Like Father, Like Daughter : Jazz Pianist Jimmy Rowles and Trumpeter Stacy Rowles Enjoy an Unusually Intuitive Partnership

They are, to say the least, an odd couple: A somewhat frail-looking 74-year-old pianist and his daughter, a thirtysomething trumpeter, playing lyrically seductive jazz.

“Yeah, an oddity,” says Stacy Rowles about her partnership with her father, veteran jazzman Jimmy Rowles. “That’s what they called us when we first started working together.”

But audiences who showed up expecting little more than jazz freak shows soon found themselves marveling at the Rowleses’ remarkably intuitive performances.

Sunday afternoon, Rowles and Rowles will appear at Maxwell’s in Huntington Beach. It will be the first time they have appeared in tandem in the area.

“We’re looking forward to it,” says Stacy Rowles. “Maxwell’s has the right attitude toward jazz. And, of course, I’m always happy whenever I get a chance to play with Dad.”

It’s been nearly 15 years since the duo began getting together. But Jimmy Rowles was proud of his talented offspring from the time she picked up a horn.

“There were several times when I was a teen-ager,” she recalls, “when he would bring people home to show me off. He’d bring Snooky Young and all these trumpet players home in the middle of the night, and wake me up and say: ‘Come down and play.’ And so I’d have to drag myself out of bed, come down and play some march or something, which--being in junior high school or high school at the time--was all I knew.”

Once, when he made an extended trip to New York, however, Stacy turned the tables on Jimmy.

“I had been taking lessons from Charlie Shoemake, the vibes player,” she says. “And--at that point--I finally kind of began to get my improvising together. When Dad came back, he did one of his numbers asking me to play for some guys. But this time, I played some jazz. He turned, looked at me and said: ‘Hey, you’re doing good. We should play together.’ And the only thing I could say was: ‘Wow, are you kidding?’ ”

It was the start of something special.

“People talk to me about having a famous father,” Rowles says, “but I can’t relate to that at all. What’s happening between us has nothing to do with the fact that he’s so highly respected in the jazz community.

“Dad and I just have this thing about music that is incredible. And it only happens when we play together. It’s like an unexplainable understanding of where we’re going and what we’re going to do. And it’s just there. It’s like a language, but it’s not spoken--like a communication.”

“I mean,” she continues, “I haven’t known Dad all that long musically, but in the time that I’ve known him, I can tell exactly where he’s going to go, and he can tell exactly where I’m going to go. It’s amazing.”

That pair’s almost symbiotic interaction will be on full display Sunday afternoon at Maxwell’s. Typically, there will be little preparation for the gig.

Asked whether she and her father plan a program ahead of time, Rowles pauses, ponders for a long beat, and finally says: “Hmm, uh, well, uh, no. We just go out and start playing. He might suddenly kick off something, and I’ll recognize it and start playing. Then maybe he’ll think of something that I don’t know, and he’ll just go ahead and play it by himself.

“Dad’s like one of these guys who just know so many tunes--a total encyclopedia of tunes. And a lot that I don’t know. But sometimes he’ll start playing something thinking I don’t know it, and I do. And that’s neat, because I’ll start playing, and he’ll give me that look, you know, like ‘I didn’t think you knew that one.’ And I’ll just smile and play it. It really blows his mind.”

Stacy Rowles grew up in Los Angeles and is one of the Southland’s few fairly visible female jazz musicians. She is a regular in the often-praised but never-recorded all-woman big band Maiden Voyage, and she also works with her own group as well as occasionally with an ensemble she leads with singer-trombonist Betty O’Hara.

In his early years, Jimmy Rowles played in the Benny Goodman, Woody Herman, Tommy Dorsey and Bob Crosby orchestras. But he is perhaps best known as a soloist and as a consummately supportive accompanist for singers such as Peggy Lee and Carmen McRae. His vast knowledge of songs is supplemented by a deep understanding both of their harmonies as well as the potential for expansion of those harmonies. Arguments among musicians about the proper way to develop the chords of a complex song are frequently resolved when someone says: “Let’s call Jimmy.”

Ever protective of her father’s physical condition (he must have an oxygen tank alongside his piano because of his shortness of breath), Rowles values every minute of their time together.

“I love to work with him. Are you kidding?” she says. “It’s amazing. It’s something that’s almost impossible to describe. No. 1, I’m lucky to have him still be around. And he’s still productive, showing me things, teaching me tunes. We’re constantly like talking about music.

“It’s the kind of father-daughter connection that people dream about,” she says. “And I’ve had it--and I still do. It makes me feel very blessed.”

Jimmy and Stacy Rowles play Sunday at 3, 4:30 and 6 at Maxwell’s, 317 Pacific Coast Highway, Huntington Beach. $4, plus $7 food/drink minimum. (714) 536-2555.