On Thursdays, Veterans Hospital Jumps to Big-Band Sounds

Almost every Thursday for the past 18 years, Jack Freeman has left his Reseda home and headed for the Sepulveda Veterans Administration Hospital.

He’s not in need of medical attention. He wants to jazz the place up.

The 77-year-old Freeman, who sold floor coverings at the North Hollywood Sears for 25 years before he retired, is joined by a group of former professional and semi-professional musicians who come together in the facility’s dining room to perform for an audience of 40 to 50 patients each week.

They play the music of Glenn Miller, Tommy Dorsey and other big-band legends, to what Steve Stewart, hospital director of therapy, says is a most appreciative group.

Freeman plays string bass. Mike Weisbart, 68, is the drummer. There’s Danny Davis, 77, on vibes, and Georgia Shilling, in her 70s, on piano.

Shilling once played with the Dixie Belles, an all-woman jazz group that, according to Freeman, once appeared on “The Tonight Show” with Johnny Carson.

Also in their 70s are Ruth Sargent, the vocal stylist, and trumpeter Joe Rucker, who still plays professionally at Casey’s Tavern in Canoga Park.

Freeman says when he was semi-retired from Sears he started looking for a way to help out in the community. He went to the hospital and worked in the office for a while until he spotted an old, unused string bass.

The abandoned instrument gave him the idea to join the band.

“I’d played bass for years, but I’d sold mine because I wasn’t using it,” he remembers, adding that the sight of the instrument at the hospital made his fingers itch.

He says there was a small group, at the time, that played for the patients. Freeman joined the group and then enlarged it. Now he’s the leader of the band.

“It was hard at first, playing for people who seemed to have so many problems. There were those in wheelchairs with deteriorating diseases and awful war wounds. I remember the first time a patient was brought in on a gurney. He had been lying in the same fetal position for I don’t know how many years,” Freeman says.

Then, Freeman adds, he noticed that whenever that patient was brought into the Thursday sessions to hear the music, his eyes seemed to light up. “That made such a difference to me,” he says.

Therapy director Stewart says the music helps the patients in may ways, including getting them up, if they are ambulatory, and motivating them to move around.

Stewart says the Sepulveda facility is blessed with hundreds of faithful volunteers, including the jazz musicians.

“With our budget, we couldn’t begin to do the things we do without volunteer help,” he says, adding that the facility was recently cited as having the best volunteer program of any Veterans Administration Hospital in the country. The Sepulveda program is under the direction of Leonard Jerden, director of volunteers.

“Volunteers help in the office and on patient floors, but they also do things like run our bingo parties and organize our field trips. I can’t begin to describe how much the patients--particularly those who have been hospitalized for many years--look forward to these events,” Stewart says.

Speaking of long-timers, one is World War I veteran, Boyd Mosher, 95.

At the Thursday musicals, he’s usually the one dancing with the drummer’s wife, Esther Weisbart.

Attention Tree Huggers, ‘Tis the Season to Be Giving

Time to turn our attention to politically correct ways of holiday gift giving.

Guess what those folks who hang out at the top of Coldwater Canyon think is the perfect gift to give and receive?

TreePeople say they hope to transform the holidays into a way to benefit the fire-affected areas of Los Angeles through their annual Gift of Life Tree Dedication program.

It’s in.

Candice Bergen does it.

So does Peter Horton.

Betty White loves the idea.

Ditto Leslie Nielsen.

For $15, TreePeople will plant a tree in one of the burned-out areas throughout the Los Angeles area in the name of a holiday gift recipient. The recipient will be notified by a personalized gift card and certificate.

The gift also helps fund the TreePeople educational programs for children and adults.

As a gift, it seems pretty hard to beat.

Diane Hunt, TreePeople director of development, says the group also has been spearheading efforts to maximize public and private resources to help in rehabilitation and reforestation efforts in critically affected areas.

Andy Lipkis, president and founder of the urban forestry group, says the organization is working with the Los Angeles Conservation Corps to coordinate labor and equipment, and with the Los Angeles Country Fire Department and the U. S. Forest Service to see where services can best be applied.

In addition to support from the Gift of Life holiday program, the TreePeople folks are establishing a Firestorm Green Fund in an ongoing effort to help rehabilitate and reforest burned areas, in conjunction with corporations such as ARCO Foundation, AT&T; and Northrop.

Their Gift of Life hot line is (818) 753-4631.

Cha Cha Cha Boss Hunts Elusive Issue of Gourmet

Lee Laine should be a happy man.

His Encino restaurant, Cha Cha Cha, is doing good business, and he says he has an excellent staff and that life, generally, is copacetic.

But every year, during the holidays, Laine sinks into a depression. Not the clinical kind. His depression is over a magazine.

“I shouldn’t be complaining,” says Laine. “Things are fine. The people who work for me are terrific. In fact, two of the employees I share with other restaurants have recently won awards.”

Joanne Phelan, who works days at Cha Cha Cha and evenings at Posto in Sherman Oaks, was recently named one of the 10 best pastry chefs in Southern California by critic Elmer Dills.

And, Jaime Perez, a bus boy at Cha Cha Cha in the daytime and Latrec in the evenings, was named employee of the year by the Woodland Hills eatery.

“What I love about Jaime is that he works so hard in restaurants all week and then takes his family out to dinner on his only day off, Sunday,” says Laine.

But, what’s with the depressing magazine?

“My wife, Norma, is a Gourmet collector,” Laine explains. “She has every single issue since the magazine began publishing in 1941. I guess that’s more than 600.”

What she doesn’t have, he says, is the first issue, published in February, 1941.

“Every year, especially around the holidays, I think I will be able to find one and surprise her. I’ve failed for more than 10 years,” he says.

He says he’s tried advertising. Tried contacting the publishers. Tried bribing a woman on a train who said she had one.

He’s made a nuisance of himself at old-book stores.

No luck.

Asked what he would do if he finally found one, he was quiet for a moment, then said he would celebrate, give it to Norma, then probably have to find something else to look for.

Overheard

“Slick? Well, yeah. He’s the kind of guy who goes into the revolving door behind you and comes out first.”

One three-piece suit to another at Milano’s restaurant in Warner Center.