JACKS BRING EAST COAST SOUND TO S.D.

The New York City neighborhood in which Chris Sullivan grew up during the 1960s was heavily Italian.

The kids on his street good-naturedly referred to each other as “guineas.”

And most of their fantasies, Sullivan said, revolved around such niceties as purple shirts, sharkskin suits and cherry-red 1959 Cadillacs.

For close to a year, Sullivan and three other expatriate New York musicians have been reliving those shared boyhood memories every time they play together as the Jacks.

“East Coast guinea music” is how the Jacks describe their soulful brand of original rock ‘n’ roll.

“And if you need to explain that further,” Sullivan said, “you could say it’s a natural progression of Italian-American rock, beginning with Dion and Gene Pitney and continuing with the Four Seasons, the Rascals, and now us.”

The music of the Jacks is buoyant and celebratory. The melodies are bright and catchy, the beat is infectiously danceable and the words are romantic and at times a bit naive.

Spearheading the Jacks’ aural assault are singer Buddy Blue’s strong, clear vocals. Close behind is the mighty thunder of keyboardist Joe Longa’s Hammond B-3 organ--the same instrument that repeatedly helped the Rascals win the battle of the charts in the mid-1960s.

Holding up the ranks are Blue’s delicate guitar licks and the sturdy rhythm section of bassist Sullivan and drummer Jack Pinney.

“The main emphasis is on the band playing as a unit,” Blue said. “This is not solo-happy music; our goal is to have a tight, solid band that consistently hits the groove, just like the Rascals used to.

“You could almost call it ‘blue-eyed soul,’ except for the fact that none of us have blue eyes.”

After a variety of circumstances brought them out to San Diego in the middle and late 1970s, Blue said, the four members of the Jacks joined local club bands and began straying further and further from the soulful Italian-American rock on which they had been weaned.

Bassist Sullivan was a founding member of the Penetrators, San Diego’s pioneering punk-rock band.

Longa played piano with blues singer Tom (Cat) Courtney’s back-up band, the Blues Dusters.

Drummer Pinney put the beat into Jerry Raney and the Shames’ simple, basic rock ‘n’ roll.

Blue’s singing, writing and guitar-picking talents added a country edge to the much-ballyhooed “American roots” sound of the Beat Farmers.

But when Blue left the Beat Farmers in February to start a band of his own, it didn’t take him long to persuade the others to drop whatever it was they were doing and go back to their common musical roots.

“I love country music, but the only reason I was doing it was because that’s what the Beat Farmers wanted me to do,” Blue said. “It’s not something I can do all the time.

“My roots have always been with the soulful rock ‘n’ roll I grew up with, and my biggest frustration with the Beat Farmers was that their music seriously lacked true soul.

“So now, with the Jacks, I’m finally able to do what comes naturally.”

Even though the Jacks have been playing together for less than a year, they have already come a long way toward achieving every club band’s eventual goal: making it big, nationally.

Within weeks of their formation, the Jacks signed a management deal with Denny Bruce, who also handles the Beat Farmers and has guided the careers of such heavyweights as the Fabulous Thunderbirds, Leo Kottke, and the Blasters.

In June, they recorded a four-song demonstration tape in a Los Angeles studio with engineer Ron Capone, whose credits include such landmark soul hits as Sam and Dave’s “Soul Man,” Aretha Franklin’s “Respect” and Wilson Pickett’s “In the Midnight Hour.”

“Every time we finished a track, he would come out from behind the console and say, ‘Oh, boy, you guys are really taking me back!’ ” Sullivan said.

“Not only that,” Blue added, “but he’s another Italian.”

The Jacks spent the next six months sprucing up their live act on the local nightclub circuit, where they continue to appear regularly at such original-music havens as McDick’s in Ocean Beach (where they will be tonight) and the Halcyon on Point Loma.

With several showcases set for Los Angeles nightclubs like the Lighthouse and Club Lingerie, the Jacks are getting ready to send their demo tape to the major labels in the hopes of landing a record deal--and fulfilling the legacy of such former “East Coast guinea music” superstars as the Rascals.

As Sullivan said, laughing: “We’re hoping that 1987 will once again be the year of spaghetti-rock.”