JAZZ : Baby Boom on the Bandstand : A generation of teen-age prodigies is taking its place alongside the graybeards of improvisation

On a recent evening at Catalina’s, Hollywood’s jazz center, the music was provided by the trumpeter Red Rodney, 63, survivor of the bebop wars and best known for his stint in the 1940s with Charlie Parker.

But sharing the front line with Rodney was a vigorously inventive saxophonist, Chris Potter, 19, who played tenor, alto and soprano sax with a similar degree of maturity. Later, Potter presented an imaginative solo at the piano.

Potter is the latest example of a growing trend in jazz: the seemingly premature arrival at professionalism of musicians who play with astonishing conviction.

Among the more notable youths are Geoff Keezer, the pianist who made his record debut last year, at 18, with the late drummer Art Blakey; Los Angeles pianist Eric Reed, 19, who joined Wynton Marsalis a few months ago, and Jason Marsalis, the 13-year-old drummer who, like his brothers Wynton and Branford and Delfeayo, seems bound to reach the big time before he is out of his teens.

The growing number of second-generation performers provides one of several explanations for the proliferation of influential (and ever younger) jazzmen: Some of these artists were exposed to the music from birth.

“A lot of what happens is due to being in the right place, and having the right genes,” Dave Brubeck said. “In our family, the music tradition runs back on both sides. My son Dan, the drummer, made his first record with me when he was 11, and two years later he was with his elder brother Darius in the Two Generations of Brubeck group. When Darius was 10, he wrote a composition for trumpet and showed it to his teacher, who sarcastically told him, ‘Tell your father he wrote a great piece.’ He didn’t want to believe that Darius wrote it himself.”

Of course, Brubeck received early influences himself. “My mother, who was a classical pianist, believed in prenatal influence. And she even put our cribs next to the piano while she was teaching.”

Another case of early indoctrination is that of Jacob Armen, the Glendale child whose father placed a jazz tape by his crib. “At eight months he could keep perfect time with his hands. When he was 18 months old I played the piano and he accompanied me on the drums; four months later he made his public debut with my orchestra at a church.”

Armen displayed an innate feeling for the odd meters (5/4, 9/4 etc.) that are part of his Armenian heritage. Trumpeter Bill Berry, with whose band the youngster kindled a sensation at the Monterey Jazz Festival when he was 7, said: “His time sense is incredible. He proves that there must be more to it than talent or study--it may be something genetic.”

Rodney feels that “youngsters are getting a far better musical education, because the professors are much more jazz-oriented,” he says. “There are also books and play-along records that are invaluable tools. It’s much easier now to come out of school proficient and ready for a professional career.”

Rodney may be right. Where once the typical college teacher might eject his student from the classroom for daring to play jazz, today that professor may be a respected jazz artist. Max Roach, Benny Carter, Marian McPartland and dozens more have been part-time or full-time university instructors. The National Assn. of Jazz Educators, founded in 1968, has been a vital catalytic force.

Neither teen-age wonders nor child prodigies are brand new. Buddy Rich, a year or so out of his cradle, was in vaudeville in 1919, billed as “Traps, the Boy Wonder.” Stan Getz played saxophone in name bands such as Jack Teagarden’s at 16, in 1943. But those were the exceptions. From the 1970s, it has become less extraordinary to find youngsters turning pro at a early age; stories like former “Arsenio Hall Show” drummer Terri Lyne Carrington playing drums with Clark Terry at 15, or even Wynton Marsalis playing professionally at 14.

Gary Burton, dean of curriculum at Boston’s Berklee College of Music, says: “Young players with real talent are able to get started a decade sooner, in their teens, instead of waiting until their late 20s as so many did when I was coming up. I was lucky--I began recording for RCA in 1961, when I was 18. Today that wouldn’t be surprising, because now more than ever, record companies will take a chance on an unknown; they’re willing to invest big money in the hope of finding the next teen-age sensation.

“Some students today are even better than the teachers. When Makoto Ozone arrived from Japan 10 years ago, what could we teach him? But he wasn’t coming for piano lessons; he wanted to learn about composition. All the members of my own group today are former Berklee students who had become thoroughly qualified for professional work before they were out of their teens.”

In some cases, though, education does not provide the answer. Consider the case of Chris Potter, who never studied with famous jazzmen and is self-taught as a pianist. He learned to read music after he took up the saxophone at age 11. He had lessons locally in Columbia, S.C., for a couple of years, but stopped in his mid-teens; when he was 12, he began playing with adult groups. He practiced, but never a lot--two or three hours a day at one time, but now, he admits, “There are days when I don’t even take the horn out of its case.”

Potter’s story flies in the face of Rodney’s “jazz-oriented teachers” explanation: “I don’t like the way music is generally taught,” Potter says. “You press this button, you get that note. I always preferred to figure out for myself how the sounds were produced. From my earliest memory I would just sit at the piano and teach myself about chords and harmony. That, to me, is the way jazz works.”

Ellis Marsalis, paterfamilias of the Marsalis jazz family and a skilled pianist with a long background as an educator (he is presently director of jazz studies at the University of New Orleans), made a significant point: “There is not nearly the stigma attached to jazz today that there was when I was growing up. The number of white youngsters even trying to play jazz--and this was in New Orleans, which was a comparatively liberal city--was negligible.There is a completely different attitude today.”

The youngest of Marsalis’ six sons, and the fourth to become deeply involved in music, is Jason. “He’s now 13,” said his father, “and he occasionally plays drums on jobs with me. To tell you the truth, Jason played on a gig with Delfeayo when he was about 6.”

How come so good so young? There’s no clear answer. But one conclusion can be drawn: the nay-sayers who lament the attrition of talent every time a great contributor dies need have no cause for concern. Today, more than at any time in the history of the art form, jazz is a young person’s game.