There Have Been Ups and Downs, but No Regrets : Music: Ernie Andrews' career has taken him around the world. Tonight it brings the 'utility' singer to Birdland West.

By BILL KOHLHAASE

April 15, 1994 12 AM PT

SPECIAL TO THE TIMES

It comes as a surprise to learn that Ernie Andrews, the well-traveled singer with some 20 albums to his name, was once thrown out of his high-school vocal class.

“The vocal coach kicked me out because I didn’t sing the part she wanted,” Andrews, 66, said by phone from his home in Los Angeles. “I was a baritone and she wanted me to sing something else. I told her, ‘You can’t make a pickax out of a shovel.’ ”

It wasn’t long after that Andrews, still a teen-ager, won a local talent contest and was signed by G&G; Records. His first hit, “Soothe Me,” sold more than 300,000 copies.

From there he went on to appear with all the big names along L.A.’s Central Avenue, to tour the country with Cannonball Adderley and the Harry James Orchestra, and the world with pianist Gene Harris and the Philip Morris Superband.

Despite the high profile, Andrews always returns to his adopted hometown, Los Angeles, where he continues to make appearances in local clubs. Tonight, he’ll sing at Birdland West in Long Beach.

“I’ve been in Los Angeles since 1945, and I love my town and its people. It doesn’t matter where I perform, I don’t really notice the difference in most places. I just generate a lot of energy wherever I am.”

As he speaks about appearances earlier this year in Paris and Barcelona, Andrews talks with a vocalist’s cadence and a lyricist’s command of language. Those skills have served him well.

Andrews was the principle voice in Lois Shelton’s 1986 documentary “Blues for Central Avenue,” and, in 1991, he was the emcee for the four-concert series “Jazz at the Music Center.”

Andrews was born in Philadelphia on Christmas Day in 1927. Both his parents were from “singing families,” he said, and he was active in the Baptist Church choir.

“In Philadelphia, we’d go to stage shows and there I saw all the greats: Ella Fitzgerald, Jimmie Lunceford, Earl Hines,” he said. “I saw so many shows that I knew I wanted to be a part of all that, but didn’t know how to get to it.”

The family moved to Louisiana where the young Andrews studied drums with legendary trumpeter Bunk Johnson. But the real story begins when he moved to Los Angeles in the ‘40s.

He was enrolled at Jefferson High School where his classmates, studying under the revered music teacher Samuel Brown, included saxophonists Sonny Criss and Dexter Gordon. He was also the head usher at the old Lincoln Theater at 23rd Street and Central Avenue. It was there he won the talent contest that led to the recording of “Soothe Me.”

That was during the heyday of the Central Avenue jazz scene. “I was on the avenue when life was beautiful, a buck was a buck and life wasn’t as strenuous as it is today. Everybody was there--Buddy Collette, Charles Mingus, Hampton Hawes, Teddy Edwards, Ben Webster, Gerald Wilson--and I played with them all. I came up with singers like Charles Brown and Herb Jeffries. There were places to play all the way from First Street and San Pedro all the way down to 107th Street.

“Things have changed so much over the years, but that was when music was music. You could go out and catch people like Erroll Garner after hours. Things are very different now. There aren’t any clubs like that. The economy is so crazy and people have to pay so much just to get into the clubs.”

Andrews says he owes his longest association--his 10 years with the Harry James Orchestra beginning in 1959--to James’ wife, Betty Grable.

“From what I understand, she heard me on a record and called her husband, who was in Boston, and said, ‘This singer belongs in the band.’ So Jackie Mills, who was in the band, and Gerald Wiggins were sent out to track me down. They flew me out to Chicago, where we played the Blue Note club and from there it was Las Vegas, Reno, Lake Tahoe; six weeks of one-nighters, twice a year, for 10 years.”

Andrews, whose energetic ways make him most suitable for singing with a big band, has recorded with orchestras led by Benny Carter, Ernie Wilkens and Adderley, as well as making frequent appearances with the Capp-Pierce Juggernaut (now the Frank Capp Juggernaut).

The gig that took him the farthest from home was his 1989 stint with pianist Gene Harris and the Philip Morris Superband. Their tour covered five continents with stops that included Cairo, Moscow, Melbourne, Ankara and Morocco.

After circulating among 15 different record companies, Andrews’ recording pace slowed in the 1980s, with most of his studio appearances made with others (with the Juggernaut on Concord Records and with the Harper Brothers on their 1992 album, “You Can Hide Inside the Music”).

After some 10 years without an album under his own name, Andrews recently released “No Regrets,” featuring saxophonist Houston Pearson. The title neatly sums up Andrews’ view of his career. “It’s been long, with ups and downs, but that’s OK with me. As the title says, ‘No Regrets.’ ”

That he’s often pigeonholed as a blues singer upsets him.

“I hate that. When you’re talking blues singers, you’re talking Big Joe Turner, Jimmy Witherspoon, Muddy Waters, Bessie Smith, Big Mama Thorton. Me, I’m a utility singer, I can do just about anything except calypso and rap. I just stay in my comfort zone, stay studied and do things well. It’s consistency that gives you longevity.”

With a busy schedule that includes upcoming trips to New York to record a second album for Muse, Northern California and Oregon as well as a probable tour of Europe’s summer festivals, Andrews isn’t thinking of retirement.

“I would like to be able to slow down, back off when I feel like it,” he said. “When I get to be 70, I’m hoping I have enough to do things when I want and not have to scuffle for a living.”

* Ernie Andrews appears tonight at 9 and 11 p.m. with pianist Phil Wright, bassist Richard Simon and drummer Johnny Kirkwood at Birdland West, 105 W. Broadway, Long Beach. $10 cover plus two-drink minimum. (310) 436-9341.