Howard Rumsey, West Coast jazz pioneer, age 97 — R.I.P.

[bluenoter]

 


Howard Rumsey, a West Coast jazz bassist who began his recording career in Stan Kenton's orchestra in 1941 and
managed the Lighthouse in Hermosa Beach, Calif., a club that became ground zero for the West Coast jazz sound
starting in the early 1950s, died July 15 in Newport Beach, Calif. He was 97.

When I interviewed Howard in 2009, it quickly became apparent that the Lighthouse and Howard's Lighthouse
All-Stars had paved the way for the airy jazz sound that relied on the counterpoint of reeds and horns and reflected
Los Angeles' beaches, highways and expanding suburbs in tone in the early '50s. In the days before cell phones,
email and texting, the Lighthouse was where newly arrived musicians networked and kept their chops hot while
waiting out their residency requirement for a union card, which allowed them to work.

To make my three-part interview with Howard Rumsey convenient for you, I've united all three parts below: . . .


The complete blog post—including the composite interview, which is illustrated with additional archival photos, and "a few favorite Howard Rumsey [video] clips"—is here:

http://www.jazzwax.com/2015/07/howard-rumsey-1917-2015.html


More coverage:

Ken Poston, the Founder and Director of the Los Angeles Jazz Institute, sent along the following regarding
the recent passing of Howard Rumsey and I thought I’d share it with you as I doubt that anyone had a
closer working relationship with Howard over the last three decades of his life than Ken did. . . .

The complete post: Howard Rumsey, Founding Father of West Coast Jazz, Dies at 97


That's all the coverage I've seen so far, but I'm sure that obits at the websites of the New York Times, the LA Times, DownBeat, JazzTimes, et al. will follow.

This LA Jazz Institute event took place only two months ago:




R.I.P., Howard Rumsey

[moldyfigg]

Back in the 50s, I spend many happy times at the great waterfront dive, The Lighthouse, and soaked up that great music that Howard put together. Bob Cooper, Bud Shank, Shorty Rogers, Frank Rosolino, Shelly Manne and so many other greats gave us the real West Coast jazz. Bebop is forever.

[Ron Thorne]

Howard Rumsey, Musician Who Invigorated West Coast Jazz Scene, Dies at 97

By BEN RATLIFF
JULY 26, 2015



The bassist Howard Rumsey, right, in 1954, with members of the Lighthouse All-Stars, the ensemble he formed
as the house band at the Lighthouse Cafe in Hermosa Beach, Calif. Credit Howard Rumsey Collection, Los
Angeles Jazz Institute Archive

Howard Rumsey, a jazz bassist and entrepreneur who helped popularize the notion of a progressive West Coast jazz scene in the 1950s as leader of the Lighthouse All-Stars, died on July 15 in Newport Beach, Calif. He was 97.

The cause was complications of pneumonia, said Nancy Simonian, a longtime friend.

In the late 1940s, the Lighthouse Cafe was a struggling Polynesian-themed nightclub a block from the sand in Hermosa Beach, Calif., with a clientele of longshoremen and aircraft-factory workers. Mr. Rumsey, not one of jazz’s greatest bassists but surely one of its champion promoters, transformed it into a locus of postwar, California jazz.

Using the club’s name to build a brand, he formed a top-level house ensemble, the Lighthouse All-Stars, booked college-circuit tours, and started his own record company, Lighthouse Records. In 1952 the Contemporary label began releasing a series of Lighthouse All-Stars records — some recorded live in the club — including “Music for Lighthousekeeping” and “Lighthouse at Laguna,” the covers carrying beach-scene photographs.

Howard Rumsey was born on Nov. 7, 1917, in Brawley, Calif. He worked in Stan Kenton’s first big band and later in Charlie Barnet’s. He moved to Hermosa Beach in 1948 and soon proposed the idea of Sunday afternoon jam sessions to the Lighthouse’s owner, John Levine. Starting in 1949, he ran the club’s music bookings, turning the Sunday sessions into 12-hour marathons and having the band play evenings during the week as well.

An early version of the All-Stars was made up of musicians from Los Angeles’s Central Avenue jazz scene, including the tenor saxophonist Teddy Edwards and the pianist Hampton Hawes. Later, members of Kenton’s and Woody Herman’s bands drifted into the group.

Among the band’s core were the trumpeters Shorty Rogers and Conte Candoli; the saxophonists Bob Cooper, Jimmy Giuffre and Bud Shank; the trombonist Frank Rosolino; and the drummers Stan Levey and Shelly Manne. (Max Roach played drums with the band for a time in 1953.)

Some of the music was the airy, low-pulse-rate jazz that the West Coast became famous for; more was loose, straight-ahead post-bop, modeled after the New York style.

The group disbanded in the early 1960s, but Mr. Rumsey continued to book the Lighthouse through the decade, increasingly with major out-of-town acts. By the mid-50s he had also started the Intercollegiate Jazz Festival to help develop talent in Southern California.

From 1971 to his retirement in 1985, he managed and booked the music at Concerts by the Sea, a jazz club in Redondo Beach, Calif.

He had no immediate survivors.

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