Shorty Rogers and the Old Gang : Jazz: It will be a homecoming of sorts when the horn player conducts the Stan Kenton Alumni Orchestra for the seventh tribute to the late bandleader Sunday.

Shorty Rogers remembers the exact day he joined the Stan Kenton Orchestra: Jan. 2, 1950.

“It was at the time when Stan first put together the Innovations orchestra,” the 69-year-old trumpeter-fluegelhornist said recently from his home in Marina del Rey, “the group with strings and French horns. It was as if this wonderful blank canvas had just been handed to me.”

Rogers went on to gain fame as a composer-arranger, not only for Kenton but as a figure on the Hollywood studio scene, contributing to the scores of “The Wild One” and “The Man With the Golden Arm” among many others.

So it will be a fitting homecoming Sunday at the Irvine Marriott when Rogers steps up to conduct the 18-piece Stan Kenton Alumni Orchestra for the seventh annual tribute to the late bandleader. Also on hand will be two men instrumental in getting Rogers into the Kenton ensemble: trumpeter Buddy Childers and fellow composer-arranger Pete Rugolo.

“I had just come off of (orchestra leader Woody Herman’s) band with Buddy and Shelly Manne, and they had been invited to join Stan before I was. And Pete and Buddy went to Stan--they knew he was looking for somebody who could write--and said, ‘Look, you’ve got to get this guy into the band.’ And, of course, Stan listened to them.”

It was an unselfish act for Rugolo, who joined Kenton in 1946 as an arranger, to recommend his fellow writer. But it’s for this reason that the Kenton Orchestra was so important to the evolution of the music.

It provided a vehicle not only for great instrumental soloists to prove themselves, but for writers. Among those who honed their talents with Kenton were Rugolo, Rogers, Gerry Mulligan and Bill Holman. Of Kenton’s various ensembles, the 40-piece Innovations Orchestra was the most ambitious.

“It was a great, great experience to be involved in,” Rogers said, adding that the first thing he ever wrote that included strings was for the Innovations band. “Stan had a practice of naming tunes after the featured soloist. There was an album with several tunes named after people, like ‘Shelly Manne,’ which Stan wrote, and ‘Maynard Ferguson,’ that I wrote. So this one was called ‘Art Pepper’ (after the saxophonist). It had a varied tempo, starts out as a ballad, then moves into a jazz thing followed by a kind of interlude, then reverts to a ballad as it goes out. It was my favorite thing that I wrote for the band.”

Rogers left the band as a player in 1951 but continued to write for Kenton.

“He would call me up and give me a scenario and say, ‘See what you can do with this situation.’ And I’d come up with something and mail it to them, or if the band was in town I’d go to the rehearsal. I did that for quite a while, well into the late ‘50s.”

Rogers was with Herman’s band when he met Rugolo.

“We were playing at Birdland in New York, and it was during the time that I had started doing a bit of arranging for the band. And Woody would just announce a tune, and the band would play it. It just wasn’t the thing to announce who wrote the arrangement or give that credit out. So Pete came up during the break and asked who did the writing on this or that piece. And I said, ‘I did.’ And later on, he spoke on my behalf to Kenton.”

Rugolo, who will make a guest appearance as conductor at Sunday’s concert, also went on to compose for films and television. After leaving Kenton’s employ, he became musical director at Capitol Records and was responsible for putting together, among others, Miles Davis’ groundbreaking “Birth of the Cool” session for the label in 1949. He also produced sessions for June Christy and the Four Freshmen (the current edition of the Freshmen will also be on hand at Sunday’s tribute).

Over the years, Rugolo and Rogers have remained good friends.

“He’s the same great guy that he was when we first met,” Rogers said. “We talk every few months, often when something comes up involving Kenton.”

The concert’s other honoree, composer Bobby Troup, who wrote, among other songs, the classic road anthem “Route 66,” was also a Rogers associate.

“Bobby wrote so many great pop hits, but his first love was jazz. It was one of the great ingredients in his songwriting. He had a television show in the ‘50s (“The Stars of Jazz”) that I was on a couple times. And I used to see him around Los Angeles. He worked all the clubs; that was his main activity then, and he played with a lot of the people that I worked with, like (bassist-trombonist) Bob Enevoldsen and (drummer) Jack Sperling. You know how it is on the coast: You only see guys when you work with them.”

Rogers’ own career continues full bore in the present.

He was recently interviewed for 10 hours by Herb Wong for a Smithsonian Institution project on the history of West Coast jazz, and Rogers will be the honoree at this year’s New York Brass Conference in April.

His involvement with the Lighthouse All Stars, an ensemble he leads with alto saxophonist Bud Shank, continues, though at an interrupted pace.

“The band is kind of a question mark now,” he explained. “The economy hit us hard. We’re kind of an elephant in size. Here’s this group with eight big names, eight leaders, that demand eight leaders’ salaries. It would be easier if we were a quartet. But we’re here on the bench, ready to play when the coach calls.”

And Rogers, respected as a trumpeter when he first broke on the scene, now works mainly on fluegelhorn.

“Yes,” he said with a laugh, “I’m still in pursuit of the perfect note.”

* The seventh annual Tribute to Stan Kenton with the Stan Kenton Alumni Orchestra and the Four Freshmen is at 6 p.m. Sunday, at the Rendezvous Ballroom, Irvine Marriott hotel, 18000 Von Karman Ave., Irvine, (714) 553-9449. Tickets: $25 at the door.