‘Cool and Crazy’ Celebrates the West Coast Sound

The label “West Coast jazz” always has meant different things to different observers. Some believe West Coast jazz reached its peak in the ‘30s and ‘40s, during the halcyon years of the Central Avenue music scene. For others, the music that surfaced in the ‘50s via the playing of artists such as Gerry Mulligan, Shorty Rogers, Art Pepper and Bud Shank (among dozens of others) is the preferred West Coast jazz of treasured memory.

The latter view is being honored this weekend in a busy three-day festival, “Cool and Crazy: A West Coast Celebration of Jazz,” at the Beverly Garland Hotel in North Hollywood. The event kicked off Thursday with a pair of panel discussions featuring Howard Rumsey (owner of the Southland’s classic jazz destination--since 1949--the Lighthouse Cafe), Herb Geller, Jack Sheldon, Phil Urso and Charlie Mariano.

Afternoon performance events included “The Unheard Lighthouse,” featuring a septet playing music performed by the original Lighthouse All-Stars, but never recorded, and individual sets by the quartets of Mariano and Bob Brookmeyer. Alto saxophonist Mariano, a legendary figure who has lived in Europe for decades, was reportedly making his first Southland appearance in 40 years.

The major event of the opening session was “A Portrait of Shorty,” a lengthy musical tribute to the late trumpeter-arranger-composer Shorty Rogers performed by a large ensemble of Los Angeles’ current all-star jazz artists. Festival producer Ken Poston, introducing the program, identified Rogers’ 1952 LP release, “Modern Sounds,” as the album that “signaled the birth of West Coast jazz.” Although Rogers had been prominent before that time as an arranger-trumpeter in Woody Herman’s spectacular late-1940s big bands, it was his (and Gerry Mulligan’s) blending of the sophisticated sounds of the Miles Davis “Birth of the Cool” ensembles into a kind of laid-back, California style that quickly established West Coast jazz as the most broadly popular improvisational music of the decade.

Saxophonist Bill Perkins, a close friend and associate of Rogers, led the big band through a spirited collection of Rogers’ numbers. Fine soloing abounded, especially from saxophonists Perkins, Brian Scanlon and Tom Peterson, trombonist Andy Martin, trumpeter Ron Stout and pianist Ross Tompkins. Further enhancing the entertaining program, Poston added a collection of clips from films in which Rogers had small acting roles (“The Man With the Golden Arm”) or provided much of the music (“The Wild One”).

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“Cool and Crazy” continues today at Beverly Garland’s Holiday Inn, 4222 Vineland Ave., North Hollywood. Panels and concerts, 9 a.m. to midnight. Various prices for events. (909) 599-2912.