Lazy, Hazy Music Days

As if the prospect of another summer night in Los Angeles--and “what brutal, hot, siren-whining nights they are,” as Jack Kerouac wrote--was not enough to make one break into a sweat, imagine spending it driving around and attempting to crash four music performances in a row.

The mission was to map out the freebie music scene on the town, which is in full swing all summer, but peaks on Thursday nights. The itinerary hopscotched from downtown to Griffith Park to the hills perched above West Los Angeles, and wound up at the Santa Monica Pier.

A music banquet on the run? Or just a tortuous assignment cooked up by an editor stuck in imaginative overdrive? A million times more fun than watching reruns of “Will & Grace” on TV? The answers are yes, yes and yes.

With various locales around town hosting free, open-air concerts, there is an earful of music to look forward to every week. The cornucopia of sounds on Thursday included jazz, swing, bossa nova and danceable pop laced with Algerian rai rhythms.

Attending any one of these events would have been a pleasant enough experience, but four in a row? The brain shivered with sensory overload; the tires screeched with impatience in the afternoon commute; the heart took flight in the company of inspired musicians and fellow Angelenos who came out to have a good time.

The marathon began in the courtyard of Little Tokyo’s branch of the Museum of Contemporary Art, where a crowd of about 100 took their seats under a mesh canopy.

The crowd was mostly senior in age--the 5 p.m. start time assured that the worker bees were just heading out into the late-afternoon traffic jam--with the occasional Japanese tourist and visitors who ventured outside of the air-conditioned cocoon of the museum.

The tantalizing smell of hot dogs ($4) and chicken skewers ($5) floated above the crowd as jazz chanteuse Rene Marie came on stage wearing a sundress. She was accompanied by a pianist, a bass player and a drummer.

“I have one confession to make,” she said, when the announcer mistakenly introduced her as a New York City native. “I am from Virginia. I am definitely a Southern belle, and don’t you think otherwise.”

It was a point she drove home by attacking her first song, “What a Difference a Day Makes,” with the self-assured elegance of a classic jazz singer. The band accompanied her as she scatted with obvious joy.

Audience members grooved to the music discreetly, trying perchance to avoid sweating any more than they already were in the blistering afternoon sun--although some had come prepared with straw hats, fans and Chinese rice paper umbrellas. But with three remaining objectives to hit, there was no time to linger.

Even dead-on in the midst of rush hour, getting from downtown to the Autry Museum of Western Heritage, where the swing band Bob’s Yer Uncle was scheduled to perform at 6 p.m., took just about as long as saying “Bob’s your uncle.”

In the tiled courtyard of the museum, entire families chilled out under huge yellow umbrellas, strollers parked nearby. The band started off with a few severely mellow numbers, the equivalent of swing on Prozac. It seemed like the most excitement was generated by a bumble bee that hovered above for a few seconds, provoking a few small screams.

“This is more like cocktail music,” said Patricia Gallardo from Lancaster, who was there with her two children, mother and husband in tow. “Maybe they are just warming up.”

Indeed they were. By the third song, the eight-piece band attacked a faster beat and the crowd began showing signs of life. Adult couples got up to shake a heel, kids intensified their agitation in an adjacent space labeled, appropriately, “children’s dance floor.”

“It’s a beautiful night for a moon dance,” crooned lead singer Rick Fitts, prompting Al Blaisch, from West Los Angeles, to spring out of his motorized cart--complete with vanity plate--and spin wife Sylvia on the dance floor. “Not bad for 85, huh?” he remarked later. “This was a belated Father’s Day gift,” explained daughter Lois Blaisch. “We promised dad we would do something.”

But there was no time to listen to the band’s version of “All Shook Up.” Just as things were heating up in the Autry courtyard, it was time to hit the road once again. Destination: an intriguing set at the Skirball Cultural Center by bossa nova duo Smokey & Miho, fresh from a sold-out club show the previous night.

This is when the much-dreaded traffic-parking nightmares materialized in earnest. Long before the show started at 7:30 p.m., all three parking lots at the Skirball Center were full, even at $5 per spot. Vehicles were being turned away, fists were shaking in anger, and one reporter had to flash press credentials to weasel her way in. Others not so fortunate lined up outside, gazing forlorn at the crowd of about 1,500 who spilled inside a courtyard set against the backdrop of a rugged hill.

“I’m very surprised--there are a lot of people there,” remarked singer Miho Hatori, one half of the New York-based group who performed a soothing mix of Brazilian covers and original compositions accompanied by musicians playing maracas, bongo drums and stand-up bass.

Silky-haired and silky-voiced, Hatori sang sweetly melancholy tunes in Portuguese, as the dusk descended. On “Tristeza E Solidao,” a song made popular by Brazilian bossa nova great Baden Powell, she was joined by Smokey Hormel, who strummed his acoustic guitar throughout the show.

“I grew up about three miles from here,” Hormel said pointing toward the hills of Bel-Air--or was it Beverly Glen? “So much has changed since then. We used to have cougars up here; what we have now is Lexus,” he noted in somewhat mysterious syntax. The upscale-looking audience chuckled at the first part of his observation, not at the latter.

As Smokey & Miho sang into the night, it was time to hit the last stop of the music marathon: the Santa Monica Pier, where Algerian-born Rachid Taha enthralled a crowd of several thousand with his pop take on rai.

Lots of dogs and small children augmented the usual assortment of boardwalk denizens--beautiful young people and the homeless. Taha, who looked like a Middle Eastern Ricky Martin in a tight-fitting top and snug shiny pants, sang to the backing of a lute player, two guitars and a hand-held drum. He groaned plaintively as the crowd gyrated to the Middle Eastern rhythms.

It came as no surprise to see a middle-aged man with one foot in a cast shaking his crutches to the rhythm: Taha’s infectious blend of pop and Maghrebi rhythms sounded like it would incite the lame to walk.

Bruno Comet, on vacation from Paris, was dancing up a storm close to the stage. “Now is not the time to talk, it’s the time to enjoy the music,” he said in his native tongue, sweat dripping off his forehead.

The crowd roared, the ocean hummed nearby.

Another Kerouac line came to mind: “All around me were the noises of the crazy gold-coast city.” It’s good to know that among those noises, there is music to be enjoyed aplenty.

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Free Music

Here’s a selected list of major venues where you can hear free music on Thursdays and Fridays:

Thursdays

MOCA at the Geffen Contemporary, 152 N. Central Ave., Little Tokyo; 5-8 p.m., through Aug. 15. (213) 621-2766.

Autry Museum of Western Heritage, Griffith Park; 6-9 p.m., through Aug. 29. (323) 667-2000.

Santa Monica Pier, west end of Colorado Avenue; 7:30-9:30 p.m., through Aug. 29. (310) 458-8900.

Skirball Cultural Center, 2701 N. Sepulveda Blvd. at the 405 Freeway; 7:30 p.m., through Aug. 15. (310) 440-4500.

Fridays

Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 5905 Wilshire Blvd., L.A.; 5:30-8 p.m., through December. (323) 857-6000.

UCLA Hammer Museum, 10899 Wilshire Blvd., Westwood; 6:30 p.m., through Aug. 2. (310) 443-7000.

California Plaza, 350 S. Grand Ave., L.A.; noon and 8 p.m. (also Saturdays), through Oct. 4. (213) 687-2159.