Still Making the Scene

Bassist Hersh Hamel, who played with such greats as Chet Baker and Art Pepper during the halcyon days of West Coast jazz, is bugged. He thinks the Los Angeles-based movement that thrived from the mid-’40s to the late ‘50s has an undeserved bad rap.

“The West Coast scene has been negatively compared to the New York bebop scene of the same period,” said Hamel, who lives in Van Nuys and will give a free concert Sunday at Madrid Theatre.

“But the music was indicative of the cities. There, it was faster, more intense, like New York.

Here, a spread-out city, the good weather, a more relaxed way of life, all led to a music that was more relaxed, that had a cooler sound.”

But cool and relaxed did not mean enervated and spineless, as many critics have charged, Hamel said.

“When I played with Art Pepper, people shouted, so the music couldn’t have been too bad,” he said.

For a while, Hamel was in the thick of things.

As a 21-year-old, the Los Angeles native played with future trumpet great Baker “before he became a star.” He later performed with saxophonists Pepper and Dexter Gordon, trumpeter Jack Sheldon and many others.

He has stayed fairly busy through the years, offering his version of the sounds he grew up playing.

To celebrate the era and its participants, Hamel has concocted “Westcoasting,” a two-hour suite that he will perform gratis Sunday at 3 p.m. at the Madrid Theater in Canoga Park.

The performance features trumpeter Ron Stout, trombonist Andy Martin, saxophonist Bill Perkins, guitarist Larry Koonse, drummer Ralph Penland and singer Allison Wedding.

Perhaps surprisingly, the music will not directly emulate Hamel’s favorite period.

“It’s more the ideas that I have culminated over the years, though there’s a hint of that ‘50s sound, because that’s part of me,” he said.

“I just want to pay respect to players who had their hearts in jazz.”

BE THERE

Hersh Hamel’s “Westcoasting,” Sunday at 3 p.m., the Madrid Theater, 21622 Sherman Way, Canoga Park. Free. (818) 347-9938.