Making Musical Partners of Showmanship, Jazz

Bassist/scat singer Chubby Jackson believes a jazz man has to do much more than just stand there and make music.

“I’m an entertainer,” said Jackson, a longtime New Yorker who lived in Los Angeles briefly before landing in Rancho Bernardo a month ago. “I’ve always felt that way, ever since Duke Ellington said to me one night, “All right, so you play an instrument. If you play for people, then you’re entertaining. Do your thing, entertain them, just don’t let your music suffer.”

Jackson, who makes his local debut at All That Jazz in Rancho Bernardo this Friday and Saturday nights at 8, supplied the pulsing bottom end for Big Band leader Woody Herman’s First Herd in the late 1940s, a band that “just kicked butt as much as possible,” Jackson said. But he is also known for his scat-sung version of the George Wallington tune “Lemon Drop,” which he first sang in 1948 and which has since become a rousing staple of his live shows.

By doing his patented little dance, gesturing his arms wildly to get audiences fired up during “Lemon Drop,” using facial expressions and enthusiastic nods of the head to hook ‘em during instrumental tunes, Jackson follows the Duke’s advice, which he has distilled to his own equation.

“X is musical ability, Y is the visual end of it, Z is the result: a great performance. This is why a lot of rock music has scored,” Jackson explained. “It’s a tremendous show business concept: million-dollar lights, fantastic stage hands building sets, guys wearing clothes that are absolutely unbelievable.”

Jackson’s own legendary charisma has sparked a long and productive career. He has played in numerous Big Bands and led one of his own, served as a TV show bassist for Johnny Carson, Mike Douglas and Jerry Lewis, played on hundreds of albums and even was host of a children’s television show called “The Little Rascals” for ABC in Chicago during the 1960s.

He is also credited with being the inventor of the five-string upright bass, which he still plays, and the first acoustic bassist to use a bass amp when Ampeg introduced them in 1946.

Although the things Jackson does on bass don’t seem startling today, he remembers what it was like to press the instrument’s limits during the formative years of jazz.

“Years ago in Basie’s band, there was a man by the name of Walter Page, and he got very popular. But the bass player who really got to me was Ellington’s, a young kid by the name of Jimmy Blanton. He had the nerve, instead of just playing percussive, chromatic runs, to play all over the fingerboard. I really wanted to get into that.”

Jackson enjoys his scatting as much as his bass, and he is more than a vocal hobbyist. Reviewers on both coasts have praised his vocal improvisations, and Jackson even offered his own courses in “scatsmanship” when he lived on Long Island.

“There’s two kinds of scatting,” Jackson explained. “One is the theater-motion picture style, the Danny Kaye and Frank Sinatra, scoobie-doobie-doo thing. But my scatting comes from inside, I got started listening to guys like Leo Watson and Dizzy.”

Jackson plans to include a fair amount of scatting this weekend, when he will be backed by pianist Rocky Cole, drummer Dave Barry and tenor saxophonists John Gross and George Kezas.

If you go, don’t expect to sit quietly.

Besides paying tribute to Herman, Slim Gaillard, who died last week, and Duke Ellington, Jackson plans to get the audience scatting along with him.

When he moved to Rancho Bernardo, Jackson had planned to quit music so he could complete “The Chopper and Me,” a book he is writing about life with Herman. But an impromptu vocal duo with Jon Hendricks at Elario’s in January got him back in the swing, and now he’s hooked on music all over again.

“Getting older has its drawbacks, no doubt about it,” Jackson said. “Some trip and fall into Alzheimer’s, but not me Daddy, I’m groovin’, groovin’ my butt off.”

On its new self-produced album “Ain’t Nobody’s Business,” San Diego jazz band Tobacco Road tried something new by showcasing bass player and singer Preston Coleman on every song.

“On our last (self-produced) album, we featured the whole band, and people liked it,” said pianist Sue Palmer, the group’s leader. “But I sent it to record companies, and the feedback I got was, if we could focus on one sound, we could possibly get a recording company to pick us up.”

Time will tell if recording execs respond, but Coleman definitely delivers. He turns in soulful, swinging readings of blues tunes like Louis Jordan’s Latin-flavored “Early in the Mornin” and Big Joe Turner’s “Shake, Rattle and Roll,” and spirited, warm versions of two bouncy, tongue-in-cheek Nat King Cole numbers: “Call the Police” and “Got a Penny, Benny?”

The group’s earlier, traditional jazz recordings were solid if not always inspiring, but with Coleman out front, the music fairly flies.

Coleman, 73, came up in Chicago, where he broke into jazz in the legendary music program at Wendell Phillips High School, which also produced Joe Williams, Milt Hinton and Nat Cole. He later played with the Walter Fuller Orchestra, the King Perry Orchestra and pianist Mary Lou Williams’ trio, among others. He has lived in San Diego since 1946, and sold real estate for many years before joining Tobacco Road when it formed in 1982.

You can catch the band Friday nights from 6 to 10 this month at the U.S. Grant Hotel downtown, and at the group’s album release party at the Grant on March 18. They are also playing the free “Jazz Live” concert in the San Diego City College Theater next Tuesday night at 8.

RIFFS: San Diego jazz/pop singer Jackie Bonaparte has a recording contract offer from the Opulence label. She’s in the negotiating stage. . . .

Singer Kevyn Lettau hosts a release party for her new album, “Kevyn Lettau,” Wednesday night at 9 at the Belly Up Tavern in Solana Beach. . . .

Pianist Glen Horiuchi’s “Poston Suite,” recorded live at San Diego City College last month, will air tonight at 8 on KSDS-FM (88.3). The piece is Horiuchi’s tribute to Japanese-Americans interned in Poston, Ariz., during World War II. . . .

The U.S. Grant Hotel downtown plans to expand its jazz repertoire to include top national talent in its 300-seat Pavilion Room. Pianist Tommy Flanagan is close to signing up for a weekend in May, and a top authentic be-bop trumpeter is also a possibility for spring. . . .

Latin pianist Eddie Palmieri plays the Holiday Inn Embarcadero Wednesday night from 8 to midnight. Ticketmaster has tickets (278-TIXS). . . .

Wednesdays are duo nights at the Horton Grand Hotel downtown. Wednesday night at 8, it’s pianist Harry Pickens and bassist Marshall Hawkins.