For music lovers, Sea Jazz ’91 offers entertainment with a view.

The heavy guns once mounted in Ft. MacArthur in San Pedro are long gone, but this weekend more than 50 area musicians will launch their own melodious salvos from the site of the former military battery in what organizers hope will become an annual jazz invasion.

Sea Jazz ’91 at Angels Gate Cultural Center Saturday and Sunday will feature music by six Los Angeles-area groups. And backing up the music is the center’s unique hilltop setting, where there is plenty of room for setting up chairs, blankets and picnics. Refreshments will also be available.

“We’re expecting two days of really wonderful jazz,” said Will Hipps, director of the cultural center. “It’s a beautiful location.”

Those who want a respite from the rhythms can tour the center’s Multiples Gallery, which features a photo exhibit of jazz greats. “We’re offering fine arts and a show. That’s more than you get at most places,” Hipps said.

Kathleen Lawrence, the festival’s associate director, said the musical event is intended “to put into use a facility that hadn’t been used for years, to bring music to a previously under-served area and to promote the concept of allowing emerging artists to work with seasoned musicians to gain performing experience.”

If San Pedro has been undernourished musically, the Sea Jazz ’91 menu offers a jazz feast. “We’ve got a good mix of different types of jazz,” said Hipps, “from classic to fusion to music with Cuban and South American influences.”

Fans of Buddy Collette, a local legend, can hear him with the Buddy Collette Ensemble, whose mainstream-playing is the final act on Sunday. They will be preceded by the classic jazz of Sherry Scott and Friends, and the Cuban/African-American-

influenced playing of Macaw. Saturday’s lineup begins with the fusion-style group One World, then comes Bobby Matos and the Heritage Ensemble, followed by the South American-influenced music of Araca Azul.

Performances are 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. both days in the center’s outdoor amphitheater. Admission and parking are free.

“Point Fermin,” Collette’s new piece commissioned for the festival, is based on flute melodies he developed while performing and practicing in and around nearby Point Fermin Park in the early 1980s, Lawrence said.

“Buddy told me he really loves San Pedro and has a lot of fond memories that inspired this piece,” she said. “He says those who know the area will recognize it in the music.”

The music will be hot, but bring a sweater because the hilltop, seaside location is windy and “usually it’s 15 degrees cooler here than it is around Los Angeles,” Hipps said.

The performing space will be the concrete amphitheater that formed the old gun emplacement. Workers will transform it into a stage, said Hipps, and “the acoustics are very good.”

Seating in the amphitheater is limited, with about 200 folding chairs on a three-level platform made of railroad ties, Hipps said. But there will be plenty of space to spread out on the surrounding grassy knoll.

Sea Jazz ’91 is sponsored by the cultural center and is funded partly by a grant from the city of Los Angeles Cultural Affairs Department. Festival organizers and community volunteers matched the $13,000 grant by soliciting donations of cash, labor, equipment and supplies from the community and area businesses.

The center, which opened in 1981, has been the host for numerous live events, in addition to regular shows in its art gallery. The park was a venue for music at the Los Angeles Festival, and the center held a blues concert last fall that drew more than 800 people.

“We’ve got an extremely good sound system, we have a view of the Pacific and Catalina and it’s free, so there’s no excuse not to attend,” Hipps said.

And with someone as well known and well regarded as Collette, anything might happen.

“You never know who else might show up just to have a chance to play with Buddy,” Lawrence said. “That’s part of the fun and beauty of jazz . . .”

What: Sea Jazz ’91.

Where: Angels Gate Cultural Center Amphitheater, 3601 S. Gaffey St., San Pedro.

When: Saturday and Sunday, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Admission: Free.

Information: (213) 519-0936.