The Best of Both Worlds

The jazz community always has been of two minds when it comes to presenting artists in a concert hall.

One faction argues that jazz is “America’s classical music” (to quote Wynton Marsalis) and deserves the respect and the audience that a concert hall can offer.

And then there are those who say that jazz is an art born of intimacy and that the improvisational musician needs an audience at close, reflexive proximity, responding to and influencing the music. The sonic and experiential benefits to an audience in an intimate club setting, with performers literally at one’s elbow, are obvious.

The Orange County Performing Arts Center--which has been programming its jazz series in its 3,000-seat Segerstrom Hall--has made a move that should gratify both camps. The center’s 1996-97 series, which opens this weekend, will be offered in its smaller Founders Hall performance space, made over with tables and a bandstand to re-create the atmosphere of a 220-seat club. The leadoff performers, Friday and Saturday, are trumpeter-film composer Terence Blanchard and his quartet, featuring singer Philip Manuel.

Aaron Egigian, the director of ticketing and special programs at the center, says two ideas inspired the Founders Hall program.

“I wanted to re-create the kind of intimate atmosphere that I was so fond of when I was growing up and going to jazz clubs in Hollywood and North Hollywood,” he said. “I wanted the kind of impact the music has when you’re close to it, and there’s give-and-take between the audience and the performer.

“Also, I wanted to look at ways to increase the frequency of jazz performances at the center. [Segerstrom] Hall is such a big place, the economics are always a challenge. I wanted to construct the series in such a way that we could focus on the most elegant and wonderful players without the extra burden of having to fill 3,000 seats to make it financially viable.”

Founders Hall, already home of the center’s chamber music series, has been called one of Southern California’s three acoustically great chamber halls (the others being the Ambassador Auditorium in Pasadena and UCLA’s Schoenberg Hall). Earlier this year, when jazz musicians were called in to test out the club format, they didn’t even need amplification to be heard.

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Unlike the chamber configuration (in which the musicians sit in the center of the room and the audience surrounds them on risers), the jazz club setup will find a bandstand against one wall and tables spread out in front of it. Full cocktail service will contribute to the club feel.

Blanchard is a 34-year musician from New Orleans who came out of Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers to lead his own groups and to score films for Spike Lee (‘Malcolm X,” “Mo’ Better Blues” and “Jungle Fever’).

He and his group will play tunes from their recent Columbia CD “The Heart Speaks,” a collection of music by Brazilian composer Ivan Lins.

Although the $30 cover (no minimum) is a bit stiff (Catalina Bar & Grill and the Jazz Bakery, both in Los Angeles, regularly charge between $17 and $25 on weekends for comparable acts), the series gives Orange County something it hasn’t had in a while: a venue where internationally known jazz musicians can play in an intimate, acoustically friendly setting.

* Who: Terence Blanchard.

* When: Friday and Saturday, at 7:30 and 9:30 nightly.

* Where: Founders Hall at the Orange County Performing Arts Center, 600 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa.

* Whereabouts: Take the San Diego (405) Freeway to Bristol Street; exit north. Turn right onto Town Center Drive.

* Wherewithal: $30 (a ticket to all four concerts in the series costs $112).

* Where to call: (714) 556-2787.

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CENTER JAZZ

The ‘96-97 season:

* Friday and Saturday: Terence Blanchard and his quartet.

* Nov. 29-30: Jacky Terrasson, winner of the Thelonious Monk International Piano Competition.

* Jan. 3-4: Trumpeter Jon Faddis leading a tribute to Dizzy Gillespie.

* Feb. 21-22: Saxophonist Joe Lovano.