduced a young man calling himself Bud Foster.  Foster may look rather angelic, but his music is from an old and grand tradition. As an aficionado of folk songs, I loved the sound from the first guitar chords of “Jack the Gambler” which continued into what I assumed to be “Bud Foster.” While this folk singer is very young, he has confidence when he opens his mouth to sing that belies his innocent countenance. His style is multiple parts Dick Gaughan, Martin Simpson, Ramblin’ Jack Elliot and maybe even a little Woody Guthrie. The voice is clear and strong while his guitar accompaniment is free from any vagaries. He continued with a Marty Robbins-worthy “Dark Eyed Senorita” and was joined by the generous Perla Batalla and Eva on a version of “Lo and Behold” that I would have paid cash for in the lobby had it been on sale.

      There was more and it was wonderful. Her fans will not allow the singer to deny them” Cucurrucucu Paloma” which she did while lowering the blood pressure of the entire room. You haven’t lived until you have heard this song live. The finale of the full compliment on stage “Hallelujah” with the help of a few enthusiastic audience members was a fitting farewell. Live music! So Good!