Sunday afternoon jazz ‘from post-Bach to pre-rock’

Trumpeter Chuck Conklin remembers when the Jazz Forum was created.

“There were half a dozen local Dixieland jazz clubs, but they pretty much frowned on anything that was not Dixie,” he said.

That was fine, but Conklin and a few other jazz buffs wanted to carry the jazz style through the big-band era and into the ‘50s and what he called “fusion jazz, or a little bit of everything.” So they started the Jazz Forum.

Some 13 years later, the nonprofit musical club--dedicated to preserving and promoting jazz as an American art form--is still going strong with monthly bashes that draw more than 250 people to the Hacienda Hotel in El Segundo.

“Our slogan is jazz, from post-Bach to pre-rock,” says club President Marvin Rubin. “It covers a wide spectrum.”

Over the years, headliners have included the likes of Steve Allen, Bob Crosby, Terry Gibbs, Anita O’Day and Roberta Sherwood. A number of bands and musicians have appeared with hopes that a booking agent would spot them and push them into the big time.

Proving that its spectrum is indeed wide, the forum this Sunday will present Jack Sheldon, who was a regular for 15 years on the old Merv Griffin talk show. Sheldon plays the trumpet, sings and tells jokes--many of them focused on his longtime problem with alcoholism. “He’s reformed,” said Rubin, “but he makes great gags about his addiction and his weight.”

The 4 1/2-hour Jazz Forum gatherings on the third Sunday of every month combine concert jazz with ballroom dancing, drinks (on a no-host basis) and socializing.

“We want to have a nice Sunday afternoon with the type of music we’re familiar with,” said Rubin, adding that a love of dancing drew him to the Forum. “I’m an old jitterbug.”

Aside from the headliner, the afternoon features impromptu jam sessions by whoever drops by. They may be big band veterans, musicians who make their livings in other jobs, or, in Conklin’s words, people “who play for a living at the studios, play what is put in front of them” and turn up at the forum to play “to express their own feelings.”

Rubin said preserving and promoting what is called “classic jazz”--from traditional turn-of-the-century New Orleans marching jazz to big band swing--was an important goal when the forum started.

And, he said, it still needs promoting. “We’re facing a demographic situation,” he said. “Not as many new people come in as old people go out. A lot of people don’t know we exist, that there’s a place they can come to on a Sunday afternoon and really enjoy themselves.”

Conklin said the Sunday audiences “range from people who work 9-to-5 jobs to doctors, lawyers and aerospace engineers. Some are college students. About 20% are musicians, and the rest just love the music.”

(This Sunday, visitors are asked to bring an unwrapped toy for the group’s annual drive for children at Camarillo State Hospital. Sheldon will double as Santa Claus. The group also gives an $500 scholarship every year to a promising young classic jazz musician chosen through a competition.)

The Jazz Forum, which has about 500 members, offers an annual $15 membership that includes a monthly magazine containing articles on jazz, listings of jazz events and news about other jazz groups that, like the Jazz Forum, belong to United Jazz Clubs of Southern California.

“We’re keeping alive an American art form that really started the type of music the kids are listening to today,” Conklin said. “Just as some people preserve Bach, Beethoven and Mozart, it’s our design to preserve Jelly Roll Morton, Louis Armstrong and King Oliver.”