COLUMN ONE : Playing the Wedding Bell Blues : Entertaining newlyweds and guests with tastes from Nirvana to cha-cha can be a musician’s nightmare. But making it look easy--even when the bride ends up in the chandelier--is part of the job.

After a pulsing version of “Heard It Through the Grapevine,” Ed Wynne kicked his wedding band into a more explosive dance number, “Mustang Sally.” The strategy worked: 150 carefully coiffed, immaculately gowned and tuxedoed celebrants leaped to the floor, hips gyrating, arms chopping, pedicured feet pounding the parquet of the Beverly Hills Hotel.

Wynne, a 29-year-old singer and accomplished musician, was savoring his ability to carefully seduce and rouse an audience when a member of the wedding party corralled him during the first break.

“Can you play opera?” the man earnestly asked.

Welcome to the special hell of life in a wedding band. When none of your aspirations work out, when your dreams of cutting a pop album or playing the Forum die, this is how you wind up: a human juke box.

“This is a musician’s nightmare,” says Wynne, who spent his life studying music, has played in recording sessions, and performed live with more than 30 artists and groups.

Wynne, whose below-the-shoulder blond hair is usually captured in a ponytail, has done more than 300 weddings in the past four years. Each one is a numbing diet of oldies, disco, Top 40 and ballads that reminds him of how he fell short. Yet each one brings a sense of possibilities.

“Even in the crappiest gig in the world, there will be one moment when the band is really smoking,” he says. “It keeps my dream alive.”

To spend an evening with Wynne is to appreciate the mechanics--and unseen hazards--of constructing a seemingly spontaneous party so perfect that Uncle Fred forgets why he can’t stand Cousin Mildred.

A good wedding band leader has to be an encyclopedic song strategist. He’s got to have the crowd-pleasers (James Brown’s “I Feel Good,” or Ben E. King’s “Stand By Me”), the cross-generational icebreakers (Nat King Cole’s “Unforgettable” or Celine Dion’s “When I Fall in Love”) and the sure-fire tunes (Ritchie Valens’ “La Bamba” and the Commodores’ “Brick House”) that transform diners into dancers.

He has to orchestrate the evening’s pace, coordinating with the caterer on the best time for dance numbers (when waiters remove salad and bring soup) or stalling so the photographer can reload his camera for the father-dancing-with-the-bride shot.

And he has to delicately balance a sense of revelry for the evening with reverence for the happy couple.

“It’s not like this is just another party,” Wynne said. “It’s a once-in-a-lifetime day for the bride and groom. And I’ve got a once-in-the-lifetime day every Saturday night.”

The good gigs include food, rest breaks, validated parking and easy money, about $500 for three hours’ work. But Wynne and other bandleaders remember the other gigs.

Like when the bride, held in a chair above the guests’ heads as part of a traditional Jewish celebration, was inadvertently tossed into the chandelier. Or when the bride and groom asked the band to play Green Day and Nirvana while their parents requested “Tea for Two” and cha-cha music.

Or when a guest screamed sarcastically, “Can you turn that [expletive] up? I don’t think they can hear you in Arizona.”

Or when the band--supposed to play as a flock of pigeons was released--was forced to improvise as the birds, chilled from a turn in the weather, fell to the ground.

Or when the videographer spent his time at the bar, hitting on the bridesmaids, forcing Wynne to finally abandon the stage and haul the man back to his post.

Wynne plays weekdays in the “Blues Brothers” act at Universal Studios. It wasn’t supposed to be this way. He used to have his own band, a group called Bad Karma. He produced and cut a CD--only to find that two other bands were already embroiled in a legal fight over the same band name. It derailed Wynne’s plan of sending out the CDs, which now sit in a carton in his closet. He has spent the past four years working for a Beverly Hills entertainment service, Bob Gail Orchestras & Entertainment, one of several large Los Angeles firms that employ a stable of musicians, singers and other entertainers.

Such companies are the musical equivalent of a dating service: The bride and groom select their music from a menu of songs, spanning the decades. They choose their bandleader after flipping through photographs and dossiers and, if they wish, listening to a tape.

(Wynne draws only one line at his clients’ song selections: He won’t play “Lady in Red,” a 1987 Top 40 hit. “I just don’t like it. It’s been done a million, zillion, trillion times by everybody and his brother.”)

To each of Wynne’s gigs, a different set of musicians is dispatched like interchangeable parts according to the client’s needs and funds. A solo musician such as a pianist, playing for a couple of hours, runs about $300; a big band with an elaborate light show could run $20,000.

“We’re the foot soldiers, the grunts in the music industry,” said David Arnay, who on this night at the Beverly Hills Hotel was playing keyboard for Wynne along with four other musicians and two backup singers at a total cost of about $3,000. “You can’t win the war without us, but we’re also expendable.”

Wynne and his ever-changing musicians don’t practice together before the event. They meet--sometimes for the first time--an hour before they play, Wynne said. (Arnay likes to tell an old joke in which a wedding band leader tells the audience, “And now, I’d like to introduce members of the band,” then turns to his musicians and says, “John, this is Joe. Joe, meet Steve . . . “)

Each musician presumes the others will bring to the job the ability to seamlessly flow from one tune to another, whether a ballad or a Top 40 hit, without sheet music, playing in any key. Musicians call this kind of gig “doing a casual.”

None of them are under the illusion that the audience will notice.

“They didn’t come to see you, “ said Peggi Blu, one of Wynne’s two singers for the evening. “We’re background music; we have no faces, no names--that can sometimes be fun.”

Blu, who has cut six albums and toured Europe, has played weddings during the past five years when they fit into her schedule. There’s less pressure.

“I don’t have to be on , I don’t have to worry about how the show goes,” she said.

Band members endure dual identities: To the bride and groom, they’re gifted musicians, heightening one of the most important days of the new couple’s life. To the staff of a pricey hotel, they’re simply another group of servants.

On this night’s wedding, a jeans-clad Wynne unpacked his gear on a loading dock that smelled of sour milk and rolled it on a trolley to the service elevator and through a kitchen, dodging waiters like a slalom skier. Beads of sweat gathered on his forehead by the time he reached the Rodeo banquet room. Then he walked back out and drove several blocks to find a parking spot--a fate that the band members suffered with some degree of irritation.

“I’m telling you, man, it’s like a caste system here,” grumbled the drummer.

Wynne emerged from the employee bathroom in a black tuxedo and returned to the stage to regroup with his crew. A battle was already brewing: Blu and the band’s other singer wanted chairs.

“Nobody sits on my gig,” Wynne told them.

Blu, who knew Wynne from other gigs, narrowed her eyes. “I’m already in a bad mood,” she replied. But the spat was short-lived; by the time Wynne had double-checked all the equipment, the singers were sitting in chairs on the stage.

He shrugged. With minutes remaining before the banquet doors opened for the wedding party, he took another look at the 11 pages of instructions he’d received from his boss. He didn’t share the order of most of the songs with the band members, confident they’d be able to respond to his dictates as the night unfolded.

Out of nowhere, the maitre d’ inquired about a projection screen, since the bride and groom wanted to show a video. Wynne and the other band members looked blank. No matter. The maitre d’ pushed a button and a screen dropped from the ceiling, tumbling the drummer’s cymbals to the floor.

“See, this is what makes a postal worker go off,” said the drummer.

Four minutes before the doors were to be opened, the maitre d’ decided an extra set of speakers must be placed on the already crammed stage to accompany the video.

“Anybody got a Valium?” a band member asked sardonically.

At 7:35 p.m., with the waiters standing at attention by their tables in crisp, short white jackets and black pants, the doors were flung open and the wedding party began.

The guests glided in, sitting at tables decked with sprays of pink roses. Wynne and his band played soft jazz until the maitre d’ gestured for them to stop by drawing his hand like a knife across his throat.

“Ladies and gentlemen, good evening and welcome to the Beverly Hills Hotel,” Wynne told the crowd.

The glowing bride and groom--a couple in their thirties--swept into the room as everyone applauded. Despite their hired musicians, the bride and groom wanted a CD (John Coltrane’s “Dedicated to You”) played for the first dance. No problem.

The festivities, however, were off to a bumpy start. The wedding party sat at a long table in the center of the room and the bride was peeved because she felt she was not seated prominently enough. Then the groom’s kiss threatened to smear her lipstick--an act that elicited a stern glare.

Then, just as the bride and groom’s video began, someone inadvertently turned on a television and a cellular phone commercial boomed into the banquet room.

When it came time for a formal blessing, Wynne cheerily called up the appointed guest. But the guest, stifling giggles, protested with mike in hand that nobody had told him he’d be speaking. Staggering slightly and beaming broadly, he gallantly struggled to form coherent sentences about matrimony and harmony.

Wynne jumped to the rescue, directing the band to throw his reliable one-two punch, the slinky “Heard It Through the Grapevine” and the feverish “Mustang Sally.” By then the bride had lost her sour look and the dance floor was crowded. Wynne kept the party dancing until covered entrees had landed at every table.

Then he and the band members sidled out to the hall, where a waiter had left a tray of sandwiches and cookies. Guitar player Rick Zahariades said he usually brought granola to such galas, since the band isn’t always fed.

“This is one of the easier jobs,” another band member said. “We’ve got breaks.”

The entertainment resumed after dinner. By 10 p.m., Wynne had the party singing the refrain to “Hot Hot! Hot!” as they danced in a conga line around the room.

The bride approached and thanked him for being the best part of their party. Wynne was gratified.

“Most people spend their lives trying to figure out what makes them happy,” he said later. “I’m already there.”

At 10:25 p.m., Wynne slowed the pace and asked all the single women to step forward. Five reluctantly edged up to the dance floor. With his urging, the number eventually tripled. After a drumroll, the bride hurled her bouquet, which landed on the floor well beyond the assembled group. On his sax, Wynne broke into “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” and the rest of the musicians followed so effortlessly that the moment looked rehearsed.

The bride was given a second throw, and then the single men were summoned. Swaying slightly, the groom gave Wynne a crisp $100 bill, meant as a prize for the man who caught the garter. Then the groom knelt before his bride and removed her garter with his teeth as the party howled encouragement.

As he does with each celebration, Wynne zipped into the ‘70s R&B; classic “Cut the Cake” to honor the arrival of a multi-tiered white cake, which towered over the bride and groom. The groom, however, moved away to pal around with some buddies, leaving the bride standing forlornly by the confection.

Wynne gently drew the groom back, calling him over the microphone, and the maitre d’ handed the couple a flower-covered knife.

Wynne, confident that the festivities were back on track, turned to one of the singers. “Did I see you yawn?” he teased.

Just then the bride mashed a big slice of cake across the groom’s face. “Uh-oh, I feel a mess coming on,” Wynne said.

Quickly, the band launched into a foot-stomping version of “Brick House.” The dancers skated on the parquet amid remains of fallen cake. By now, two members of the wedding party were vying to outdo one another’s imitation of Michael Jackson moonwalking. Several enthusiastic dancers wiggled down to the floor, lying on their backs, jiggling their arms and legs like overturned beetles.

Wynne’s face reddened as he wailed on the sax, hopping up and down. When the band peeled into the Isley Brothers’ “Shout!” even the waiters in the kitchen bounced to the beat.

At 11 p.m., he discreetly left the stage to confer with the bride. Did she want to pay overtime? She shook her head. Wynne returned to the stage.

“Chill it,” he told the musicians. “Pack it up. We got to go.”

The band wound down with a soft jazz tune and Wynne turned to his audience, thanking them, plugging his employer’s company, and wishing the very best to the bride and groom. With that, the carefully nourished festivities were finished. Guests began collecting the floral centerpieces from tables and trickling from the room.

One band member turned to another.

“I want to know when I play ‘I Heard It Through the Grapevine’ for the last time,” he said dryly. “So I can celebrate.”

With a look of contented triumph, Wynne packed up his gear, readying for the long walk to his parked car and the long drive home to Sun Valley.

The next day, with an afternoon wedding to play, he woke up and did it all over again.