In Tune With Tradition....

Some days when Jana Austinson gets behind the wheel on the freeway, she rolls up the windows, takes a deep breath and screams bloody murder.

It’s not the traffic. She’s merely practicing for her fleeting vocal solo in the Camarillo Community Band’s medley of “Phantom of the Opera.�

What does the audience think of her scream? “They love it,� said Austinson who also plays clarinet, flute and sax.

From Camarillo to Ojai to Woodland Hills, audiences seem to love the whole idea of summer band concerts, the old-fashioned kind in the park where you can spread out a blanket and listen to oompa-style marches, show tunes, maybe a little Gershwin, or some big band swing.

These are the bands that flourished throughout the country, especially before World War I. Most every town had one. For entertainment, there wasn’t much else. When television arrived, though, they started to fade.

But in the last decade, there has been a resurgence in community bands across the country, national band association leaders say. Here, it’s been modest.

Summer bands in Camarillo and Ojai have popped up. Eight years ago, Cal Lutheran University in Thousand Oaks started its band with students and community members. It performs only during the school year, as does the Ventura County Concert Band.

In the Valley, the bands at Pierce College in Woodland Hills, Valley College in Van Nuys, and Cal State Northridge are a mix of students and community members too. They also play during the school year, but Pierce finishes out its series with a razzle-dazzle outdoor concert this month.

In Camarillo, families sprawl out on the grass at Constitution Park for the band’s Thursday evening performances in July. (The first one is July 11.) The crowd averages 500, with children scampering about and picnic dinners all around.

“It’s wonderfully informal,� Austinson said. “Kids don’t have to sit still and act like grown-ups.�

In fact, kids literally get into the act. At one point during the concert, band director Kirk Raymond invites the children to come to the bandstand, where each is handed a baton of sorts: a straw. Then, with Raymond on the sidelines, the kids “conduct� the band.

“There are 30 to 50 kids waving their arms around,� Raymond said.

The concert music isn’t anything too heavy. The classics are on the light side, and familiar show medleys such as “Phantom of the Opera� are favorites. Sometimes Raymond throws in a novelty piece, like Leroy Anderson’s “Typewriter,� which calls for the percussionist to plink some typewriter sounds. At the end of each concert, audience members vote for their favorite and the following week they get to hear it again.

The band is in its 11th year. Raymond, a counselor at Oxnard High School, started it when he was music director at Rio Mesa High School. He hoped it would give students a place to play their instruments after graduation, rather than chucking them into the closet.

The first summer the band performed with only 20 musicians. Now they number 50 to 70 or more. They do three summer concerts and a Christmas performance.

They don’t do it for the money. There is none. The concerts are all free. The band brings together a wild mix of people--secretaries, doctors, a few high school students, husbands and wives, even a dad and his two daughters.

It’s mostly an over-40 crowd. Raymond doesn’t hold auditions; rehearsals are kept to two nights a week in June. Some musicians play professionally or, like Austinson, teach music. Some even played during the big band era.

“Almost everyone played in a high school band or orchestra and then put it aside,� Raymond said. “I get calls from people who say they haven’t played for 10 or 20 years.�

Mention community bands and a slice of turn-of-the-century Americana comes to mind--bandstands in the parks, scenes from “The Music Man� with Professor Harold Hill stirring up pride in the town’s young musicians.

“They’re not as common or prolific as they used to be,� Raymond said. The cost of sheet music has skyrocketed--$60 to $80 per piece. Sponsors like the Pleasant Valley Recreation and Park District help out, but people have busier lives now. And, school funding cuts have hampered music programs, shrinking the number of students trained to play.

Even so, Ojai’s Sara Beeby fell in love with that image of wholesome early Americana during a visit to Cape Cod in 1989. It was there that she heard the Chatham, Mass., band play outdoors at the town’s bandstand. In existence for 64 years, the band and its exuberant following inspired her to do something similar in Ojai.

By 1991 the fledgling Ojai Band, with 20 musicians, was ready for its first summer concert in Libbey Park under the direction of Bill Wagner, Nordhoff High School’s band director.

“We expected 30 people and we had 300,� Beeby said. Now the band numbers 40 musicians, and the audience sometimes tops 1,000 in this little town of only 8,000.

In fact, it was the band’s popularity that led Beeby to push for a new bandstand in the park. The $57,000 gazebo, made of river rock, wood and tile, was finished early this year and stands ready for the band’s first concert Wednesday, when Ben Denne will fill in for Wagner. The band will play every Wednesday evening through Aug. 28.

Ojai takes a step back in time on concert night. People, mostly families, troop into the oak-studded park with lawn chairs and blankets. Kids buy balloons, popcorn and lemonade.

“It’s like a Norman Rockwell painting,� said Beeby, who is not a musician but simply a music lover. Starting off with Ojai’s version of the “Kansas State Fair March,� the program has Boston Pops style pieces, marches, show tunes.

“It’s all upbeat,� Beeby said. The highlight is the children’s march, an idea she took from the Chatham band. Some 300 kids holding balloons line up and march around the park to a rousing tune. “Dogs participate, elderly people march.�

The concerts are free; Beeby won’t hear of a fee. “When families want something to do, I find it amazingly expensive, and sometimes not of much value.�

Like Raymond, Ojai’s Wagner hopes the band will lure young players. Already a dozen middle and high school students perform with the band.

“It’s a chance to sit with some good musicians,� Wagner said.

Among them is Dick Reed, 75, an engineer who plays piccolo and flute. Reed had played in school, then in a municipal band and a symphony, but he abandoned it when he joined the U.S. Army in 1939. Coincidentally, he had picked up the flute again a few months before the Ojai Band conducted auditions in 1991.

“I hadn’t played in 51 years,� he said. “I was pretty raunchy, but I told them I’d get better. I had to learn to play all over again.�

Reed took lessons. Like other summer band members, he also joined the venerable Ventura County Concert Band, now in its 31st year. With 55 to 60 musicians, the band plays only during the school year, beginning around Veterans Day. Its four free concerts at Ventura High School pack in audiences of about 1,200.

In Woodland Hills, the Pierce College Symphonic Band also performs mainly during the school year, but it tops off the season with a splashy outdoor concert at Warner Park. This year’s performance is Sunday at 5:30 p.m.

Some 3,000 people are expected to take to the grass for the two-hour free concert, which includes some patriotic music like the “Star Spangled Banner,� ragtime tunes, some Disney songs from “Beauty and the Beast� and “Pocahontas.� The band will have help from vocalists Mitzi Albert, Danny Sullivan and Yvonne Quezaire.

Stephen Piazza, who heads the college’s music department, started the band in 1983, and it has blossomed to about 85 musicians. Some are college students, and some professional musicians. But most are a mixed bag of amateurs from the community--a flight attendant, psychiatrist, farmer, a wallpaper hanger.

Caryn Rasmussen didn’t have much interest in the band when she enrolled at Pierce College as an architecture major. She hadn’t played music in high school.

But she saw a saxophone at a swap meet and it was love at first sight. “I’d always wanted to play sax,� she said. “I ran home and washed cars in the neighborhood,� she said, eventually raising the $250 to buy it.

She took some music classes and joined the band in 1986. Now she works as a music copyist, someone who prepares parts for studio musicians.

“There were 30 people in the band when I first joined,� she said. “The more people heard us, the more it grew.�

Piazza takes the band on the road every spring, and this year the tour took them to Vancouver and Seattle. They’ve gone high-tech recently with a CD recording of early 20th century rag tunes.

“Many play extremely well,� Piazza said. “Many were outstanding musicians in school, but they’ve gravitated to other professions.�

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Music’s in the Air

If your idea of an unbeatable combination is good music and the great outdoors, there are evening musical events all summer long. Just pack a picnic and make sure you get dibs on the lawn chair.

VENTURA

* The city of Ventura presents its “Music Under the Stars� concert and event series at the Olivas Adobe, 4200 Olivas Park Drive, Ventura. Tickets are $8, $6 senior citizens and children. Concerts are held from 7 to 9 p.m. Call 658-4726.

July 6: Acadiana (Cajun and zydeco)

July 13: The Estrada Brothers (Latin jazz)

July 20: Cyrus Clarke Band (acoustic folk music)

July 27: Nuestro (Latin jazz)

Aug. 3: Riders of the Purple Sage (cowboy western music)

Aug. 10: Classical guitarist Carlos Gonzales performs during the silent movie, “The Mark of Zorro�

Aug. 17: Southern Cross (World beat music)

Aug. 24: Iron Mountain Boys (bluegrass)

Aug. 31: Conjunto Hueyapan (traditional music of Veracruz)

*

* The Ventura Harbor Village, Spinnaker Drive, offers free weekend concerts through Labor Day. Saturday concerts are held at the Carousel Stage from 1-4 p.m.; Sundays, 1-4 p.m. at the Carousel Stage and 2-5 p.m. at the Village Fountain. Call 644-0169.

July 6: Bluemoon (‘50s-style music)

July 7: Rhythm Rangers (country-western); Frank Umbro (big band jazz)

July 13: Frank Umbro

July 14: Sweetest Dixieland (big band jazz); Frank Umbro

July 20: Yahman (reggae)

July 21: Nuestro (Latin jazz); Corcovado (Latin jazz)

July 27: Sweet Country (country-western)

July 28: Rhythm Rangers; Buck Page (cowboy music)

Aug. 3-4: Jazz/Rhythm & Blues Festival, noon to 9 p.m., with Main Street Jazz, Jim Calire, John Marx, Domino Affect, Soup and more

Aug. 10: Iron Mountain Boys (country-western)

Aug. 11: Rhythm Rangers; Buck Page

Aug. 17: Frank Umbro

Aug. 18: Main Street Jazz; Sweetest Dixieland

Aug. 24: Corcovado

Aug. 25: Nuestro; Soup

Aug. 31: Main Street Jazz

Sept. 1: Iron Mountain Boys; The Tim Young Trio

Sept. 2: Tropical Squeeze

* Ventura’s annual homage to sun ‘n’ surf, the California Beach Party, held Sept. 21-22 along the Promenade, will include performances by Dick Dale & The Daletones, Chuck Rio & The Champs, Big Bad Voodoo Daddy and others. Call 654-7830.

*

CAMARILLO

* The Camarillo Arts Council continues its annual free summer concert series at 7 p.m. Saturdays at Constitution Park, Paseo Camarillo and Carmen Drive. Call 987-7847.

July 20: Beach Front Property (seven-voice contemporary music group)

Aug. 3: Richard Burr presents “Touch of Magic� (illusionist)

Aug. 17: The Moonlighters Orchestra (big band jazz)

Aug. 31: Raymond Michael (Elvis impersonator)

* The Camarillo Community Band performs its free concert series at 7 p.m. Thursdays at Constitution Park, Paseo Camarillo and Carmen Drive. Band director Kirk Raymond leads a program of light classics and medleys from shows such as “Phantom of the Opera.� Performance dates: July 11, 18 and 25.

*

OXNARD

* The Heritage Square Summer Concert series continues each Friday, 6-8 p.m., through Aug. 23 at 7th and B streets. Plaza seating is $1; lawn seating is free. Call 483-7960.

July 5: John Marx and the Blues Patrol (boogie woogie and jump blues)

July 12: Jimmy Adams and Friends (acoustic country, folk and bluegrass)

July 19: The Barflys (‘70s retro-rock)

July 26: The Convertibles (‘50s and ‘60s rock)

Aug. 2: Conjunto Hueyapan (Mexican folk)

Aug. 9: The Estrada Brothers (Latin jazz)

Aug. 16: Acadiana (Cajun and zydeco)

Aug. 23: Societe (big band swing music)

* Free concerts are held each weekend through Sept. 8 at Fisherman’s Wharf at Channel Islands Harbor. Musical acts include jazz, blues and country-western. The concerts are held from 2-6 p.m. unless otherwise noted. Call 985-4852.

July 4: Kurt & Christian

July 5: Shepard (6-10 p.m.)

July 6: Rhythm Method Band; The Ordinaires (6-10 p.m.)

July 7: Jim Calire Trio

July 13: Sea Sidewalk Sale, 10 a.m. to 8 p.m., includes performance by The Sweetest Dixieland Band

July 20: Teresa Russell

July 21: The Ordinaires

Aug. 3: Shepard

Aug. 4: Gazebo Guys

Aug. 10: Tijuana Houndogs

Aug. 11: The Ordinaires

Aug. 17: Pirate’s Ball event includes food, live music and more (10 a.m. to 8 p.m.)

Aug. 24: Shepard

Aug. 25: Teresa Russell

Aug. 31: Gazebo Guys

Sept. 1: Tijuana Houndogs

Sept. 7: Shepard

Sept. 8: The Ordinaires

*

OJAI

* The Channel Islands Symphony Orchestra, guided by music director Paul Polivnick, will perform at 5 p.m. today at Libbey Bowl in Ojai. In a program titled “Freedom,� the orchestra will perform works by Beethoven, Verdi, Rossini and more. Tickets are $15, $10 children. Call 497-1902.

* Beginning Wednesday the Ojai Band will perform its free concert series from 8 to 9:30 p.m. every Wednesday through Aug. 28, at the Libbey Park Bandstand. Directed by Bill Wagner, the community band performs patriotic music, musical tunes and old-fashioned melodies. Bring a folding chair or blanket. Free transportation for seniors is available by calling the Little House Senior Center (646-0144) three days in advance.

*

THOUSAND OAKS

* The Conejo Recreation and Park District presents its free Summer Concerts in the Park & Performing Arts Series at Conejo Community Park, Dover and Hendrix avenues, Thousand Oaks. All performances begin at 5 p.m. Call 499-4355 or 495-2163.

July 4: Conejo Pops Orchestra

July 20: Staging of Shakespeare’s “The Two Gentlemen of Verona�

July 21: “Blues-iana & Gospel� concert features Maria Muldaur and gospel singers

Aug. 18: Cactus County (country-western)

Sept. 2: Conejo Pops Orchestra

*

SIMI VALLEY

* The Brandeis Bardin Institute presents its annual “Under the Stars� summer concert series at the campus’ outdoor Performing Arts Plaza, 1101 Peppertree Lane, Simi Valley. Tickets are $20; reservations required. The concerts begin at 7:30 p.m. unless otherwise noted. Call 582-4450.

July 14: The John Bilezikjian Ensemble: The Music of “Sepharad� and the Middle East

July 28: “An Evening of Chamber Music� with the Brandeis-Bardin Chamber Ensemble.

Aug. 10: The Klezmatics, 8 p.m.

Aug. 11: The Klezmatics

* The Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, 40 Presidential Drive, will host a performance of the 1st Division Marine Band at 2:30 p.m. today as part of its Fourth of July activities. Free admission. Call 522-8444.

*

ELSEWHERE

* The National Park Service presents its annual summertime “Sunday Concerts in the Park� series at Peter Strauss Ranch, 30000 Mulholland Highway, near Agoura, in the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area. The free concerts are held from 2-4 p.m. Call (818) 597-9192, Ext. 201.

July 14: Los Angeles-St. Petersburg Russian Folk Orchestra

Aug. 11: Inca Dancers and Musicians (costumed dancers perform ancient Incan music and dance)

Sept. 8: Preston Smith (blues and jazz)

Oct. 13: Blues Concert (performers to be announced)