The Music Is What Counts for Celebrity Lounge Performers : Playing for Keeps at Jam Session

Each Thursday night, John E. Oliver provides musical entertainment at the Howard Johnson hotel bar in North Hollywood, and he calls the faithful to convene.

Fellow musicians drift in around 10, taking over the place. Ten, then 15, then 20 players crowd onto a tiny stage.

And John E. is king of this jam session. He sits in back, by the drums, picking at a Fender guitar. All eyes are on him.

He plays a bit, then points to one of the others for the next solo. Maybe Pat Zicari blowing saxophone or Spider Webb drumming on ’57 Ludwigs. John E. dishes out each turn and, with so many musicians, this rendition of “Satin Doll” goes on almost half an hour.

There are only six or seven customers here in the Celebrity Lounge. The players don’t care. What counts is the music, not the listening.

‘Play for Keeps’

“That’s it, man,” says Tony Horowitz, clutching a trumpet to his side. “The cats who come in here play for keeps.”

A trombone man nods his head in reverence.

“It ain’t a hobby.”

And John E. presides over all this with a dead-pan face, sitting in the back with his cowboy boots and his Fender, directing musical traffic.

“This here is the best-kept secret in town,” he says.

As cocktail lounges go, the Celebrity Lounge has come and gone. It’s a small, dark place, hung with St. Patrick’s Day decorations.

The customers are mostly businessmen, still in three-piece suits, dropping by for a glass of red wine or a mixed drink before heading back to their rooms. They sit alone at the bar, or sometimes in a cluster in the corner. The drinks are cheap. Sharon, the waitress, serves fries and onion rings as hors d’oeuvres.

Every once in a while, a big name walks in on the Thursday session: John Fogerty or Mickey Gilley or James Burton, who used to back Elvis. But, most of the time, it’s studio musicians just getting off work. Or guys who play for the Stan Kenton or Harry James bands.

These players may be friends of John E. or they may have worked with him. Others have heard, by word of mouth, about the weekly jam session.

The Celebrity Lounge is pure fun, they say. Any song you want to play, the others will join in. One minute it’s a Roberta Flack tune, then salsa, then “Take the A-Train” 10 horns blaring a swing fanfare.

But the Celebrity Lounge also separates the men from the boys, the players say. If you’re a lemon, says one musician, you’re not going to be able to hang with this congregation.

John E. started working the lounge about nine years ago, taking the job as a sideline. Back in the ‘50s, he played guitar for Little Richard. But, more recently, he’s worked for the movie studios casting musicians--not the ones who play, but the ones who appear on screen and pretend to play.

If the script calls for a fat piano man and a skinny drummer, John E. finds them. He hired all the guys who played in various bands in “La Bamba.” When Madonna sang in a bar in “Vision Quest,” she and John E. sifted through hundreds of photographs, picking out players she wanted to stand behind her. John E. knows just about every musician in town, they say.

So, a few years back, he decided to invite a couple of friends to sit in on Thursday nights. Musicians, says regular Lou Forestiere, are always scratching around for a place to jam. The thing sort of took off.

“It’s where cats get together and say ‘Yo!’ ” says Horowitz, who grew up with two other Thursday night regulars.

Plus, everybody loves John E., says Ron Kalina, who stops by in tuxedo after finishing a gig at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel.

“He’s a sweetheart.”

On a good Thursday, when a dozen players show up and jump in on a song they’ve never rehearsed together, the music at the Celebrity can run a little ragged. More often, it is sharp and fun-spirited. A trombone player suddenly steps to the mike and performs on kazoo. John E. plays flamenco during the break, telling the audience: “I just did that for the hell of it.”

And some songs go on so long that, midway through, a player can take a break at the bar, then step back on stage for the finale.

John E. loves it.

“I never know who’s coming in. . . . a lot of talent comes,” he says. “The customers flip out. They say, ‘I can’t believe I’m sitting in Howard Johnson’s and I’m listening to this .’ ”

The action usually winds down about 1 o’clock. The horn section, getting a little tired, plays from chairs they have pulled up on stage. Two musicians forsake their instruments for a video game in the corner.

With the music still going, John E. packs up the Fender and walks out to his Cadillac in the parking lot.

“Man,” he says, “it’s beautiful.”