Band Bets on Cutting Disc to Help Snag Record Deal

Reel to Real, an aspiring San Diego jazz/pop band, joins the list of local musicians investing sizable sums in self-produced compact discs in an effort to land distribution deals or recording contracts.

This Wednesday night, the group celebrates its new CD with a release party at the Catamaran in Pacific Beach beginning at 8.

“Through That Door,” available in local stores including the Wherehouse on Sports Arena Boulevard, is largely a vehicle for the writing and playing of guitarist Bill Macpherson, a product of the San Diego State University Jazz Ensemble. Macpherson wrote six of the nine songs, and his guitar is featured prominently on several.

Macpherson is a nimble-fingered guitarist capable of melodic improvisations, but his too-safe, too-slick and radio-ready style is not real interesting. Solos by Macpherson and others, including saxophonist and electronic wind instrument player Steve Kocherhans, are polished but often soporific, similar to a lot of the music you hear on KIFM (98.1).

One bright spot is the fiery percussion work of band leader Michael Kelleher, who previously worked with the local bands Zzajj and Starfire. Kelleher shines briefly on “Granville Groove,” but it’s too bad some of the other songs don’t draw more from Kelleher’s deep bag of ethnic polyrhythms. Instead, most of the tunes chug along safely in predictable pop/funk grooves.

The $15,000 CD project is the 3-year-old band’s first serious shot at success. Recorded at The Studio in San Diego, the music is already getting some radio play. KIFM has two of the songs in medium rotation and may add a third tune. KSDS-FM (88.3) has also played some cuts.

Reel to Real is a seven-piece group, but singer Renae Mitchell isn’t heard on the CD. She’ll be at the Catamaran, though, and her powerful, gospel-based vocals add much-needed oomph and emotion to the group’s music. Also appearing with the group Wednesday will be new keyboardist Steve Smith, who met Macpherson when both were students at Berklee, the legendary Boston music college.

Last year, KPBS-FM (89.5) joined KSDS-FM (88.3) to serve up the excellent seven-part Miles Davis radio biography. Now, KPBS is back with another welcome earful: “The John Hammond Years,” a 13-part tribute to the producer who helped launch the careers of talents as diverse as Bob Dylan and Count Basie, Billie Holiday and Bruce Springsteen.

Toronto-based David Tarnow, who produced the series of one-hour programs and serves as its narrator, lets Hammond do much of the talking. Interviews with Hammond are interspersed with the voices of Billie Holiday, Milt Hinton, Lionel Hampton, Sonny Terry, Buck Clayton, Roy Eldridge, Bob Dylan, George Benson, Leonard Cohen, Sonny Terry and others.

“In a way, John’s story is the story of all these other people,” Tarnow said. “I kind of stayed away from his personal life. The other thing this series does is it talks about 50 years of American history. You see the unions and music publishing industry develop, and you see how they didn’t allow jazz to exist. They said you had to play a tune exactly as written or get fined.” Eventually, of course, improvisation came to be recognized as an essential element of jazz.

Hammond was born into the wealthy Vanderbilt family (his mother was a Vanderbilt), but instead of indulging in high-brow socials, Hammond spent his time prowling the jazz clubs of Harlem after he became hooked on the music while taking viola lessons from a teacher there.

Among the tales Tarnow uncovered:

* Hampton telling how Louis Armstrong heard him noodling on a vibraphone in an NBC studio during a recording session in the 1940s, and asked Hampton, who had been known as a drummer until then, to add vibes to the song “Memories of You.” Those vibes sounded different than today’s because the older instruments had a much slower vibrato, according to Tarnow.

* Singer and harmonica player Sonny Terry describing how, as a boy, he was partially blinded by a stick in the eye, and how he taught himself to play his father’s harmonica.

* Hammond recalling how he found out about Count Basie: by hearing his big band on a car radio outside a dance hall where Benny Goodman was on stage.

“The whole under-story is how Hammond used music to promote integration,” Tarnow said. “He was very instrumental in the civil-rights movement. It’s not something that hits you over the head, but he was certainly making a point at various times. For example, he was the one who suggested that Benny Goodman take Teddy Wilson and form the Benny Goodman Trio, which was the first integrated group to play on radio in the mid 1930s.”

The series started last Saturday and continues this Saturday at 2 p.m. with a segment on “The Birth of Swing.” It can be heard every Saturday through April 6.

“The John Hammond Years” was originally aired by the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. a year before Hammond died in 1987. It was offered to public radio stations by National Public Radio this month.

RIFFS: Fattburger has replaced guitarist Steve Laury with Kiko Cibrian. The band’s new album, “Come and Get It,” topped Radio and Records’ Contemporary Jazz chart for two weeks in December and also made Billboard’s Top 10. Intima, the band’s label, went out of business late last year, and band members are hopeful the group will be picked up by Capitol, the parent company. . . .

In moves spurred by budget cutbacks, the Hilton Hotel on Mission Bay has axed its Tuesday night jazz jams and Friday night KIFM Lites Out Jazz shows, which both featured Reel to Real. The band hopes to land regular work at the Catamaran or another of the local venues hosting weekly Lites Out nights. . . .

Guitarist Peter Sprague and singer Kevyn Lettau will be at All That Jazz, next to the Wall Street Cafe, in Rancho Bernardo this Friday and Saturday nights at 8. . . .

Orquestra Afro Rumba, led by percussionist Gene Perry, dishes up tangy Puerto Rican- and Cuban-flavored music and dance this Saturday night at 8 at the Centro Cultural de la Raza on Park Boulevard, next to Balboa Park. . . .

Papa John Creach is featured on KPBS-TV’s “Club Date” jazz program this Saturday at 8:30 p.m., repeating Jan. 21 at 1:30 p.m.

Canadian pianist Oliver Jones plays Elario’s at 8 and 10 p.m. today only.