Getting in Concert With the Past

Nostalgia is a national pastime. There’s nothing wrong with this, really. But lately, nostalgia seems never to reach back more than 20 years.

People once looked back with longing on the ‘50s. Now, of course, we’re all stuck with ‘70s platform shoes and disco. Again.

What we would like you to do is reach back a little further, say before World War II.

Picture this: Hot summer nights, too steamy for sleeping; ice melting in tea glasses on every front porch. So the whole family takes blankets and pillows and goes down to the shore. The kids maybe catch fireflies while adults wait for a breeze before falling asleep.

That was long before the parks became dangerous after dark. Of course, we can’t recommend you do this now, but we’ve got another idea for those hot nights: summer concerts under the stars.

Pack up a picnic, the kids, the grandparents, a date, or whomever is handy and head out to the La Mirada City Hall lawn or the Sculpture Garden at the Long Beach Museum of Art. There, you will find remembrances of an older era while sitting on the grass, sharing food, maybe even chatting with neighbors you never knew you had.

In La Mirada, the free Thursday night concerts start at 6:30 and the music varies. This week, the city welcomes the Mississippi Mudders Dixieland Band to the lawn east of City Hall.

After that, they’ve got a ‘40s and ‘50s swing band, a folk group, and then a band they call “popular” that does covers of Jim Croce and Barry Manilow songs. We’re frightened of the latter, but maybe you will like it.

Finally, Howard Reynold’s Big Band is coming to town Sept 2. The final attraction draws 600 or more, says Andy Gupton, the city’s leisure services supervisor.

La Mirada City Hall is at 13700 La Mirada Blvd. Call (310) 943-7277 for information.

If Latin, jazz, zydeco or Jamaican music is more your style, take that blanket and picnic basket to the Long Beach Museum of Art, where concerts on the lawn surrounding the Sculpture Garden take place every Wednesday through Sept. 1.

This week the sound is Latin with Juan Carlos Quintero. On following Wednesdays, you can see jazz player Bill Perkins, then Jeannie and Jimmie Cheatam and The Sweet Baby Blues Band, the ever-popular Zydeco Party Band, and the Jolly Boys playing a kind of Jamaican melting pot style of music known as Mento. Then, there’s the Russian “folk and roll” band Limpopo, blues-jazz-funk artist David Zasloff and Jai Uttal’s “curry-flavored fusion.” The Sept. 1 band has yet to be announced.

Concerts begin about 6:30 p.m. and cost $8 for museum members, $10 for non-members. They are free for children younger than 12. This is also the most likely place to catch a cool breeze since the Sculpture Garden on the bluffs overlooking the beach.

The museum is at 2300 E. Ocean Blvd. in Long Beach. Information: (310) 438-9900.