That Dixie Melody : Oldtime Jazz Luminaries Join Amateur Talent : to Spread Infectious Jam at Canoga Park Club

You collide with The Sound the instant you step through the double doors of the Knights of Columbus Hall in Canoga Park. It rips along the walls, flays the cracked varnish off the chewed-up tables and threatens to ignite the napkins clutched by listeners.

The Sound is Dixieland jazz.

It was outlawed in New York City in the 1920s, blamed for riots started by excited listeners that were frequently headlined in 2-inch type. But on a recent Sunday afternoon, the uncorked notes tempted a crowd of 350 only to chew a bit faster on their striped swizzle sticks.

The Valley Dixieland Jazz Club has been spreading its infectious music for 19 years. Every first Sunday of the month about 50 musicians cast off their titles of optometrist, barber and accountant to exult in pure Dixieland abandon. (Admission is $4 for members and $6 for non-members.)

Huddled together in what resembles a small aircraft hangar, they elbow each other for a chance to sign up for the six or more sets that make up the afternoon.

“You’ve got to know them all because some of them don’t like each other,” music director Bill Roberts said. “There’s varying degrees of musicianship. I try to keep some harmony.”

Roberts schedules one paid featured band each month in addition to the eclectic mix of amateur talent. He places inexperienced musicians with those who are more seasoned “until they get their lip back and their courage,” he said. “It’s a place where you can go to be bad.”

But the music is far from bad, especially that produced by the featured bands. On this recent Sunday, Dixieland jazz legend “Wild Bill” Davison placed his stubby hands on three cornet valves and blared out a tune. Next to him was Eugene (Rosy) McHargue, who let a volley of pickled notes slide from the gooseneck of his saxophone. Davison and McHargue first played together in the Seattle Harmony Kings, a group that performed in Chicago joints owned by Al Capone and other 1920s notables.

Davison, who launched his career at the Savoy in Chicago, figures he has been playing for 68 years. McHargue, who played at Sterlings nightclub in Santa Monica for 15 years before it closed last year, is a fixture on the L.A. jazz scene. (He received his nickname, Rosy, in the 1920s while singing “When Rosie Ricoola do da hoola-ma-boola.”) Both men, well into their 80s, have played with the best: Benny Goodman, Bix Beiderbecke and Louis Armstrong.

On stage, McHargue’s already bright eyes brightened at the prospect of a song. The band camped out the accompaniment to “You Tell Her, I Stutter,” a tune about a young man who proposes to a girl with her brother’s help.

You-you-you-you-you tell ‘er cause I-I-I-I-I stutter and so-so-so-so-someday I’ll get in touch. Wh-wh-wh-wh-when I hear the parson say, ‘lov-lov-lov-lov-love honor and obey’ I’m afraid that I will answer aga-baga-daga-laga-ooga-booga-doola . . . .

Dixieland jazz was introduced by the Original Dixieland Jazz Band just before 1920 with “The Original Dixieland One-Step,” a single that sold 1 million copies, a then-unprecedented sale. The two-beat, hotly syncopated Dixieland sounds were later mixed with a four-beat style from the Swing Era.

“What we call ‘Dixieland’ is at one point in the evolution of jazz,” said Mike Silverman, co-leader of the club’s official sponsored band, the Hot Frogs Jumping Jazz Band. “Jazz wasn’t the same before or after.”

The Valley Dixieland Jazz Club is one of nine clubs under the parentage of the United Jazz Bands of Southern California. George Ball, a regular at the club, said he belongs to “most every club south of Sacramento and north of San Diego.”

“Oh, yes, I’ve always played Dixieland,” he said. “It’s a happy music. It’s fun to play, fun to listen to and fun to dance to.”

Ball said he and McHargue have played together off and on for 40 years. “When Dixieland was born, we were playing together,” he said. “He’s my best friend. He’s a wonderful man and a great musician.”

Well-stooped over, Ball climbed the stairs to the stage to join in a jam session. His spine slowly straightened as he whomped out the notes to “The Sheik of Araby” on his trombone.

“Yeah, George!” “Yes, sir, George!” Ball nodded and shared a generous smile with an audience that obviously knew him.

McHargue then returned to the stage and sang about a “catastrophe” that once occurred in this country--Prohibition.

Not so far from here there’s a lively atmosphere--everybody’s going there this year. And there’s a reason--the season opened last July--ever since the U.S. they went dry. Everybody’s going there and I’m going there too--Havana!

Other musicians with deadpan faces and names like Wally, June, Norm and Georgia tossed notes around like conversations in which nobody is listening and everyone is talking. The jumble of sounds thinned out as a trumpet player leaned back and burned out a solo. The piano player picked it up and passed it on to a clarinetist who noodled out the final verse.

A mirrored ball turned slowly in the center of the ceiling, splashing four neat rows of square lights along the walls.

Margaret (Jade) Green has been attending jam sessions at the club for 24 years. “Sammy and I used to sit right over there,” she said, pushing back her ruddy girlish braids away from the blast of turquoise around her neck. “We’d hit the floor and, boy, could he jitterbug.”

Green said she is surprised that the club now mixes other forms of jazz with the Dixieland sounds. (Musicians play swing, in-the-mood and be-bop, too.) “Do you notice all the white tops in the room?” Green asked, adding a discreet aside that she once danced in the Ziegfeld Follies. “This is the treasured beat to those who were young in the ‘20s and ‘30s. It creates a young-again-feeling. Oh, Lord, yes, we really enjoyed dancing to the two-beat sounds.”

The club’s February featured band was a re-creation of a Benny Goodman quintet led by Encino resident Abe Most. Recognized as a superstar among clarinetists, Most played the Benny Goodman solos for the Time-Life Big Band re-creations in the 1970s.

As Most poured out a honeysuckled “Moonglow” from his clarinet, a listener whispered to his friend, “That reminds me of the girl I should have married.”

While cleaning out his clarinet in a back boiler room at the hall, Most explained that Goodman has always been his idol. “I always wanted to play that way and I finally got a chance to do it with the Time-Life recordings,” Most said. “So I finally felt I had achieved my goal.”

Sunday seems to be the day for Dixieland jazz in the San Fernando Valley. Besides the Valley Dixieland Jazz Club (which meets from 1 to 6 p.m.), Casey’s Tavern in Canoga Park features the Jelly Roll Jazz Society band, and the Beef & Barrel in Northridge lets loose with Bob Ringwald’s (father of Molly) Great Pacific Jazz Band. Both bands play on Sunday nights.