Toy Trains Take La Mesa Trumpeter on a Non-Musical Journey

In 1984, La Mesa trumpet/cornet player Bruce Cameron seemed headed for commercial success. Following the reputation he built as a leader during the late 1980s with jazz recordings such as “With All My Love,” he shifted to pop-jazz with the Bruce Cameron-Hollis Gentry Jazz Ensemble.

“Business-wise, I was successful, but I realized I couldn’t make any money playing the music I really wanted to play,” said Cameron, 47, who walked away from the ensemble in 1984 and now manages a toy train shop.

“At the time, the whole scene was Lites Out jazz, no one wanted to hear straight-ahead or Latin,” said Cameron, referring to the rise of KiFM (98.1) and the accompanying boom in light jazz clubs. “I didn’t want to spend the rest of my career doing that. I just walked away from it, and no one could believe it.”

Not that Cameron’s been musically idle. He led Algo Caliente, a hot Latin ensemble that disbanded last year, and before that was a regular with singer Elliot Lawrence’s band.

These days, Cameron keeps busy with local club dates, while recording great ballads for a CD that will be his first release as a leader in more than 10 years.

“I love playing ballads,” Cameron said. “I think all trumpeters do. I know Miles did, Clifford Brown, Art Farmer, that’s their specialty, Freddie Hubbard is a genius at it.

“My concept was, to tell the honest truth, I wanted to do something where I could go and perform anywhere and hire any competent musicians and they would be able to play the music.

“Second of all, I picked out tunes that were recorded or written by my favorite trumpet players: Thad Jones, Freddie Hubbard, Bix Beiderbecke, Chet Baker.”

Eight years after he gave up playing light, KiFM-type jazz, Cameron doesn’t hear much that he likes on commercial “jazz” radio, although he credits the warm, friendly “Lites Out” format with bringing new listeners to other, more demanding forms of jazz, such as straight-ahead and Latin.

“I understood perfectly what they were doing from the beginning, because I was one of the people in on doing this funk-oriented jazz thing,” Cameron said. “But my main qualm with their programming was there was some excellent music in that idiom that they never played. Music written by Don Sebesky for various artists including George Benson--you never heard the early George Benson, like ‘White Rabbit,’ or Freddie Hubbard. That music wasn’t too jazzy and it would have fit right in.”

Cameron thinks other forms of jazz--especially some of the varieties he prefers--are making a comeback in San Diego.

“It seems to me like the bloom is kind of off the rose on the light jazz scene,” he said. “There are lots of opportunities for the good Latin bands at places like Croce’s, Cafe Bravo, the Hilton (at Mission Bay). And there’s a little more straight-ahead playing than there was.”

This month, you can catch Cameron at several local clubs. He is a regular guest with bassist Glen Fisher’s straight-ahead/Latin group at the Salmon House (call 223-2234) restaurant on Mission Bay on Sunday nights. You can also hear Cameron playing Latin jazz with The Travelers on Oct. 24 at Cafe Bravo (call 234-8888) in the Gaslamp Quarter downtown; and electric jazz with trombonist/singer Aubrey Fay’s group, at the Hyatt Regency (call 552-1234) on La Jolla Village Drive on Oct. 22 and 23, and at the Hilton Hotel (call 276-4010) on Mission Bay on Oct. 30.

Jazz runs in the Farrar family. Barry Farrar Sr. is a baritone sax player who was part of San Diego’s jazz scene during its formative years in the late 1950s and early 1960s, working with top players such as Mike Wofford, John Guerin (later of the L.A. Express) and Jim Plank. His son, Barry Farrar Jr., is a drummer who plays regularly in San Diego clubs and hosts a program on KSDS-FM (88.3), the San Diego City College jazz station.

Tonight at 8, they lead a quintet for KSDS’s “Jazz Live” concert in the college theater that will be broadcast live on the station. The group will be rounded out by bassist Glen Fisher, trumpeter Steve Ebner and pianist Alfredo Cardim, and the music will consist primarily of familiar standards such as “Sidewinder,” “Blue Trane” and “I’ll Remember April.”

Farrar Sr. says San Diego’s jazz scene is much improved from what he remembers in the 1950s.

“I think jazz is a lot more well-accepted,” he said. “There just wasn’t much of it in those days. San Diego was not well thought of, from a musical standpoint.

“The group I was with, we were the first from San Diego invited to the Lighthouse Jazz Festival” in Hermosa Beach.

Farrar and the group made the trip in 1956, and Farrar won an award for best baritone sax player.

During the 1960s, Farrar’s best known band played the music of Brasil 66 and the Tijuana Brass at the Voyager restaurant/night club on Shelter Island.

Now, Farrar Sr. is a regular with the Jeff Jeffries Night Band, a San Diego big band. Tonight’s performance is one of his rare appearances in a small group, and he is glad for the rare chance to share a stage with his son.

“I really enjoy listening to him and playing with him,” Farrar Sr. said. “He started out on trumpet and heard a lot of jazz around the house when he was a kid. Of course, he was into rock, but I’m glad the jazz penetrated. That’s all he thinks about now.”

RIFFS: Former San Diegan Randy Porter, who now lives in Portland, Ore., returns to tickle the ivories at the Horton Grand Hotel downtown Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights. Porter keeps plenty busy in Portland. Last week, he was adding piano to songs for pop rocker Gino Vanelli’s (“I Just Wanna Stop”) new album (Vanelli also lives in Portland), and Porter has also been writing up a storm. He describes some of his new tunes as “a fusion of classical technique with jazz rhythms,” and plans to play some of them this weekend. He’ll be joined by bassist Bob Magnusson and drummer Jim Plank. . . .

Pianist Art Tatum will be the subject of KSDS-FM’s (88.3) “Portraits in Jazz” program Saturday afternoon at 1. . . .

Windows plays the fall jazz series at Belmont Park in Mission Beach Saturday afternoon from 3 to 5.

CRITIC’S CHOICE

DON’T FENCE RIDEOUT IN

Don’t try to pigeonhole San Diego saxman Ray Rideout. He’s been taking his music in two distinct directions, both of which will be on display this weekend.

Friday night from 8 to 10 at the Bookworks/Pannikin in Flower Hill Mall in Del Mar, Rideout’s acoustic jazz quartet plays a variety of complex compositions by both well known jazz musicians (Michel Petrucciani, Oliver Nelson, Cedar Walton) and the band’s talented pianist, Ivar Antonsen.

Rideout, who moved to San Diego from Wisconsin two years ago, is a technically proficient player who puts his chops to good use, wringing wide ranges of emotion from the music, calling to mind the mood of early 1960s jazz. Antonsen, who has recorded with Art Farmer and performed in his native Norway with Charles Tolliver, Jimmy Heath and other international jazz figures, is a sensitive foil for Rideout.

The quartet is rounded out by drummer Brett Sanders and bassist Ian Wilmott.

The other side of Rideout is the original music he performs solo, backed by prerecorded accompaniment he creates using a MIDI computer system.

“I tell people I’m aiming for the metaphysical bookstore market, but I’m not aiming for anything,” said Rideout, whose electronic music might be labeled New Age, but is more complex and intriguing. “This stuff I’m doing happens very naturally, and although it might be viable in a New Age market, I’m using orchestrations and harmonic things you might not find in all New Age.”

Rideout plays solo Sunday night from 7:30 to 9:30, also at the Bookworks.