PROFILE : At 71, Dorothy Donegan Enjoys Newfound Fame : The Virtuoso Jazz Pianist Finds Herself at Center Stage

The continuing saga of Dorothy Donegan is a heartening story, the one about the veteran--in this case, a conspicuously gifted woman in a male-dominated world--who, at last, came in from the cold.

Her most widely public exposure came in June, when the vivacious 71-year-old wowed ‘em at the “Jazz at the White House” festival, telecast on PBS.

Donegan, ever amicable and wry, appreciates the newfound, long-earned spotlight. “I go through the airport now and people stop me and say, ‘Oh, we saw you on the Bill Clinton show and loved it . . .’ I’m getting more notoriety or popularity or adulation than I used to get. They used to say ‘Dorothy who?’ ”

And now, Donegan--who has made her home base in Los Angeles since 1974--at last creeps up into Ventura County, with two shows on consecutive Sundays, at Wheeler Hot Springs this Sunday and at the Thousand Oaks Library on Dec. 5, a concert sponsored by the American Assn. of University Women.

Donegan spoke on the phone last week from Boston, where she was camped out for a weeklong stint in the midst of an increasingly hectic schedule.

“I always remember the times when there were no gigs, and that hasn’t been too long ago,” Donegan said. “Now the pace has picked up, and I’ve got less energy.” Of course, energy levels are relative. Once she sits down at the piano, Donegan is a whirlwind renewed.

She has been one of Los Angeles’ unsung heroines for years, but the city has served mainly as a place from which she departs more than a place of work.

“There never was work here,” she said, “but I’m beginning to get some of the spots that musicians have kept secret from me. I would always have to go back East or overseas to get work.”

While she has long had a cult following, the thrust of her recent fame began only two years ago, when Whitney Balliett, a dean of jazz criticism in America, published a long profile of Donegan in the New Yorker. That same year, Donegan also garnered the National Endowment for the Arts’ American Jazz Master Award.

Such accolades were long in arriving. Donegan was born in Chicago in 1922 and was soon a child prodigy with a classical repertoire. She studied with jazz great Art Tatum, and became something of a legend playing her eclectic musical revue in finer supper clubs in the ‘50s.

The sum of these experiences has turned Donegan into a unique musical entity in jazz, a virtuoso who knows how to sing for her supper.

Although her star is rising, don’t expect to find much recorded material in your local music outlet. There is a fine survey of late ‘50s/early ‘60s recordings called “Dorothy Romps: A Piano Retrospective” on the small Rosetta label.

She has recorded albums of the “Floating Jazz Festival” on the S.S. Norway for the Chiaroscuro label. Donegan claims, with her customary lack of false modesty, that “I’m a favorite of the ship, I think because I speak to everybody. I’m a friendly woman. When I come in the restaurant, they applaud. It’s goodwill. Some entertainers don’t want to speak to the people.”

That very friendliness may have been held against her in certain quarters. Aside from the gender barrier, Donegan has also been criticized for her tendency to put on a show, rather than just attend soberly to the business of playing jazz.

“I don’t care,” she responded to the question of her detractors, “but yeah, they hold that against me. I guess I’m AC/DC. I’m a great pianist and a great entertainer, and it never hurt nobody.”

At the White House in June, Donegan played only 10 minutes, but got a standing ovation, a kiss on the cheek and an autograph from the President.

“Bill Clinton is handsome and he makes musicians feel like they’re people instead of dogs and pimps and prostitutes, the lowest thing,” Donegan said.

“He gave me beans and chicken--could have been cooked a little bit doner, though.”

Has she always been so self-reliant?

“Well, I don’t have a husband, so I have to be self-reliant. I guess I’m my own husband. You have to look out for yourself, you know. As they say, a friend in need is a pest,” she laughed.

Though Donegan may feel that the men have stood in her way, when it comes to jazz pianists she admires, she leans toward the male crowd.

“I’ve heard a lot of great piano players. I like the men pianists, Ahmad Jamal, Gene Harris, Hank Jones, Kenny Barron, Barry Harris. These men can play. They give me respect and I respect them.

“The women play well, but they don’t have any left hand. They copy a few bebop licks and that’s it. I don’t think they have the classical background going for them. But they’re all right. They just need a big rhythm section.”

There is no lack of assertiveness in Donegan’s attack on her instrument, in terms of both physical, rhythmic force and her tendency to create freewheeling musical mixtures. In the course of a set, she’ll run through strains of finger-twisting bebop, classical snippets, tumbling boogie woogie, and sweet wisps of balladry.

Donegan is many things, but she’s no minimalist.

“There’s a boy, John McClain Jr., who’s an executive at Interscope, who said that on recordings I should play less notes, that I never met a note I didn’t like.”

Among the advantages of new fame, Donegan noted, “I can open a letter now and not always fret that it’s a bill. It’s been long coming. I used to cry about it, and say, ‘Oh, well, you’re going to get what God wanted you to have.’ I didn’t go on drugs or anything. I just sat in the wings, waiting for my turn.”

Is it her turn now?

She laughed softly. “At 71, it should be--better than if they wait till I get to be 100 to discover me.”

Details

* WHAT: Dorothy Donegan will play with her trio

* WHEN: 7:30 p.m., Sunday

* WHERE: Wheeler Hot Springs, 16825 Maricopa Highway, Ojai

* COST: $50 for dinner and concert, $25 for concert only

* FYI: 646-8131

* ENCORE: Donegan will also play at the Thousand Oaks Library, 1401 E. Janss Road, at 6:15 p.m. Dec. 5. Tickets are $15; 495-4470.