A Plucky Threesome

Amid all the mayhem and marketing frenzy last weekend at the National Assn. of Music Merchants’ annual show in Anaheim, little musical treasures were encountered.

At one point, a few yards from where a large crush of Mark Tremonti fans awaited audience with the Creed star, another swarm crowded around the dazzling sound of Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody” in an elaborate arrangement for three acoustic guitarists.

It could only be the distinctive musical entity known as the California Guitar Trio, that bastion of fun-loving virtuosity. Guitarists Bert Lams, Hideyo Moriya and Paul Richards have no trouble mixing up classical music, cheeky takes on rock ‘n’ roll and other musical detours.

They are not from California, calling Brussels, Salt Lake City and Tokyo home. But they have found a solid following in the state of their namesake.

The trio, joined by renowned bassist Tony Levin and drummer Pat Mastelotto--both members of King Crimson--will perform at the Ventura Theatre tonight, bringing a songbook that includes Queen, Beethoven, the tune “Misiriou” from “Pulp Fiction” and notions of their own devising.

The King Crimson connection is key to the trio’s musical life. It all began in 1990, after the three met as students of Crimson founder Robert Fripp’s “guitar craft” seminars. While the esoteric nature of the group might have seemed of limited longevity, the California Guitar Trio has been active ever since.

Their fifth and newest album, from last year, has a local angle. “Rocks the West” (on Fripp’s Discipline Global Mobile label) was recorded live in various venues on their western U.S. tour in the fall of 1999. One of the tour stops, with Levin as a guest, was the humbly-scaled but inherently hip Mercury Lounge in Goleta. As they write in the CD’s liner notes of the Mercury Lounge date, “during the show, Tony was changing from fretless bass to [Chapman] stick and had no place to put his bass, so he handed it to one of the fans in the front row.”

That is the California Guitar Trio in a nutshell. However much they grow their musical brand and however much they bank on a certain guitar hero posture, it’s an intimate, friendly enterprise. They dish out virtuosity suitable for the living room.

DETAILS

California Guitar Trio, 8 p.m. today at the Ventura Theatre, 26 S. Chestnut, in Ventura, $25, 653-0118.

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Jazz Then and Now: Ken Burns’ “Jazz” documentary has been unreeling on PBS over the past few weeks. It’s a remarkable venture on many levels but has triggered no small amount of controversy in the jazz world.

Some take issue with the reliance on extended interviews with self-appointed jazz spokesman Wynton Marsalis rather than going to the plethora of living, veteran sources. But perhaps the loudest complaint is the series’ undue focus on jazz from the pre-’60s vintage. The last 40 years of the music’s evolution have been crammed into one 90-minute final episode, whereas entire episodes are devoted to only a few years of the Swing era. Something is seriously wrong with that picture.

Burns tends to distance himself from what he views as the elitist and cantankerous realm of impassioned jazz fans, insisting that he is more interested in spreading the gospel of the music to the mainstream audience.

One of the most intriguing interviewees in the early episodes has been clarinetist and bandleader Artie Shaw, the masterful musician who calls Newbury Park home these days. On camera, Shaw spoke about his unease in the glare of fame’s spotlight--as contrasted with Benny Goodman’s eager courting of said spotlight--and the racism broached on the road when Billie Holiday was his band’s singer during an age of segregation both subtle and blatant.

You have heard the tale, now hear the music. RCA Victor has just released “The Very Best of Artie Shaw,” a compilation of 18 tracks that attest to Shaw’s genius and the timeless infectiousness of swing music well-swung. Now 90, Shaw is a longtime retiree, having given up playing clarinet in 1954.

This album tells the tale of his ripest years, from 1938 to 1945. It’s a great listen, opening with the 1938 recording of “Any Old Time,” with a young Holiday, to hits including Cole Porter’s “Begin the Beguine,” “Stardust” and “I Cover the Waterfront.”

Shaw’s compositional grace is heard on the lushly scored “Concerto for Clarinet” and the elegant dirge “Nightmare.” Throughout, the clarinetist’s lines are pointed and smart and the big band charts embody the notion behind swing at its best: deftly calibrated exuberance, a meeting of the head, heart and feet.

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Josef Woodard, who writes about art and music, can be reached by e-mail at joeinfo@aol.com