Hawthorne lodge becomes New Orleans when Dixieland club’s in session.

The couple swayed and stomped, tearing up the dance floor at the Fraternal Order of Eagles lodge in Hawthorne. In fact, they rarely left it for most of the afternoon.

“I have the sound of Dixieland in my soul,” said Bess Ivener, who met her husband and dance partner, Martin, on that very dance floor two years ago. “You feel it and can’t just sit around.”

Up on the bandstand, John Waters blew a mean cornet in a combo with other horn players, plus banjo and piano. An aerospace engineer by profession, Chicago native Waters played what he called “energetic old Chicago-style cornet. . . . Something’s always happening in this music.”

A faceted mirror globe turned, throwing fragments of light into the corners of the room, where people sat on folding chairs at long tables, chatting above the music or moving to the rhythm of the driving tunes.

For a few hours on a recent Sunday afternoon, the Eagles’ aerie was transformed into a make-believe ballroom by the 150 or so assembled enthusiasts of the South Bay New Orleans Jazz Club.

“There’s not a lot of opportunity to play Dixie, so musicians like to come here to play. A lot of others come to dance. They want music that jumps,” said Waters, who started showing up for the Sunday sessions a year ago after hearing about them from some old Chicago friends.

Organized 25 years ago, the club--an amalgam of professional or retired musicians, hobbyists who play for fun and “foot stompers” who listen and dance--promotes and preserves Dixieland music and gives people a few hours of afternoon fun at truly modest prices.

A mere $4 admits visitors, and it’s less for dues-paying members. Drinks, as well as coffee, popcorn and chocolate cake, are extra. And you might even win something in the record raffle.

“You meet a lot of nice people here,” said Ann Rose, a regular who likes the dancing. “Dixie mesmerizes me.”

The club was started by a few musicians who wanted a place to play their music. Ethel Hiett, a retired bookkeeper who was one of the original members, still plays piano at the Sunday afternoon sessions.

“I used to hear these kind of bands in the Village in New York, and that hooked me,” she said. “It’s happy music, rhythmic and happy.”

The club concentrates on the authentic, traditional Dixieland music that came out of New Orleans early in the century. “Most of the music goes back to the 1920s, although we bring it up to date to the (post-World War II) period,” said Bob Simpson, a piano player and past president of the club.

There will be a change of pace Sunday when part of the afternoon is devoted to the Starlight Orchestra, a nine-piece group that plays big-band music. “It’s going to be romantic stuff for Valentine’s Day,” Simpson said.

There aren’t a lot of young faces at the Sunday bashes, and club members would like to change this. But it’s a challenge, said President Max Strehler. “Our music takes a back seat to rock ‘n’ roll.”

One way of publicizing the club and attracting younger fans and musicians is to provide small cash awards for music majors who sit in on the sessions. “We want them to like the music enough to play it regularly,” said Bob Simpson, a piano player and past president of the club. “We’re not swearing them to our music forever; we just want them to have a good knowledge.”

Musicians arrive at the Eagles lodge on Sundays toting their horns and banjos--some in carrying cases worn by decades of music making. After signing in to play, they’re grouped into Dixieland combos. And with six or seven sets every afternoon, most of them get a chance to sit in.

Seeing that the music is quality stuff is the responsibility of Jim Matheson, the club’s music director, who decides which musicians play together.

“I’m the czar,” said Matheson, a retired airline pilot and lifelong Dixieland bass sax man. “I know who plays well together, and I know who the ones who can’t play but think they can.”

In addition to the impromptu players, each afternoon features a professional guest band--the only players who are paid to play, and then only a modest $10 apiece.

“Everyone does it for exposure, and practice and the love of music,” says Simpson.

On the bandstand, the musicians--whose dress ranges from casual sports shirts to coats and ties--blow saxes, slap basses, flail banjos or pulsate pianos. But off stage, they might be engineers, graphics artists, accountants or retired musicians who once played with star bands.

When 88-year-old Buddy Burns plays his string bass, you hear the history of Dixieland. He grew up in New Orleans with Louis Armstrong and began playing piano at 8 and the bass at 12. “Dixieland’s always been the same, and I don’t know nothin’ else,” said Burns.

Afternoons at the jazz club are a busman’s holiday for Dennis LaPron, who drums five nights a week with a contemporary jazz trio and plays Dixieland sax for fun on Sundays.

Said LaPron: “I like all kinds of music, but I get a good, happy feeling playing Dixieland.”