Celebrating the Holidays in West Coast Style

Fans of this region’s jazz era of the 1950s and ‘60s had a chance to see and hear some of their favorite players in action Saturday night in “A Jazz West Coast Christmas” at the Hermosa Beach Playhouse. Among the many well-known artists appearing in this seasonal cornucopia were Conte and Pete Candoli, Dave Pell, Jack Montrose, Bob Enevoldsen, Med Flory and Pete Jolly. And, leading the program’s three segments were saxophonist Bill Perkins and veteran arranger-composer Pete Rugolo.

That’s an impressive list of names, and, despite the seniority of some of the players, the solo work was generally high-quality, with Conte Candoli, Perkins and Jolly playing with particularly spirited enthusiasm. Also adding to the improvisatory celebration were the equally attractive soloing of trombonist Andy Martin and the resolute lead trumpet work of Carl Saunders.

The concert, produced by the Los Angeles Jazz Institute, featured renderings of three Christmas collections, all relatively obscure. The first was a re-creation of a 1960 Shorty Rogers album--”Shorty’s Swingin’ Nutcracker”--showcasing jazz variations on Tchaikovsky’s “Nutcracker Suite.” Given the release of Duke Ellington’s adaptation of the same work in the same year, the Rogers version might seem a bit quixotic. But the source material was rich enough, and the Rogers and Ellington styles disparate enough to allow plenty of room for maneuverability. And many of the high points of Rogers’ brightly swinging style were apparent in the all-star ensemble’s performance, despite occasional evidence of inadequate rehearsal time.

The second collection, “This Time of Year,” traced to an album collaboration between June Christy and Rugolo. The material, all original, was filled with warm and fuzzy holiday references, with the Christy passages sung--in characteristically precise style--by the talented and too little-acknowledged vocalist Pinky Winters. Saxophone solo passages, performed by Bob Cooper on the original (an extremely hard-to-find recording), were provided by Perkins.

The evening climaxed with a large brass ensemble rendering a lushly arranged collection of traditional holiday numbers from the album “Stan Kenton’s A Merry Christmas.” Although the performance also revealed twinges of inadequate preparation time, the rich, lustrous quality of the music ultimately prevailed, enhanced by the grand sound of French horns, replacing the mellophoniums present in the original Kenton recording.

For the full-house crowd, it was a rare and fascinating evening, yet another installment in the Los Angeles Jazz Institute’s continuing efforts to recapture many of the Southland’s most historic jazz moments.