JAZZ : Saxman Kubis Has a Dixieland Soul

Composer-arranger-saxophonist Tom Kubis credits his parents with developing his musical interest, including his special love for Dixieland and pop music of the 1930s and ‘40s.

“I was blessed with parents who loved that kind of music and played it all the time. My dad was a huge fan of the big bands of the ‘40s. He had a collection of 78s that was huge, and we’d go through it looking for great trumpet and clarinet solos. I developed a key feeling for that kind of music, and it’s still my favorite.”

Kubis, who brings his big band into the Orange County Performing Arts Center in Costa Mesa on Friday and Saturday to team with the Pacific Symphony Orchestra, parlayed those experiences into a career as a musician and writer whose charts are aired by most of the major U.S. college bands.

Besides composing for his own bands (he also leads the nine-piece revivalist ensemble Swing Savant), Kubis has a distinguished career writing and playing for everyone from Quincy Jones to Helen Reddy.

His performing career includes stints with trumpeter Don Ellis and the Four Tops and Smokey Robinson and the Miracles. He wrote and arranged music for the Dennis Hopper / Wesley Snipes film “Boiling Point.” His second big band album, “At Last,” was released late last year.

Kubis’ program this weekend will focus on his love for the music of 50 or more years ago, with new arrangements of “Frankie and Johnny,” Duke Ellington’s “Caravan” and Benny Goodman’s “Sing, Sing, Sing” (which will feature Kubis’ drummer Matt Johnson).

“There’s an excitement in this music that you don’t find anywhere else. Louis Armstrong is my chief adviser in writing big band music. I use his lines, his inspirations. He set the tone for what the trumpet can do, and in a big band, trumpet is everything.”

Featured on trumpet this weekend will be vocalist-actor Jack Sheldon. “Jack is the exact throwback to the kind of kick that I got out of Dixieland. He’s hilarious and full of surprises in his playing. So few artists sound like themselves today; they all sound like somebody else. But Jack is Jack.”

Kubis, who also teaches jazz arranging at Golden West College in Huntington Beach, has written for orchestra, though never at this scale.

“Having the full orchestra gives you an opportunity to expand the spectrum of musical sound. The strings, all that percussion, it gives you more color to work with, and more excitement.”