For the Inner Musician in All of Us

It’s an hour until show time and Jonathan Troper is rearranging Post-it notes on a legal pad. With each shuffle, the evening’s program changes. L.A. City Harmony is, in every way, a movable feast.

Since 6 p.m., music lovers have been arriving at the Santa Monica home of Jim Holly and Randi Hutchinson with pizza, pasta and potstickers, cakes and cookies, salads and sides.

Hutchinson doesn’t belong to this group, but made the mistake of saying, “Oh, that sounds neat!” when her friend Susan Rifkin--one of L.A. City Harmony’s founding trio--told her about it. Next thing she knew, she was shoving furniture into corners to create a performance space in her living room.

She looks around, pleased with what’s happening. “It’s so small-town in a way, total strangers coming together and creating their own fun in big Los Angeles.”

The evening will begin with a group sing-along--”With a Little Help From My Friends,” which pretty well sums up L.A. City Harmony’s philosophy.

Consider that this night’s soloists will include a marimba player with no marimba and a flutist who took up the instrument only weeks ago. Each will be resoundingly applauded.

“You just make people feel comfortable and see what happens,” explains Rifkin, 42, a commercial real estate manager. “This is not something you can organize too much.”

Co-founder Gary Saunders, 38, who teaches guitar while pursuing a bachelor’s degree in music at Cal State Northridge, says, “The sing-alongs are really the most powerful part of the night. A lot of people who don’t have music in their lives come in and get music. You have a lot of closet singers who come out of the closet once a month.”

The group, formed in September 1994, evolved from informal sing-alongs hosted by Saunders and Troper, 35, a researcher and PhD student at UCLA and a soloist at his temple. Responding to such violent events as the 1992 riots and 1994 Northridge earthquake, Saunders says, “We decided to bring people together through music. It’s not threatening and it’s not political.”

Monthly gatherings, at homes citywide, are, to say the least, eclectic.

Troper says, “One party started with two black gospel rappers, followed by an Arab group playing secular music from early in this century and two women and me teaching people a Hebrew song. At another event, we had a woman playing an ancient Chinese harp.”

They’ve had a hula dancer and a flamenco dancer, a 9-year-old piano prodigy and a neophyte violinist who performed “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.” Notes Rifkin, “She received very warm applause.”

Rifkin handles the logistics, such as RSVPs, and focuses on “making the space inviting,” perhaps bringing plump pillows for the floor. “When people are all sitting practically on top of each other, the barriers come down.”

There are old friends and first-timers. L.A. City Harmony doesn’t go around putting notices on bulletin boards, says Rifkin, but “when we meet someone and feel their energy is good, we give them a flier.”

Adds Troper, “We encourage people who want to show their warm and friendly side--and people with houses that can fit 35 or more.” Everyone is expected to participate, but not to solo. The shower singers can be greeters or cleanup crew.

The talent has ranged from attorneys, teachers and engineers with Walter Mitty fantasies of performing at Carnegie Hall to respected musicians such as Eddy Manson, who performed the “Moon River” harmonica solo in “Breakfast at Tiffany’s.”

Joan Meijer, a freelance writer who sings mostly for pleasure, won’t soon forget her L.A. City Harmony debut, the demanding Bach-Gounod “Ave Maria.” “I had 17 miles of music taped together and, halfway through, the music fell off the stand. You don’t improvise the ‘Ave Maria.’ ”

“It was a nightmare, but nobody cared. That’s the joy of this. They thought when I hit the high C, that was good enough.”

Barbara Rayliss, a school music and drama teacher in Hawthorne, says, “Usually, when you get music people together, there’s all this ego stuff that goes on and it’s not fun. Here, people’s hearts are really sweet.”

As the club scene has been co-opted by hard rock and as jazz clubs have become prohibitively expensive, performances have moved to other venues, observes Andy Muller, a graphics designer and sometime guitarist / bass player. “What’s happening in these homes is music for the common man. Here, we encourage people to lay something new on us and see how it goes over. And the food’s great.”

Andy Stein and his wife, Lorraine, live in London now, but plan trips to Los Angeles to coincide with L.A. City Harmony parties. “We’re trying to get this going in London, but they say, ‘Isn’t that kind of a throwback to the ‘60s?’ ”

Stein, who writes country music, has brought a baroque flute and a harmonica, both of which he’s just learning to play. “Girl From Ipanema” on the harmonica is a bit shaky through the bridge, but the sentiment is right on--”for Eddy [Manson],” who died recently.

Naoko Takada, 20, a student from Japan attending Cal State Northridge, came tonight to play the marimba, but discovered that Lee Kuroda, a computer programmer and the evening’s emcee, had provided a vibraphone, thinking it was a marimba.

Though she had never before played a vibraphone, she executes “Flight of the Bumblebee” with verve and skill--and the composure of one who performed with the Tokyo Symphony at the age of 12.

All join in singing “Yellow Submarine” from a multicultural songbook that includes “Banana Boat (Day-O)” “La Bamba” and a liberal sprinkling of the Beatles, whose music many in this group grew up with.

It’s been a “very, very emotional” evening for Vera Frolov of Playa del Rey. In Russia, she sang with a jazz orchestra, but when she came to America in 1980, “I took this part of my life, singing, and buried it” while making a living as an accountant.

She’ll be back to L.A. City Harmony, she says, and “maybe I’ll break my fear” and perform. “People in Los Angeles are so conscious of how they come across, but here you lose that. You get caught in a moment.”

* This weekly column chronicles the people and small moments that define life in Southern California. Reader suggestions are welcome.