COMMENTS & CURIOSITIES:Cooling off under the stars

Have you ever been? You should try it. One of the local summer concert series, that is. The Fashion Island Summer Concert Series is in its 39th year -- wish I could say the same -- and takes place on Wednesday evenings. The cities of Costa Mesa and Newport Beach each offer Summer Concerts in the Park -- Tuesday evenings at Fairview Park in Costa Mesa and Sunday evenings at various parks in Newport Beach. You want choices? We got choices. All sorts of times and days and bands, so you don’t have any excuse not to be there. Besides, with weather like this (Why is it so muggy? Does anyone know? Is this Florida now?) what could be better than live music and a cool evening breeze, all at the same time, for free? Nothing, that’s what.

The people singing their hearts out and shaking their tail feathers at Fashion Island are all name acts or members thereof. This year’s slate opened last Wednesday with Righteous Brother Bill Medley. It was a family affair, even though Sly Stone was nowhere to be seen. Medley’s daughter, McKenna, opened the concert, and his son, Darrin, jumped in and helped his sister and dad raise the roof, even though there wasn’t one, with “I’ve Had the Time of My Life,” which everyone did.

Next up at Fashion Island it’s Flo and Eddie of the Turtles (“It Ain’t Me Babe”), then Eddie Money, Dean Torrence of Jan and Dean, Colin Hay of Men at Work (“Who Can It Be Now?”) closing with Latin jazz king Poncho Sanchez on August 16. Wait a minute. Next year, Colin Hay should get together with Flo and Eddie -- “Who Can It Be Now?” “It Ain’t Me Babe.” Why does nobody call me on this stuff? I could be very helpful.

The Costa Mesa series, with a more local flavor and a variety of themes, kicks off this Tuesday evening in Fairview Park with The Doo-Wah Riders (country), then Brian Young (blues); The Susie Hansen Latin Band (salsa); The Jumpin’ Joz Band (swing), and closing on August 15 with Orange Colored Sky, which is billed as “Southern California’s premier party surf band” and has been at it, bless them, since 1968. “Sky” has also done some TV commercial and film gigs, including “Ghost World” with Scarlett Johansson.

The City of Newport Beach series opened on June 25 but continues this very evening, which is tonight, at 5pm at Bob Henry Park, with none other than Susie Hansen and her Latin Band. The series closes on August 27 at Eastbluff Park, with Trinidad and Tobago, not the islands, which can’t be moved, but a sizzling reggae and calypso band by the same name. You know -- “Come Mr. Tally Man, tally me ba-nah-na, daylight come and me want to go home,” et cetera, et cetera. Did you ever wonder why someone picking bananas is still at it at dawn? I did. Drove me crazy. Took me years to find the answer. Belafonte’s big hit was an update of a Jamaican chant that was used not by banana pickers, but by banana boat loaders to pass the time. Because the heat was so oppressive -- much like Newport-Mesa in the summer of 2006 -- the boats were loaded at night whenever possible. A Tally Man kept track not just of how many stalks of bananas the loaders carried but how big they were. That’s what the line “Lift six-foot, seven-foot, eight-foot bunch” means -- the bigger the bunch, the more you got paid.

I think we need more of this type of thing, free concerts, performances, etc. Whether you set up your lawn chair in a park or in the plaza behind Bloomie’s, getting together with your neighbors on a balmy summer evening and clapping your hands to “Little Latin Lupe Lu” is a good thing. As part of Costa Mesa’s celebration of the Constitution’s Bicentennial in 1989, City Manager Allan Roeder had a great idea for an outdoor laser show, in which an animated history of the Constitution, with narration and music, was projected on the walls of the buildings around the Performing Arts Center. People loved it and still mention it to this day. Do you know that long ago and not far away almost every American city had a municipal band? They played at official functions and the better ones gave Sunday concerts in the park, yes, in the proverbial gazebo. There are only a handful of municipal bands left. The only one I know of in these parts is the City of Long Beach Municipal Band, which is made up of top-notch musicians who get a small stipend for each concert they play with their municipal band hats on. I don’t know if they really have hats. I’m just guessing,

A lot more of that used to go on and more and more communities are trying to recapture it, whether it’s free concerts or summer “movie nights” under the stars, of which there have been a number of iterations in Newport Beach in recent years, some strictly a neighborhood affair, some more organized, like Movies in the Park, but all good in my opinion. Outdoor movie nights are very big in Europe, by the way, especially in small towns. All summer long, one night a week, everyone gathers in the plaza or the piazza or the platz to watch a movie on a big screen or even the side of a building. When it’s over, everyone schmoozes for a while, exchanges some gossip, drinks a little sangria or vino or schnapps, then folds up their chairs and heads for home. I assume you’ve seen the Oscar-winning 1989 Italian film, “Cinema Paradiso,” about a small Italian village and the friendships that develop from the weekly screenings at their tiny theater and in the town square. It makes you laugh and cry and cheer and just want to drag your TV and your DVD player out the door and down to the nearest park and start showing films except don’t do that because you’ll get in trouble. So there you have it. Concerts in the park, movies under the stars, it’s all good, we need more of it. But mostly, we need it to cool off. I gotta go.