Reedman Owens Plays Pretty at Linda’s; Janow Band to Kick Off ‘Music on the Mall’

Reedman Charles Owens, who has served tenures with the big bands of Mercer Ellington and Buddy Rich, is decidely passionate about playing hard-driving mainstream-oriented jazz. But there is certainly room in his heart for unfettered spontaneity as well.

“I like to make some of it on the spot,” says the former Phoenix native who has lived in Los Angeles since 1972. “I still think there are some notes out there we haven’t found yet,” he adds with a laugh.

Owens, who focuses on tenor and soprano saxophones and flute, will freely extemporize, as well as exploring other musical styles, when he works with Venezuelan pianist Otmaro Ruiz at Linda’s in West Hollywood, Saturday at 2 p.m. “Basically I’ll be playing unpretentious, pretty music. I like the intimacy of Linda’s. It’s like having some people over in your front room.”

If you go hear Owens on Wednesdays with Al Williams’ quintet at Birdland West in Long Beach, he will be playing straight-ahead stuff with a rhythmic crackle. “Good swinging be-bop is what we play, tunes with an Art Blakey feel,” Owens says of the band that includes Williams, drums, Nolan Smith, trumpet, Bobby Pierce, piano and James Leary, bass. “I’m glad to be playing with good cats and everybody feels the same way.”

Owens, who has appeared off and on with the Ellington band since 1983, and has a baritone saxophone feature on the ensemble’s “Digital Duke” (GRP), studied briefly at the Berklee School of Music, before joining Rich in 1968. “It helped me,” he says of the school, “and I got to hear some really great music. Like when Blakey came through with Freddie Hubbard, Bennie Maupin and Cedar Walton, or before that, when he had Wayne Shorter, Lee Morgan and Curtis Fuller. Curtis played trombone like I’d never heard before. I didn’t know it could be played so softly.”

While Owens--who can be heard on “The Two Quartets” (Discovery)--may favor a variety of musical directions, the thrust of his improvisational efforts is simple. “I’m just trying to communicate with people.”

Woodwind player Terry Janow’s “Wednesday Night Band” will kick off “Music on the Mall,” a third-Friday-of-the-month series of hourlong noontime concerts that starts this Friday at the Erwin Mall in Van Nuys. The series, co-presented by the Grove School of Music, the Valley Economic Development Center and the Greater Van Nuys Chamber of Commerce, is free. Information: (818) 766-1425.

Advance tickets requests for the June 16-17 Playboy Jazz Festival at the Hollywood Bowl are available by mail. To get an order form for the 12th annual event, call (213) 450-9040. Tickets, from $10-$60 each day, will be sold on a first-come, first-served basis. Talent line-up for the event will be announced in February.

Blues and jazz guitarist Roy “Guitar” Gaines, who has laid down stinging, ringing phrases with the likes of Billie Holiday, the Jazz Crusaders, Jimmy Rushing and Big Joe Turner, will lead his band in a live performance on Bernie Pearl’s radio program, “Nothin’ But the Blues,” airing on KLON-FM (88.1), Sunday at 2 p.m. Information: (213) 985-5566.

Lectures, records and trips to area nightclubs are all part of “Live Jazz in Los Angeles: Known and Unknown,” a UCLA Extension class taught by jazz historian and former disc jockey Charles M. Weisenberg. The class, which covers such jazz genres as Dixieland, swing, bop and avant-garde, meets for 10 Wednesday sessions, commencing Jan. 25. Information: (213) 825-9064.