Trumpet, Sax Men Toot Each Other’s Horns : Jazz: Bob Cooper says Snooky Young is one of the world’s all-time greats. Cooper says Young is a great musician. Both will play in Huntington Beach on Sunday.

There’s a regular mutual admiration society between trumpeter Snooky Young and saxophonist Bob Cooper.

“Snooky is one of the world’s all-time great trumpet players,” Cooper said of his 20-year pal earlier this week in a phone conversation from his home in Sherman Oaks. “I can always feel it in the sax section when he’s playing--his time, his interpretation of the material, his sound.”

“I love working with Bob,” Young said, also by phone, from his home in Van Nuys. “He’s not only a very good person and easy to get along with, he’s a great player.”

The two men will be at it again Sunday at Maxwell’s by the Sea in Huntington Beach when they join bassist Jim DeJulio’s trio for an afternoon appearance.

Both have had distinguished individual careers: Young has worked with many of the biggest names in the business, most prominently with Count Basie; Cooper with Stan Kenton and different various editions of the Lighthouse All-Stars. Both also have extensive studio credits and have recorded under their own names. Cooper’s “Jazz Theme and Variations,” heard on the reissue of his 1957 Contemporary recording, “The Music of Bob Cooper,” stands as one of the best examples of the West Coast sound of that period.

Although neither remembers their initial meeting, Cooper says they first got together after Young, a member of “The Tonight Show” band since 1962, moved west with Johnny Carson’s organization in 1972. “I’ve worked occasionally with the band throughout the 20 years when someone takes off,” Cooper says.

“We shared a mutual admiration of certain musicians,” Young said, “so we got together talking about them. He liked Lester Young, liked the style (in which) he played, and I had played with Lester in the Basie band.”

Since then, their paths have crossed frequently in work on studio calls, on occasional club dates and with some of the area’s big bands. In 1985, Young and Cooper teamed with “Tonight Show” keyboardist Ross Tompkins, guitarist Doug MacDonald, bassist Monty Budwig, drummer Jeff Hamilton and vocalist Ernie Andrews for a concert at Orange Coast College in Costa Mesa. The event was recorded for Contemporary Records and released with the title “In a Mellotone” under both Cooper and Young’s names.

“There’s a Count Basie quality to (Young’s) trumpet that makes him fun to play with on that Basie kind of tune,” Cooper says. “We also like to play things in the Jimmie Lunceford vein, because Snooky worked with him.”

Young, 71, had various stints with Basie in the ‘40s, ‘50s and ‘60s, and he has worked with the likes of Chick Carter, Jimmie Lunceford and Lionel Hampton. His work appears on a number of soundtracks, among them “The Color Purple.” He has made several on-screen appearances as well, including the 1941 film “Blues in the Night,” the story of a traveling jazz band, which features him on the Harold Arlen-Johnny Mercer title tune.

Young has recently recorded and toured with the Clayton-Hamilton Jazz Orchestra and the Mingus Dynasty (an ensemble of mostly East Coast musicians dedicated to the music of the late Charles Mingus). Young’s own recording, “Horn of Plenty,” done with Tompkins, was released in 1979 for Concord.

Surgery for an ear problem in December, 1990, took him out of circulation for few months. While he was recuperating, Young said, “the doctor wouldn’t even allow me to touch the instrument.”

But his energetic performance last summer with Gerald Wilson’s orchestra at L.A.’s Dorothy Chandler Pavilion indicated that Young is back in top form. “I still have a few rough days” with dizziness, he said, “but for the most part, it’s worked out OK.”

Young will have additional free time on his hands when Carson leaves “The Tonight Show” later this year and Doc Severinsen and the band are replaced. “It’s been a great run,” he said. “Some of the happiest days of my life were spent with that organization. It’s too bad it’s coming to an end, but everything does.”

That doesn’t mean the trumpeter intends to rest on his laurels. He’ll be traveling with the Clayton-Hamilton orchestra and the Mingus Dynasty as well as making concert appearances with Severinsen’s band. “I’m not going to let any grass grow under my feet,” he said.

For his part, Cooper, when he’s not busy with the Shorty Rogers-Bud Shank-led revival of the Lighthouse All-Stars, plays the occasional club date, usually at Chadney’s in Burbank, across the street from where “The Tonight Show” is taped.

Cooper, 66, says playing at the Lighthouse back in the ‘50s was very important to his development, “especially when some of the great jazz musicians would come in and work with us. It was always fun when Shorty and Shelly Manne were there. Later, Max Roach came in for a while on drums, and all his friends would drop by and play: Dizzy (Gillespie), Charlie Parker, Sarah Vaughan, Paul Chambers; even Miles (Davis) and Mingus. It was a great experience for me.”

Although he no longer picks up the other instruments--flute, English horn, oboe--that made him one of the most versatile members of the studio scene, he does find time to practice his tenor sax four or five days a week. Cooper is also composing material for a new album.

He’ll be joining Young for an appearance at the Four Queens in Las Vegas beginning March 9.

Bob Cooper and Snooky Young appear with the Jim DeJulio trio Sunday at 2, 3:30 and 5 p.m. at Maxwell’s by the Sea, 317 Pacific Coast Highway, Huntington Beach. Admission: $4 per show, plus a $7 food-drink minimum. Information: (714) 536-2555.