Nostalgia Provides the Impetus for New Material from Lighthouse All-Stars

In the early ‘50s, the Lighthouse, a small club on the pier in Hermosa Beach, was the center of a musical scene that gave birth to the sound that has come to be called West Coast Jazz. The West Coast sound, variously described as cool, sophisticated and soft but also known for its harmonic strength and often eclectic orchestration, was championed by various groups that assembled at the surf-side nightspot, groups dubbed “The Lighthouse All Stars.”

Of all the musicians who came through the club and helped shape the West Coast movement--including such names as composer-saxophonist Jimmy Giuffre, drummer Shelly Manne and baritone player Gerry Mulligan--few are as important as composer, arranger and trumpeter Shorty Rogers. Beginning with his charts for Woody Herman’s band in the late ‘40s and continuing with his work for Stan Kenton’s “Innovations In Modern Music” orchestra and his arrangements for such films as “The Wild One” and “The Man With The Golden Arm,” as well as any number of his own recording projects, Rogers, as much as anyone, defined the sound now associated with West Coast musicians of the era.

“He’s definitely one of the leaders of the West Coast jazz scene,” says Pete Jolly, a keyboardist who first met Rogers at the Lighthouse in the early ‘50s, went on to become a member of Rogers’ Giants ensemble and is now a member of the new All Stars. Conte Candoli, the trumpeter Rogers replaced in the Woody Herman band of 1946 and also a current All Star, concurs. “Shorty is a terrific writer. He’s quite capable of doing everything from small-group material to larger pieces for orchestra and movie scores.”

The Lighthouse provided Rogers with a convenient proving ground for his music. “I was writing two or three things a day at that time,” the trumpeter said recently at his home in Marina del Rey. “I’d bring them in the same day and sight read them right there on the bandstand.”

So when friend, saxophonist and former Lighthouse All Star Bud Shank came to Rogers in 1990 with the idea to regroup the band, it struck a chord. “I’ve been to Europe I don’t know how many times since 1982,” the 67-year-old Rogers says. “No matter where we go--even some little town in Scandinavia--the evening will not go by without someone coming up to me and saying, ‘Shorty, good to see you. I used to hang out with you guys at the Lighthouse.’ So we came up with this family reunion thing.”

The result of this “reunion” is the All Stars’ recent Candid release, “America the Beautiful.” All but two of the numbers in the collection--the title piece and Bud Powell’s “Un Poco Loco”--were penned by Rogers for the eight-piece ensemble he co-leads with Shank.

Despite the revival aspects of the project, this is no nostalgic rehash of old songs. “It’s a reunion, sure,” Rogers says. “But it’s really a new band playing new material. It’s inevitable that some people will see a bit of nostalgia in it, but that comes from the fact that me and Bud Shank and all the guys in the group (trumpeter Candoli, saxophonists Bill Perkins and Bob Cooper, pianist Jolly, bassist Monty Budwig and drummer Larance Marable) played together so much back in the ‘50s. But if you go past that and listen to what the guys are doing (on the album), they’re doing new and different things. Doing something new is just more fun, it’s part of jazz. Nothing really sits still that long. And it’s the same with music.”

“The sound has changed,” Jolly agrees. “Shorty’s writing for 1990s now. We’re all playing much differently than we did back in the Lighthouse days.”

For the new disc, Rogers pulled together eight recently composed tunes, including “Casa de Luz” a Latin-flavored tribute to the Hermosa Beach club that gave the band its name.

His arrangement of the title piece brings new rhythmic and harmonic twists to the traditional flag-waver.

“Bud (Shank) asked me to look at that tune,” Rogers says. “He’d heard Herb Ellis play it as a bossa nova and said it was just great--the people loved it. So I started fooling around with it and realized it had some nice chord changes. It was very adaptable to what we wanted to do--put it into jazz context, but not go crazy and make it into something less reverent than it should be. Not to get on a soapbox or anything, but it’s not often you get a piece of music to play that allows you to express some kind of gratitude for this country.”

The same qualities that identified the West Coast sound of the ‘50s--a light attack with an eye to involved harmonics and counterpoint--are to be heard on the new album. While critics often cite Miles Davis’ 1949 “Birth of the Cool” sessions and innovations from Kenton’s orchestra as the immediate inspirations for the school of music that developed in California, Rogers sees deeper roots.

“All of us are products of our musical heritage, the music we were exposed to and played and experienced coming up. My own musical heritage goes back to the Count Basie and the Kansas City Seven band, the smaller groups with Sweets Edison or Buck Clayton playing muted trumpet and the great Lester Young on clarinet. The Kansas City Seven is a big ingredient in the West Coast Sound.

“That nice soft sound was used a lot in those days,” Rogers says. “John Kirby’s band had that kind of sound, a lot of Duke Ellington’s recordings, especially those groups led by his sidemen, were done in a softer vein. It was just something I grew up with and started to utilize and someone, not me, called it West Coast Jazz.”

It was Rogers’ Lighthouse connection that led to a long career writing and arranging for film and television, employment that eventually took him away from the club scene. “The Lighthouse became very popular around 1952, the happening place for jazz in all of L.A. The place was packed every night and there were marathon sessions--2 p.m. until 2 a.m.--on Sundays. A lot of people in the film community became aware of it and started driving down there.”

One of those people was composer Leith Stevens, who soon enlisted Rogers to arrange and orchestrate jazz for a number of films, including “The Wild One.” Rogers also contributed arrangements for Elmer Bernstein’s soundtrack to “The Man With The Golden Arm,” Otto Preminger’s 1956 film that starred Frank Sinatra as a drug-addicted poker dealer. Both scores have been credited with beginning a revival in the use of jazz in film.

Rogers was heavily involved with film and television scoring in the ‘60s and ‘70s. Recently, he finished work on a new film, “The Public Eye” (starring Joe Pesci), a period piece “from around 1941 or ‘42,” Rogers says, “that uses quite a few jazz arrangements.” But most of his recent time has been spent touring with the Lighthouse All Stars--the band went to Europe twice this summer in addition to playing major festivals in the United States, including the Monterey and the Playboy at the Hollywood Bowl. The group makes a rare club appearance this week at the Catalina Bar & Grill in Hollywood. “We aim for the larger jazz festivals and rarely play clubs. Everyone in the group is a leader, most of them have their own albums out, and it’s difficult to support everyone in just a club.”

When he’s not involved with music, Rogers spends time on his boat moored in Marina del Rey. The 46-foot diesel-powered trawler provided the background for the All Stars album cover. “That boat is our back yard,” he says. “I can walk over to it in seven minutes or so from here, and we sail to Avalon for as long as we can stay. I’m quite hung up on the ocean.”

Shorty Rogers, Bud Shank and the Lighthouse All Stars appear at Catalina Bar & Grill, 1640 N. Cahuenga Blvd., Hollywood, at 9 and 11 p.m. Thursday-Sunday. Cover $15. Two-drink minimum. Call (213) 466-2210).