Bopsicle’s Stand Is an Education : Jazz: Performing in an Orange Coast College classroom, the band gives a lesson in how to blend fine music and fun.

Bopsicle is as comfortable in the classroom as it is on the bandstand. The five-member ensemble, whose songs celebrate the stars and styles of jazz, gives performances that are instructional as well as entertaining.

So it made perfect sense for Orange Coast College instructor Charles Rutherford to have the group visit the regular afternoon session of his jazz improvisation course Tuesday. With its songs about be-bop and such legends as Thelonious Monk, Miles Davis and Roy Eldridge, Bopsicle brought a measure of fun to its lessons.

Rutherford also opened the performance to the public, so a sprinkling of fans mixed with the students to hear bassist Jack Prather and company sing, play and talk about jazz. The band not only delivered some fine music, but also brought in an informative anecdote or two.

Take the way the group introduced “Diz, the Wonderful Whiz of Bop,” Prather’s tribute to the late trumpet legend Dizzy Gillespie. The bassist asked his trumpeter, Ron Stout, for impressions of Gillespie. Stout responded with a statement of Gillespie’s importance as both player and composer, then told about his experience working with his hero.

It was just a few months before Gillespie’s death in 1993, and the legendary trumpeter played terribly in a rehearsal with the Woody Herman band of which Stout was a member (“his chops were like two Ballpark franks,” quipped Stout).

By the time they got to the final number of the performance, Gillespie’s “Things to Come,” Stout said, “I never heard Dizzy play so great in my life. It was truly a glimpse of things to come on the trumpet.”

Other numbers were given similar lead-ins.

Bopsicle’s vocalist, Stephanie Haynes, explained Billie Holiday’s “direct (lineage) to Louis Armstrong” before singing Prather’s melancholy ballad “Lady Day.” Prather talked about the differences and similarities between Ben Webster and Coleman Hawkins--”Bean (Hawkins) was more intellectual, but both played fiery, meaty saxophone”--before leading the band in his upbeat number “Ben and Bean.”

Bopsicle’s most attractive aspect is its material, most of which is written by Prather. Covering a variety of styles, the repertoire gives a good overview of jazz history while allowing plenty of improvisational space for its principal soloists--Stout and guitarist Mark Waggoner.

Stout’s moody, muted trumpet sounds made respectful references to Davis during “For Miles.” Waggoner showed the speed of his ideas during the Clark Terry-Duke Ellington number “Tap City” (with lyrics by Prather), a performance that made the guitar-toting members of the class sit up and take notice.

Drummer Kevin Tullius played with reserve while sprinkling his work with a bevy of offbeat accents, a ploy that was particularly effective during Thelonious Monk’s “Rhythm-a-ning.” And Prather also showed off his solo skills with a bop-driven improvisation that had his fingers dancing over the neck of his upright.

*

But it’s Haynes’ voice that is central to Bopsicle. Her warm treatment of Prather’s samba-paced ballad “Rio Largo” fairly glowed with intimacy, and her scat-like delivery on “In Walked Monk” was pointed and assured. Prather sings as well, and the two often performed his lyrics in unison.

Prather’s lyrics are hip in the style of Dave Frishberg and decorated with internal rhymes that give them a cadence of their own. His commentary on the state of pop music, “Little Jazz,” was typical, complaining of “sweet boys who say they’re bad” and “falling asleep to New Age, tunes about trees and grass.” And the song’s punch line was the day’s most apparent lesson: “Why not try a little jazz?”