18TH OCC JAZZ FESTIVAL OPENS ON UPBEAT NOTE

For the first time in years, organizers of the annual Orange Coast College Jazz Festival aren’t singing the blues.

In fact, instead of worrying about whether the 18th festival will even happen--it opened Thursday and continues through Sunday at the Costa Mesa college--plans are already being made for future festivals.

As for this year’s four-day event, “ticket sales are looking up, and we’ve got a good lineup with a lot of variety--probably as good as anything we’ve ever had,” said Charles Rutherford, director of OCC’s jazz program and one of the founders of the festival.

Today’s events include a 5 p.m. concert with the OCC jazz trombone choir, which will be joined by Bill Watrous, and an 8 p.m. performance featuring Grammy-winning vocalist Bobby McFerrin and jazz fusion violinist Subramanium.

On Saturday, the Woody Herman Orchestra will perform at 3 p.m., and Thad Jones will lead the Count Basie Orchestra in a performance at 8 p.m. The festival concludes Sunday with performances at 2 p.m. by Clare Fischer’s Salsa Picanta and 2 Plus 2 and an 8 p.m. recording session with Shorty Rogers’ Giants 1986.

In addition, many of the visiting professionals will lead clinics for student instrumentalists today and Saturday. Jazz bands from 22 junior high schools, high schools and colleges in California, Washington, Utah, Nevada and Arizona will perform for judges today and Saturday.

The reason festival organizers are breathing easier this year is that the college administration is back in the picture for the first time since it dropped financial support several years ago because of post-Proposition 13 budget cuts.

Since 1981, the festival has been financed by the nonprofit Coast Jazz Society, a group of local jazz fans who banded together to keep the festival alive.

The recurring problem for the society, Rutherford said, has been generating enough front money to book major jazz acts months in advance in order to guarantee a strong public turnout.

This year, however, the college administration provided all the advances, permitting the festival to expand to four days and raise its budget to $37,000.

“Right now, we are back to where we were about the fifth year,” Rutherford said. “There has been a push from the college to use the jazz festival as a recruiting vehicle, and it’s an excellent way to publicize the college. There is a tremendous amount of emphasis on recruiting, and they realize that public relations is a must. Everybody sees that; it’s happening at all colleges.”

Even so, all problems caused by lack of money for school music programs haven’t been eliminated.

“High school programs have been hit hard financially, and there are some cases in our area where . . . music programs have been discontinued at lower levels,” Rutherford said. That often translates into fewer and less qualified music students for college programs to draw upon.

But Rutherford said that music directors have become more assertive about protecting their programs in recent years, and subsequently have been more successful in getting funds.

“When it comes to music education, you really have to fight for the money,” Rutherford said.

Orange Coast’s jazz program has maintained a high profile throughout the county with frequent performances in local hotels and with its summer series of concerts in Balboa Park. This year the Coast Jazz Society also made its presence felt by co-sponsoring the National Assn. of Jazz Educators conference that met in Anaheim in January.

With fewer worries about the 1986 festival, Rutherford said, the jazz society is now looking for ways to make the 20th anniversary event, in 1988, as significant as the Playboy or Newport jazz festivals.

“We really want to make the 20th a super festival--on a par with anything in the nation,” he said. “Something like that would really help put Orange County on the map. I would like to see enough backing from different sources so that it’s a major, major festival, even if that means changing the dates or holding it off campus. But after 20 years, it’s time.”

NITTY GRITTY DIRT BAND/CRAZY HORSE: This veteran group of country-folk rockers gave its first performance 20 years ago this May in the city of Orange, and Monday, in its first appearance at the Crazy Horse Steak House in Santa Ana, the band demonstrated the reason for its longevity.

The unpretentious spirit of the Dirt Band’s music has never waned, despite the numerous drastic changes in pop tastes during those two decades. In the best moments of the 80-minute set, the group touched on the various elements of American music that have characterized its career, from the timeless country gospel of the Carter Family’s “Will the Circle Be Unbroken” to the flavorful Cajun strains of “Bayou Jubilee” to the 1980 pop hit “Make a Little Magic.”

LIVE ACTION: Tickets go on sale Monday for the Firm’s May 23 concert at the Pacific Amphitheatre. . . . Original Vanilla Fudge keyboardist-vocalist Mark Stein brings a new edition of that late ‘60s band to Joshua’s Parlour in Westminster on April 13. Black Oak Arkansas will be at Joshua’s on April 14. . . . 10,000 Maniacs will return to Safari Sam’s in Huntington Beach on April 9. . . . The Pontiac Brothers will play March 28 at Palacio Azteca in Santa Ana, 220 E. 3rd St.