GREAT PACIFIC JAZZ BAND A MUSICAL LABOR OF LOVE

They call themselves the Great Pacific Jazz Band, which is about as gimmicky as these musicians get. Basic, old-fashioned jazz--that’s what they play.

Clearly, for the seven musicians who gather Sunday nights at the Beef ‘n’ Barrel Co. restaurant in Northridge to re-create those traditional low-volume, brassy, bass-rich sounds of Bourbon Street, it’s strictly a labor of love.

Formed in 1979, the band is a distinctive group, its members all successful in various fields, including music.

Leader Bob Ringwald--who plays banjo, sits in on piano now and then and occasionally sings--is backed by Rubin (Zeke) Zarchy (trumpet), Bob Havens (trombone), Don Nelson (soprano sax and vocalist), Jim Turner (piano), Jim Wadsworth (bass sax) and Burr Middleton (drums).

Ringwald has been blind most of his 46 years, yet says his handicap presents no special problems in managing the band or running his full-time business--a snack shop in a Van Nuys federal building.

“I’ve played by ear all my life,” he said. “George Shearing, Stevie Wonder, Ray Charles, Ronnie Milsap--they don’t do too badly.”

And neither does Ringwald, whose former vocalist was his 19-year-old daughter, actress Molly Ringwald.

“She hasn’t sung with us for quite a while,” he said. “She’s been pretty busy.”

Ringwald said he made his living for 25 years--mostly in Sacramento--playing “any kind of music anybody wanted,” but now it’s what he wants that counts.

As a disc jockey on KCSN-FM (88.5), he has been playing “authentic jazz music of the ‘20s” for eight years on “Bob Ringwald’s Bourbon Street Parade,” a non-commercial program heard from noon to 3 p.m. each Saturday.

“There are bands today that are playing the same music,” he said. And that includes his own, which recently recorded its first album, tentatively titled “The Great Pacific Jazz Band Plays the Music of Louis Armstrong.”

The band, which Ringwald assembled eight years ago from a handful of mostly amateur musicians who gathered for lunchtime jam sessions on a vacant sound stage at Disney Studios, has had a number of engagements in the Valley. The longest, about 18 months, was at the Money Tree in Toluca Lake.

They’ve also performed at jazz festivals in Reno, San Diego and Sacramento, where they will appear for the ninth consecutive year Friday through Memorial Day (and therefore will not appear May 24 at the Beef ‘n’ Barrel).

All seven members have solid backgrounds in music, but only Zarchy and Havens are full-time professionals.

Nelson, brother of the late orchestra leader and actor Ozzie Nelson, played in Ozzie’s band and was a writer on the TV sitcom, “The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet,” which ran 14 years. At present, he’s a story editor at Hanna-Barbera Productions.

Turner, 32, the youngest member, is a piano recording producer for Marantz Co.; Wadsworth, 56, is head music editor at Disney Studios, and Middleton, 46, is a character actor, following in the footsteps of his grandfather, Charles Middleton, who died in 1949 after appearing in more than 100 movies, notably as Ming the Merciless in the series of Flash Gordon films.

The most impressive lists of music credits, however, belong to Zarchy and Havens.

Zarchy, 71, has been a professional musician for 60 years, having performed with Benny Goodman, Artie Shaw, Bob Crosby, Tommy Dorsey and Glenn Miller, among others.

From 1942-45, Zarchy played lead trumpet and was first sergeant in the Glenn Miller Army Air Force Orchestra. He remembers vividly that fateful December day in 1944 when Miller disappeared on a flight from England to Paris. Zarchy, and the rest of the band, left England three days later.

For the last 30 years or so, he has been a studio musician and also keeps busy playing with various groups, including Great Pacific.

Havens, 57, picked up a trombone for the first time half a century ago. He joined Ralph Flanagan’s orchestra in 1955, played with Al Hirt and Pete Fountain in New Orleans and for 22 years was featured on TV with the champagne maestro himself, Lawrence Welk.

“Our type of music attracts a certain group of fans,” Havens said of the Great Pacific’s traditional jazz offerings, “and they’re pretty loyal.

“Our main objective is to try to get younger people interested in what we consider much better music than what they’re used to hearing.”