A Turning Point in Careers of Charlie, Sandi Shoemake : Jazz: The teachers will make a local appearance tonight. But soon they plan to leave the area.

The career of Charlie Shoemake has been divided into three segments: One as a studio and jazz sideman in Los Angeles, from 1955-66; another as a touring vibraphonist with George Shearing, 1966-72; and a third, since 1973, as arguably the most successful music teacher in the Southland, with an aggregate of 1,500 students taking classes in jazz harmony, theory and improvisation over the past 17 years.

Now Shoemake and Sandi, his vocalist, assistant teacher and wife of 31 years, are bringing that phase to an end. Their appearance tonight at Le Cafe in Sherman Oaks may be their last for quite a while. Their house is being put up for sale next week, and the only question is whether they will move northward to Cambria or south to Carlsbad.

“We’ve lived in this house in Sherman Oaks for 25 years,” said Sandi Shoemake, “and it’s time for a change.”

“I’ve lived all my adult life here,” Charlie Shoemake added, “since the week after I turned 19. But it was totally different then. A young musician with talent could make a name and become established. Today, at least in Los Angeles, he can’t do that without selling out. He’s going to have to do something less important, like fusion, or something that’s not important at all, like rock.

“There is less going on in Los Angeles than there is in Portland, Ore.; Sandi and I just did some college concerts up there, and our young pianist, a student of mine named Randy Cannon, was so besieged by job offers that he’s already moved to Portland.

“But that’s not the reason we’re moving. I still want to teach, but I’ll only deal with those students who are dedicated enough to drive a few hours to their lessons. That will enable me to spend time writing some books about the playing of jazz.”

Also set for publication in due course are transcriptions of solos by famous jazz men.

Shoemake’s best-known alumnus is Ted Nash, now a successful free-lance saxophonist in New York. Dick Berk, the drummer, hearing a group of Shoemake’s students, formed his entire Jazz Adoption Agency group out of Shoemake pupils.

Shoemake’s decision to move was not related to any lack of local opportunities. “Wherever I am, I can go to colleges and do concerts and clinics. I can come back to L.A. to work clubs, and whatever studio work comes up. I was on the sound track of ‘Bird’ for Lenny Niehaus, and I’ve since worked on another film project, also with Lenny.”

He admits that among his students have been many hundreds who will never play professionally. “There are others who are really good, but conditions don’t allow them to display their talent.

“Music today is one of the few areas of life in which mediocrity is not only accepted; it’s actually rewarded, even cherished. This is the worst time for music in the history of the century.

“Look at classical music. In the early decades we had Bartok, Ravel and Stravinsky; now we have the minimalists. In the first half of the century we had Louis Armstrong, Charlie Parker, Art Tatum; now we have fusion. And in the first part of the century for pop music we had Gershwin, Arlen, Kern; now we have rock.”

Not that Shoemake and Sandi are despondent about their own future. She will expand her activities as a vocal teacher; he will continue to do much of what he has been doing all along. “Living in a beautiful area by the ocean,” he says “having more time, and with only students that are very special--I can’t imagine a happier scene for either of us.”