I paid my annual visit to the Orange County Classic Jazz Festival Sunday and was once again struck by the incredible reach of this country’s traditional music. Long a favorite with folks now in their golden years, for whom ragtime and jazz were the pop music of their youth, the classic songs are attracting some younger players apparently weary of three-chord rock and blues.
Among the usual small and mid-size California bands from Canoga Park, Cardiff, Claremont, Costa Mesa, La Jolla, Northridge, Pasadena, San Clemente, San Francisco and Three Rivers were two from New Jersey and one each from New York, Florida, Michigan and Virginia. But the American music’s reach extends to other continents: The New Wolverine Jazz Orchestra from Australia, the Siberian Jazz Band from Russia and Hot Antic’s six players from Rabat, Morocco and Nimes, France.
For the second year, Dan Levinson’s Eleven Sons of Rosy, an 11-piece band honoring the late Rosy McHargue, played two sets on Sunday based on McHargue’s original written arrangements and tapes.
“We, [trombonist] Keith Elliot and I, inherited a trunk full of charts for all the songs Rosy used to sing and play,” said reed player and arranger Levinson, who (along with cornetist Dick Miller and Elliot) was mentored by McHargue during the ’80s and ’90s. Levinson and Miller took time out to play in France during the early ’90s where they met Michel Bastide and Christian Lefevre of Hot Antic.
Typical of classic jazz’s appeal to younger musicians, and new to Levinson’s group this year, is 18-year-old vocalist Molly Ryan, who began her music career playing flute in her school band. Her interest in traditional jazz came from years attending the Sacramento Jubilee every May.
“My dad’s a sound engineer at the Jubilee,” she said. “And [pianist] Bob Ringwald taught me most of the songs.”
But opportunities for young people to play and sing in public are limited. For the past six years, Ryan has attended a weeklong summer jazz camp in Pullock Pines near Placerville.
“They give instruction on each instrument, and there are 10 bands with one instructor per band,” she said. “After playing all week with one band, there’s a big concert at the end.”
The jazz camp attracts top musicians like popular banjo player Eddie Erickson and bassist Westy Westenhofer, two players who bring extraordinary energy and humor to their teaching. Westenhofer came directly from the camp to Orange County to play with Levinson’s group Sunday.
The camp is produced by the Sacramento Traditional Jazz Society and directed by Bill Dendle. But just as funding for music instruction in schools is being cut by cash-strapped school districts bound to slash “nonessential” programs, scholarships to the jazz camp are also becoming scarce.
“There are only a few scholarships left for so many kids who want to go,” Ryan said. “They’re holding raffles at the jubilee to raise funds.”
Every year there are fewer of the old musicians still working who can teach from their years of experience playing in the famous big bands and jazz combos. As they are lost to the younger generation, opportunities to link up with mentors, like McHargue who was always so generous to new players, are fading.
And with fewer schools offering the experience of playing in a band or orchestra, there’s a long list of kids hoping for slots at the summer programs. It appears that the ones who can’t pay, those who most need such experience, will find no place to learn. Instrumental instruction will be limited to those whose parents can afford it and who have access in their communities to private lessons.
Even those who can become proficient on their instruments will have few opportunities to gain the necessary experience of playing in a group. Most top musicians, even those who began with a few chums in a garage band, credit their success to inspiration from a mentor, a schoolteacher or summer music camp instructor.
It takes a ton of raffles, bake sales and car washes to fund one scholarship or one program, and the dedication of those who have seen the results of such teaching.
For more information about the Polluck Pines jazz camp, visit www.b@winfirst.com to reach Bill Dendle.