Two Fests to Offer a Range of Styles for Holiday Weekend

The Labor Day weekend is upon us and two things are fairly clear: Summer will be soon coming to an end and so will the annual jazz festival season. This weekend, however, there are two well-established events--each offering distinctly different styles of music--in the Southland.

The 11th annual gathering called the Los Angeles Classic Jazz Festival, which celebrates jazz from the New Orleans period to swing, takes place today through Monday at the Los Angeles Airport Marriott and Doubletree hotels. Just up the coast in Santa Barbara, the city’s sixth annual international jazz festival offers an array of sounds from contemporary jazz to Cajun and blues. The event takes place Saturday through Monday on the beach near the city’s Stern’s Wharf.

And these are no small events. Estimated attendance for both festivals combined: 50,000.

“We had about 30,000 people last year and we expect more this year,” says Bryan Seti, co-director of the Santa Barbara festival.

“Over 20,000 people attended our festival in 1993, and a similar crowd is expected this weekend,” says Howard Pearlstein, who handles publicity for the Los Angeles Classic Jazz Festival.

The L.A. Classic Jazz Festival, with a lineup sparked by pianist Dick Hyman, trumpeters Harry (Sweets) Edison and Wendell Brunious, and reed players Bob Wilber and Abe Most, has gone far beyond its early years, which focused almost entirely on New Orleans and Dixieland styles of jazz. The aim of the shift is to broaden the festival’s attendance base, says Pearlstein.

“We want younger people interested in this style of jazz so that it can live on, perpetuate itself,” he says.

Still, there’ll be plenty of lively two-beat music at the festival, supplied by the likes of Chris Kelly’s Black and White New Orleans Jazz Band, Conrad Janis’ Beverly Hills Unlisted Jazz Band and more than 20 others. There’ll be blues this year too, with a special concert Monday featuring Linda Hopkins and Harmonica Fats, among others. Big bands led by Frank Capp and Louie Bellson will also appear. Dancing is encouraged.

The festival runs from about 12:30 p.m. to 1:30 a.m., today through Sunday, and 12:30 p.m. to 7 p.m., Monday. Daily tickets, $20-$35, all-event badges, $75. Information: (310) 641-5700.

The headliners in Santa Barbara include singers Kevyn Lettau, Shelby Flint and Roseanna Vitro, keyboardist Gregg Karukas, trumpeter Jeff Elliott and saxophonists Sonya Jason and Mike Gealer, most of whom will keep the accent on contemporary sounds and eschew mainstream.

“We’ve had people like Cedar Walton and Jack Sheldon, but they didn’t appeal to the crowd we draw,” says Seti. “So we’ve gone more toward” an eclectic, pop-oriented format.

The festival, which is held on the sand at the foot of State Street, will also feature such acts as bluesman Arthur Adams and the salsa band Tejas. Shows begin at noon Saturday through Monday, with concerts concluding at 10 p.m., except for Monday’s show, which ends at 7 p.m. Daily tickets, $5-$20; three-day passes, $10-$40. Information: (805) 962-4636, Ext. 3000.

The Lowdown on Lovano: What is perhaps the most compelling aspect of tenor saxophonist veteran Joe Lovano is his uniquely appealing melodic style: He consistently comes up with alternately lyrical and angular improvised lines that are startling in their originality. The hornman, who makes his Los Angeles debut as a leader with a one-nighter at the Jazz Bakery on Thursday, says this approach to melody goes all the way back to his father, “Big Tony” Lovano, who was also a tenor saxophonist but not well known outside Ohio.

“My father was hip,” says Lovano, who took up the saxophone as a preteen in Cleveland. “He said it was more important to learn the melodies of songs, and their progressions, in all 12 keys, than it was to memorize someone else’s solos. So that’s what I did from an early age.”

This practice, and the influence of such masters as Sonny Rollins, John Coltrane and Ornette Coleman--who blended both jazz’s tradition and its forward-thinking avant-garde in their styles--has led Lovano to the expressive melodic approach he employs today.

“I want to play freely within the concepts of music, using freer forms and rhythms, creating my own time and tempo within the chord progressions,” says Lovano. “I don’t like to repeat myself, and, when you play this way, you have to explore new things all the time and not just fall into patterns.”

For the Bakery date, Lovano will arrive with a piano-less quartet featuring trumpeter Tim Hagans, bassist Derek Oles and drummer Carmen Castaldi. The absence of a piano allows for the kind of explorative improvising Lovano espouses.

“You can get a little bit more intimate with just bass and drums,” he says. “Then we have to really follow each other, listen deeply to each other. It’s very challenging.”

Information: (310) 271-9039.