JAZZ / DIRK SUTRO : Lettau Is Just Minutes Away From the Big Time

“Makin’ It in Glendale”: That’s the title of the latest chapter in the career of Kevyn Lettau, the young jazz singer who, until 3 1/2 years ago, lived in San Diego.

Glendale, you say? It’s only minutes from Hollywood and the heart of the Los Angeles music business.

“It’s a real tough business,” Lettau said recently. “You have to know that you’re good, that things will come in time.”

A few things have already come for the 29-year-old Lettau, who began playing San Diego clubs when she was still a teen-ager, working with such local jazz talents as guitarist Peter Sprague. Until last summer, she sang on the road with Sergio Mendes and Brazil ’88. Halfway through a new Brazil ‘88, she’s already on five cuts. Her career received a major boost recently with an appearance on guitarist Lee Ritenour’s new album.

Both Lettau and Sprague have had a long love affair with Brazilian music. She’ll appear with Sprague’s Brazilian band at the Solana Grill the last two weekends in October.

Lettau is getting ready for a big push with her own music. She’s been taking voice lessons with Robert Edwards, mentor to stars such as Linda Ronstadt and Michael McDonald. And she’s getting a sampler tape together, which will include a lot of her own songs.

Until a recording deal comes along, the singer makes a living playing Los Angeles venues from Sherman Oaks to Venice to Universal City. She also teaches at the Musicians’ Institute of Technology in Hollywood.

Business-wise, she looks out for herself.

“I’ve never had management. You have to find someone who really believes in you. There’s not much money to be made. It has to be someone who loves you and your music, who believes in you.

“What I’m best at is, just give me the song and give me the audience or studio; I’m not good at the L.A. hustle-bustle-let’s-do-lunch.”

Parting isn’t sweet sorrow, it’s more like good riddance to KIFM (98.1) from Art Good, one of San Diego’s staunchest supporters of jazz, who’s leaving his longtime “Lights Out Jazz” program at the station to do a new weeknight jazz show at The Wave, KSWV-FM (102.9), beginning Oct. 24.

Reached by phone in Catalina, where his second annual jazz festival on the island was being held last weekend, Good indicated things haven’t been good at KIFM.

First, there was the matter of programming. The station made Good adhere to its playlist, while he thought he could have made better choices of music. Then there was his jazz festival, an important addition to Southern California’s music scene. This year, more than half the 2,000 tickets priced at $100 each were sold, enough to break even. Festival-goers heard such top-notch artists as Lee Ritenour and Tom Scott.

Good said he received strong on-air boosts for the festival from L.A. stations but that his ex-employer in San Diego wasn’t interested.

“I had almost no support from them,” Good said. “One of the station’s owners had a severe problem with the festival. He just didn’t believe in it. Too bad, because I expect it to become the Montreux of the west.”

Besides a larger salary, which Good declined to specify, the major attraction of his new job is that The Wave gives him access to 16 Gannett radio stations across the country for his syndicated weekend “Jazz Trax” show, now carried by 25 stations. Good thinks the new affiliation with the other Wave stations, especially in Los Angeles, will also help his syndicated show.

Good arrives just as The Wave is making changes. Originally introduced as a revolution in radio, with its sanguine, often New Age music aimed at young adults, the format broke with tradition by not having any deejays or on-air voices. Now the playlist is expanding to include jazz, and deejays are back in the picture.

Larry Himmel, who filled in for Good during a brief hiatus in ‘84, and who does KIFM’s Sunday morning “Champagne Jazz” show, will take over the “Lights Out” show.

“Jazz on Film” continues at the La Jolla Museum of Contemporary Art in conjunction with the “Henri Matisse: Jazz” exhibit. Films on Matisse and jazz composer Mike Westbrook will show Oct. 18. “The Last of the Blue Devils,” scheduled for Oct. 19, features Count Basie, Big Joe Turner and others at a reunion celebrating 1930s Kansas City jazz.