Fantasy Camp for Boomer Musicians Brings Back Youthful Licks

SACRAMENTO —  The band had run through Van Morrison’s “Moondance” without the keyboards when Larry Kazanjian dashed in.

He flung his briefcase aside, peeled off his suit coat and loosened his tie. Muttering at first about his long day of motions and meetings, he soon was lost in the jazz. He hunched over the keys, concentrating, then rolled his head back, all the time tapping his loafers to the beat.

Larry Kazanjian, attorney at law by day, had become Larry Kazanjian, jazz musician--for a few hours, anyway--by night.

Two weeks earlier, Kazanjian didn’t even know the four other members of his band. They met in a fantasy camp created four years ago by a Sacramento music store owner. The camp, called Weekend Warriors, is now spreading to other stores across the country.

The idea is to bring together aging rockers who want to return to their garage-band days--when nothing mattered as much as picking out the licks from the latest Beatles, Stones or Zeppelin record.

Skip Maggiora of Skip’s Music noticed that his onetime students, now shorter of hair and dressed for success, would wander back into the store with wistful looks.

“They remembered music as being a fond memory of their youth,” Maggiora said.

Weekend Warriors started as a canny marketing move. But a program to lure those nostalgic rockers back had to be more than just lessons.

“It had to be very easy for them to be involved, take very little time and had to be fun,” he said.

Seventy-five bucks gets you four or five bandmates, four weeks of rehearsals and one gig. The venues change; lately, concerts have been in a hotel lounge.

Participants list their instruments and their preferred music style--rock, country, blues, jazz, oldies or pop--and the store puts individuals together into bands.

The store provides all needed instruments, a place to practice and a coach. For four weeks, two hours a week, the new bands rehearse five songs of their choice. On the fifth week, they put on a concert for invited friends and relatives.

The time from big break to breakup is deliberately short, Maggiora says, because “if you let it go too long, the egos get involved.”

“If you make it quick, they focus on the music and get on. They really don’t have to like the other persons.”

Maggiora, 50, is one of the lucky few who transform their love of music into a day job. He worked his way through engineering school in the 1960s playing guitar in a band called the Creators that opened for the Doors, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin and Johnny Winters.

In 1973, he opened a one-man music store. It has since expanded to become one of Sacramento’s largest.

More than 1,000 people have gone through his Weekend Warriors program in Sacramento.

Some of the impromptu bands’ deathless names: Four Lawyers, Prematurely Gray and Not Quite Over the Hill.

Many people sign up for more sessions. And to Maggiora’s joy, many start buying new guitars, amps, keyboards and other equipment.

The song lists they play could be the Top 100 lists from the 1960s and 1970s: “Born to Be Wild,” “Summertime Blues,” “Yesterday,” “Stand by Me,” “Good Lovin’ ” and “Honky Tonk Woman.”

In January 1996, Maggiora introduced Weekend Warriors to the national music store owners organization, the International Music Products Assn. Twenty-five stores across the country tried it that year.

Now, about 100 stores in the United States and Canada run their own Weekend Warriors programs.

Back at Skip’s, Kazanjian’s as-yet-unnamed jazz group is one of eight bands in the current cycle. They practice Miles Davis’ “All Blues.”

The group’s experience varies. Kazanjian, 48, had played jazz piano for 10 years in a restaurant. Drummer Bruno Peters, 46, a contractor, played during his teens, then stopped until two years ago.

Bass player Pete Kimeto, 48, is an attorney; his wife, vocalist and conga player Cyd Kimeto, 40, is a psychologist. Trumpet player Lester Wells, 42, a retired Air Force weapons specialist, had played with the Kimetos about six years ago.

As they run through the songs and make some mistakes, there’s plenty of laughter. “Groovis” starts, then quickly falls apart.

“I’m sorry. My fault, my fault,” Kazanjian says.

Kazanjian explains why he signed up: “It’s my catharsis. It’s been two hours in a week that I’ve really needed.”

Cyd Kimeto added, “I wanted to get some fun back in my life, get back to those creative things I used to do before I went back to school.”

The night’s practice over, the group decided to pick its name. Someone suggests the Litigators, because of the two attorneys.

“Missing Pieces,” says Cyd Kimeto.

And Missing Pieces they became.