The Sweetest Music This Side of the Big-Band Era

At 69, Jerry Abel isn’t kidding himself: “I know I’m never going to be Benny Goodman.”

And trumpet player Russ Granger, 73, has no delusions that he’ll be hitting the road again in a big-band comeback: “I’m too old for that kind of stuff.”

They make music “For Sentimental Reasons,” you might say. They are two of the boys in the band--the Tivoli Hotel House Band.

In a world of rock ‘n’ roll and synthesizers, they’re hanging tough. Trombonist Roland Furman, 62, says it all: “I love this music, and I’m not going to let it go.”

The leader of the band is Abel. At 12, he heard Goodman and “drove my father crazy until he bought me a clarinet.” In dance bands, clarinet is usually the instrument the sax player doubles on, so Abel learned the sax. But Army service, marriage and the demise of big bands combined to squash his dream of being a professional musician.

So for 32 years he was a sales manager for Singer sewing machines. “I put my sax away for 15 years.” In 1955, he dusted it off and took it to a party. By evening’s end, he’d been asked to sub in a small band.

The bug had bitten again. Soon Abel got together a group, “Bubbie and the Zaydes,” which made the rounds of bar mitzvahs and Jewish weddings. But demand began to dwindle: “The kids would call me up and say, ‘How many guitars do you have?’ ”

Then, in 1988, Abel let it be known that he was getting together a new band. Granger and saxophonist Walter Kreutzen, now 76, signed on. After a brief life as the Senior Swingers, the group renamed itself the Tivoli Hotel House Band. The name, Abel says, “has no meaning at all.”

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A hotel band--also called a tenor band and, by some, a Mickey Mouse band--is a mini-version of a 17-piece big band. Abel explains, “Many of the hotels couldn’t afford a band like Benny Goodman or Tommy Dorsey.” With three saxes, three brass, three rhythm pieces, the Tivoli gets a big sound.

And, just like a big band, the Tivoli has a girl singer. She’s Karyn Myers, a 40-ish computer specialist and former hairdresser who had done her singing on the patrons’ side of piano bars until she sang her way into the Tivoli almost five years ago.

As she tells it, the band was playing a Disneyland Hotel gig: “I noted they had no singer, so I kept loitering. Since I was a child, I’d wanted to sing with a band.”

Well, the regular singer was sick so, with misgivings aplenty, Abel asked Myers to audition. He sat up and took notice when she sang “That Old Feeling.” She was good.

Kreutzen, a retired Union Oil executive, brought with him a library of 100-plus original arrangements, mostly from the ‘40s, when he played with small bands in the Bay Area. They’d been collecting cobwebs in his garage. Songs like “Stardust” and “Embraceable You.”

It was a bonanza.

At first, the Tivoli wasn’t exactly awash in dates. Says Abel, “We did a lot of freebies.” Even now, “If there’s a worthy cause, the guys jump at the chance.”

Gradually, they found their audience. Now they average two gigs a month, most of them, Abel acknowledges, “for people over 50, which is a diminishing audience.” The Tivoli’s big at retirement communities and golden anniversaries.

But, Abel adds, “These guys would rather play than eat.” The band gets maybe $600 an evening--and splits it 10 ways.

Most live in or near northern Orange County and they rehearse mid-week at a clubhouse in La Habra. Sometimes people just wander in and start dancing.

Now, meet the boys:

* Tom Morris, 65, bass, is a retired engineer who’s played guitar and bass with local bands but “nobody anybody would recognize.” He was thrilled that the other boys “decided I could cut it.”

* Roger Ledin, 78, saxophone, had played local club dates years ago. In real life, he was a substation operator for Edison. After putting his sax away for 40 years, he says playing again is “the best thing I ever did.”

* Larry Graham, 69, trumpet, is a retired teacher. He played in the UCLA band--”primarily so my folks could get tickets to the ballgames.” During World War II, he was in an Army band. “There was another guy there who played so well I hated him. He’d signed up to be a clerk typist--a young fellow named Carl (later called Doc) Severinsen.”

* Trombonist Furman, a retired aerospace engineer, is “the new kid,” having joined the band months ago. He once toured with Stan Kenton and has his own 19-piece band. Playing with the Tivoli helps him stay sharp: “When it comes time for you to take a solo, your chops have to be there.”

* Jerry Lambuth, 50, pianist, is an Indianan who worked his way to California in three years playing piano and organ bars. But after 25 years of piano bars, with their dual whammy of “second-hand smoke and first-hand alcohol,” he turned to being a professional piano tuner.

* Kreutzen played dates at clubs and dances in the Bay Area while in college at St. Mary’s, then put his sax away for 35 years. About five years ago, his grandson took him to his Fullerton College music class. He was hooked again. “I can’t hire a plumber to come in and fix a faucet for the price I work for.”

* Granger played with Kenton, Horace Heidt and Alvino Rey. Six years on the road was enough, and he joined the Whittier Fire Department. “When I was with Alvino, we played 90 one-night stands without a night off--and most of them were 300 miles apart. I got so I couldn’t sleep unless I was on the bus and it was moving.”

* Brian Yedinak, 34, the drummer, the baby of the band, grew up with rock but is frustrated with the way in which he sees rock “regressing.” A jazz buff, he says of the Tivoli’s music, “It’s not real mind-blowing, not like real driving-type music.” But, he adds, “a lot of the older guys are great players (and), to me, it’s all like new stuff. That’s part of the fun.”

The Tivoli formerly had another pianist, but she became too frail. Two trombone players have died. Otherwise, it’s been pretty stable.

Abel worried when Granger took time off for oral surgery. “I’ve known a couple of trombone players where they lose their teeth, that’s the end.”

This is not the music of the MTV generation (“In The Mood” is the song most requested).

When the boys are up on that stage, playing their kind of music, well, as vocalist Myers says:

“I feel like Larry Graham is Harry James and I’m Helen Forrest.”

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This weekly column chronicles the people and small moments that define life in Southern California. Reader suggestions are welcome.