A Labor Day Weekend That’s Steeped in Some Often-Neglected Traditions

Labor Day weekend is upon us, and mainstream jazz rules. Mainstream, Dixieland and swing, that is.

The end-of-summer holiday always has meant a cornucopia of jazz activities for Southland fans. But not necessarily for fans of bebop, smooth jazz or avant-garde. Labor Day represents, instead, the one weekend when neglected traditionalists take charge. This year is no exception, with two major events--the Sweet & Hot Music Festival at the Los Angeles Airport Marriott Hotel and the West Coast Jazz Party at the Irvine Marriott Hotel--offering a weekend of virtually nonstop, all-day programming.

Even here, however, there are distinct differences in the musical menus presented by each of these popular productions.

The Sweet & Hot Music Festival has customarily focused on the music of the ‘20s, ‘30s and ‘40s. Its logo says it all: “Makes no difference if it’s sweet or hot. We’re gonna give it everything we’ve got!” Appropriately, the line is taken from the Duke Ellington classic “It Don’t Mean a Thing (If It Ain’t Got That Swing).”

This year’s schedule encompasses a mind-boggling collection of players in performances taking place simultaneously in as many as eight venues. New Orleans jazz clarinetist Pete Fountain is the principal headliner, along with Herb Jeffries, Lillian Boutte and the Bill Elliott Swing Orchestra.

“When we started this festival,” says director Wally Holmes, “we decided that our main goal would be to preserve the classic music from the prewar period. But we didn’t restrict ourselves to simply reproducing it like living jukeboxes. The young Turks in Jack Sheldon’s big band, for example, just roar through that stuff in a way that has nothing to do with the styles of the earlier periods, but it’s incredible music nonetheless. And that’s the philosophy that controls the whole weekend of music.”

The Friday-through-Monday Sweet & Hot lineup features dozens of additional acts, some familiar, some not, ranging from Igor’s Cowboy Jazz and the Jazzin’ Jacks from Scandinavia to the Night Blooming Jazz Men and Yoshio Toyama and the Saints.

The Sweet & Hot Music Foundation, which produces the event, is a nonprofit organization.

“We’re totally unpaid from top to bottom,” Holmes says, adding, with a laugh, “but I think whoever replaces me when I move on is going to have to receive a better rate of pay.”

In addition to the musical events, the foundation also has honored legendary jazz artists since 1996 by placing prominent bronze plaques, with their names, in the ground surrounding the pool at the Marriott. With six new honorees this year, including Fountain, the total reaches 32.

This year, Holmes, a songwriter who composed the 1974 hit “Rock the Boat,” has added a songwriting competition to the festival. Prizes of $1,000, $600 and $400 will be awarded to the winning entries, which will be performed at the 2002 Sweet & Hot Music Festival. The deadline for entries is Sept. 30. Information and application forms are available at the foundation’s Web site, https://www.sweethot.org .

The Sweet & Hot Music Festival at the Los Angeles Airport Marriott Hotel, 5855 W. Century Blvd., L.A. Today through Monday. Daily ticket prices $20-$40. All-events badges for entire festival, $80. (310) 641-5700.

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The West Coast Jazz Party takes a different approach, specifically avoiding, according to the event’s co-producer, John McClure, Dixieland, smooth jazz and extremely contemporary, progressive music. It’s a slant that is best defined in the motto that tops the party’s Web site at https://www.westcoastjazzparty.com : “Right Down the Middle and Straight Ahead.”

“We like the idea of celebrating the standard song,” McClure says.

Inspired by Dick Gibson’s Colorado Jazz Party--a free-floating, jam session-oriented event that has been active, in one form or another, since the ‘60s--the West Coast Jazz Party similarly emphasizes “the idea of mixing and matching, of putting different musicians together to see what happens,” McClure says. Getting started wasn’t easy, however, and the Party’s debut event in 1995 was a financial high-wire act.

“I think that we probably hired almost as many musicians as there were people in the audience,” McClure reports. “Fortunately, things have changed. Last year, we came within a few tickets of selling out, and this year we probably will.”

The presence of new jazz singing star Jane Monheit on tonight’s bill undoubtedly will help matters along, as will appearances by the Woody Herman Band (directed by Frank Tiberi with guest drummer Butch Miles [see related story, F19]), the Four Freshmen and the Frank Capp Juggernaut Band. But the lineup embraces a host of additional artists, including Bobby Shew, Scott Hamilton, Gary Foster, Shelly Berg, Alan Broadbent, Paul Kreibich, Ken Peplowski and numerous others.

“A jazz party is different from a festival,” McClure says, “in that it focuses the audience on one performance at a time, versus venues all over the place. People might pay a bit more than they would at a festival, but they have a reserved chair, and we offer them a number of interesting venues.”

Saturday, the “interesting venue” will be poolside at the Marriott via “Saturday by the Pool,” a suntanning opportunity to experience the heat of the Capp Juggernaut Band. But the highlight will be the Sunday Brunch Jazz Cruise on Hornblower Yacht’s Entertainer, with three decks of jam-session activities.

“We’ll take everybody out on a three-hour cruise around Newport Harbor,” McClure says. “Most of the artists who are performing in the night programs show up in shorts and T-shirts, interacting with the audience. That’s the real difference between a jazz party and a jazz festival.”

The West Coast Jazz Party at the Irvine Marriott Hotel, 18000 Von Karman Ave., Irvine. Friday through Sunday. Daily reserved seating, $52-$60. Brunch Jazz Cruise, $60. (949) 759-5003.

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Bluebird Returns, Again: RCA’s Bluebird label has surfaced with varying programming orientations since the release of its early recordings by the likes of Fats Waller, Glenn Miller, Artie Shaw and Earl Hines. It was revived in the mid-’70s and ‘80s, and is reemerging once again with newly recorded material as well as repackages from its substantial jazz archives.

Trumpeters Tom Harrell and Dave Douglas are the headliners on a roster that will add new artists in the immediate future, according to David Weyner, executive vice president and general manager of RCA Victor Group. In addition, Bluebird will initiate six new reissue programs for 2001-02.

The first is the projected release of three deluxe boxed sets: “Louis Armstrong Complete RCA Victor Recordings” (four CDs, Sept. 25), “Artie Shaw: Anthology” (five CDs, Oct. 9), “Glenn Miller: Complete Army Air Force Band Recordings” (four CDs, Oct. 9).

The second program is titled Bluebird First Editions, and features classic items from RCA Victor, Flying Dutchman, Novus and other RCA Victor imprints. The initial First Editions, scheduled for September: Bing Crosby & Rosemary Clooney, “Fancy Meeting You Here” (with five bonus tracks); Coleman Hawkins, “The Hawk in Hi-Fi” (with nine previously unissued alternate takes); Carmen McRae, “Carmen Sings Monk” (with three previously unissued alternate takes); Charles Mingus, “Tijuana Moods” (two-CD set with alternate takes and session footage); Gil Scott-Heron, “Free Will” (with 10 previously unissued alternate takes).

Other Bluebird reissue programs include Bluebird Limited Editions (available on a one-time-only basis), Bluebird Swingbooks (featuring big-band music and numbers from the great American songbook), Bluebird Mid-Priced Series, and Blue Bird Series for the Casual Music Consumer (with titles for the latter two series still to be determined).