Event taking giant steps

Have dinner, listen to some jazz.

Grab a nightcap, listen to some jazz. Go to brunch, lie by the pool or walk through the Grand Ballroom at the Newport Beach Hotel and Spa this long holiday weekend, and you guessed it, you’ll be listening to jazz.

Billed as a “Right Down the Middle and Straight Ahead” jazz party, the all-star lineup will feature top-notch entertainment including accomplished pianist and composer Mike Melvoin, the Clayton-Hamilton Jazz Orchestra, singer Sue Raney and Japanese organist Atsuko Hashimoto.

Event co-producer Joe Rothman said the Grand Ballroom at the hotel holds about 490 people, and based on ticket sales there will be at least that many guests in attendance three out of the four nights.

“It looks like it will be a record-breaking attendance this year,” Rothman said. About half the crowd stays for the entire weekend, while others buy tickets for just one or two of the events.

“These people are religious zealots about jazz. We have a lot of fun with a very attentive listening audience.”

Rothman said the musicians performing are people who don’t normally play together, so for them it’s like “the all-star game of jazz.”

Mike and Lucy Peak of Laguna Hills have attended every party since they began, seven years ago.

They stay at the hotel all weekend, and Peak said he believes the lineup of talent makes this arguably the best event of its type in America.

Rothman and partner John McClure came up with the format, Peak said, putting musicians together in a variety of settings that allow jazz fans to get “up close and personal” with their favorite artists.

“Joe Rothman does understand music, he’s knowledgeable about music, and he knows which groups work well with each other. You get great, exciting improvised music,” Peak said.

While the event attracts its fair share of locals, Rothman said many people travel out to sunny Southern California from back East and the Midwest.

Being able to sit around in shirt sleeves listening to jazz at daytime pool sessions is something other venues around the country can’t always offer.

New this year is reserved seating for the Saturday and Sunday brunches. Rothman said not much changes in the party format from year to year, but they did decide after the lines were a mile long for the brunches last year that reserved seating was the better way to go.

Jazz guitarist Kenny Burrell and the Mike Melvoin Trio are part of the featured entertainment at Saturday’s brunch.

Melvoin described Burrell as one of the great jazz guitar players of all time and said the two “respect each other and have a great friendship.”

Their music will consist of jazz standards, blues and a couple of originals, Melvoin said, but it’s music they haven’t rehearsed in advance, because “real jazz is truly improvised music, and it should be.”

Performers like the Clayton-Hamilton Jazz Orchestra, the Jeff Hamilton Trio, Ken Peplowski and Luther Hughes have appeared at the event before, and will play at different times throughout the three-day event.

Hughes, a bassist, was at the first jazz party, and said this event is unique because it brings together a tremendous variety of jazz musicians, all in one place.

“You have no idea how much fun that is. I’m never on a job [or at an event] where there’s another bass player.”

Instead, at an event like this, Hughes said he gets to hang with his fellow musicians, listen to them perform and share the stage with some special entertainers himself.

At Sunday’s brunch Hughes will appear with singer Niki Harris, someone he has known since she was a little girl.

Niki’s dad was legendary American jazz and blues piano player Gene Harris.

“I performed with Niki’s dad. He was like a big brother to me, my closest friend,” Hughes said.

“Niki is a great entertainer, part woman, part ham, and she knows how to connect with the audience in a very special way,” Hughes added.

The nightcap sessions, scheduled from midnight till the wee hours of the morning at Sam and Harry’s restaurant are really for the die-hard jazz fans, Hughes said, and he should know.

He’s working that shift Sunday night, but as a self-professed night owl, said it won’t be a problem.

“Musicians generally work at night anyway, so our biological clocks are set to perform at night. It’s like now it’s really time to play.”

Howard Rumsey, an American jazz double-bassist who worked with the Stan Kenton band in the 1940s at the Rendezvous Ballroom on Balboa, will be at the hotel partying all weekend.

Rumsey celebrated his 90th birthday in October, and said he wouldn’t miss a minute.

“There’s more talent in one of Joe’s events than there are in all of the events in Los Angeles for one year,” Rumsey said.

IF YOU GO

WHAT: Newport Beach Jazz Party

WHEN: 8 to 11 p.m. today; noon to 1:30 a.m. Friday; 9:15 a.m. to 1:30 a.m. Saturday; 9:15 a.m. to 1:30 a.m. Sunday.

WHERE: Newport Beach Marriott Hotel and Spa, 900 Newport Center Drive,

Newport Beach

COST: Varies by event

INFO: For a full event schedule and to purchase tickets, call (949) 759-5003 or go to www.newportbeachjazzparty.com

SUE THOENSEN may be reached at (714) 966-4627 or at sue.thoensen@latimes.com.