February 2004

Please indulge me while I write these musical memories from our favorite Maui hangout -- # 120 Honokeana Cove.  I’m sitting at the table where the first drafts of all the Sun Valley Jazz Jamborees have been created.  Across the way the island of Molokai is shimmering in the sun, and the whales are frolicking under a rainbow in the channel.

Now for some jazz talk: My first exposure to “our” music was on the steamship Catalina.  In the 20’s and 30’s it carried people on a holiday from Los Angeles, across 21 miles of ocean to Avalon on Santa Catalina Island.  The little jazz band on the ship probably wasn’t very good, but to a seven-year-old it sounded great!  I remember the drummer playing gourds…

In later years (1941) we went to Avalon to dance at the “casino,” a misnomer, as the first floor was a beautiful movie theater, and the upper floor a magnificent circular ballroom.  Ray Noble was the orchestra on that occasion.  Still later (1991) we had a fifty year reunion there, with an orchestra we brought with us.  Sadly, the steamship Catalina is now resting away on the bottom of the harbor in Ensenada, Mexico. 

I was too young to go to the Palamar before it burned with all of Charlie Barnet’s music and instruments, but I can remember driving by with my parents and reading the names on the marquee.  When the new Paladium was built on Sunset Boulevard, I was old enough and attended the opening.  A large gold trombone over the entrance let us know that Tommy Dorsey was the band.  I was also one of the kids in the audience at the Rondavue Ballroom in Balboa in the summer of ’41 when Stan Kenton’s first band burst upon the scene.

There were many jazz clubs and ballrooms in southern California in those days, and we made the best of it.  In addition, there were the civic auditoriums in places like Pasadena and Glendale that would feature the big bands, when they were not otherwise occupied.

Who did we hear?  Well one night we went to The Streets of Paris on Hollywood Boulevard.  It was down some stairs in a basement when we walked in Jimmy Noone’s band was playing.  He was followed by Art Tatum, and after that Meade Lux Lewis!  Kid Ory’s Creole Jazz Band played at the Jade room in Hollywood and at the Beverly Caverns.  We went to hear Count Basie in what is now Watts, and Charlie Barnet at the Casablanania in Culver City.  His vocalist was a very young Kay Starr.  The list goes on and on:  Benny Carter, Eddie Haywood, Slim Gaylord, Duke Ellington, Jess Stacy, Pete Duly, etc., etc.  Of course, I didn’t know when I had Kid Ory autograph his picture that many years later I would be starting a jazz festival in Sun Valley, Idaho!

Now, my heart-felt thanks go out to the many, many people who have made the Jazz Jamboree a reality.  The space allowed here couldn’t hold them all, so here are just a few—the 24 hours-a-day-365-days-a-year bunch—Dick & Betty Black, Jeff & Carol Hazzard Loehr, Wally Huffman, Floyd McCracken, Arlene Florence; and most especially Barbara Jean the village queen, my partner in everything for these many years.  Finally, each year I have written the In Memoriam section of our program—saying farewell to good friends.  Now, with this column I write my last In Memoriam—my own!

Thomas H. Hazzard

Born: May 7, 1923

Died: August 19, 2004