Kuumbwa showing film

By Charles Levin
Sentinel music correspondent

When Ken Koenig considered retirement about four years ago, he never gave much thought to the lifestyle that tugs at so many folks entering their twilight years: A condo in Palm Springs on the 18th hole in a community for so-called "active seniors."

Instead, the 66-year-old Santa Cruz resident inventoried his skills. After more than 30 years as a psychiatrist, he knew how to interview people. He was an avid photo and home movie buff, a hobby cultivated since childhood.

And he embraced the digital revolution of personal computers and how they transformed cinematic art.

With a burning interest in telling stories and a passion for jazz, documentary filmmaking seemed like a natural evolution from hearing folks on a couch spill their guts.

Koenig’s first film, "Jazz on the West Coast: The Lighthouse," screens tonight at Kuumbwa Jazz Center in a benefit for the 30-year-old nonprofit club.

The 77-minute film takes an unflinching, behind-the-scenes look at The Lighthouse Cafe, the Hermosa Beach nightclub and epicenter of the "West Coast Jazz" sound of the 1950s.

In contrast to bebop’s frenetic, pyrotechnic chops, West Coast jazz was defined by clarity, melody and understatement. Its genesis can be traced to Miles Davis’ "Birth of the Cool" recording (circa 1949), Stan Kenton’s orchestra and the Kansas City tradition of Count Basie and saxophonist Lester Young.

Baritone saxophonist Gerry Mulligan and trumpeter Chet Baker stand out as some of its best known practitioners. In northern California, pianist Dave Brubeck and his alto saxophonist, Paul Desmond, tapped into a similar sound around the same time.

Down on the Hermosa Beach pier, bassist Howard Rumsey fronted a Lighthouse All-Stars band that read like a who’s who of jazz luminaries: Art Pepper, Shorty Rogers, Bob Cooper, Victor Feldman, Jimmy Giuffre, Shelly Manne, Bud Shank, Lennie Niehaus, and Pete and Conte Condoli.

At one point, Max Roach spent six months as the house drummer. Roach wooed Davis to play the storied room, which continues to sprinkle a little bit of jazz into its lineup today as a mostly rock and blues club.

By the 1960s, however, rock’n’roll gutted the jazz scene around Los Angeles.

Some of the musicians fell off the map, tethered to unshakable drug habits.

Others got incarcerated. Yet others found lucrative careers in L.A.’s studio scene.

But it was the music of Ramsey’s band and peers that captivated a teenage Koenig in Tuscon, Ariz. on late-night radio stations.

By age 13, Koenig also played alto saxophone. His music teacher noticed the enthusiasm and recommended listening to Brubeck’s live 1954 album, "Jazz Goes to College," featuring Desmond.

"And so that was the first music that I fell in love with," Koenig said in a recent phone interview. "Of course, I listened to other jazz ... but I must say my first and lasting love has been with the West Coast sound."

By 17, Koenig made a pilgrimage to California in his first car to visit friends. Shortly after arriving in the San Fernando Valley, he set out for Hermosa Beach to hear Rumsey’s band.

Because the Lighthouse Cafe operated a restaurant, the underage Koenig could sit at a booth, sip a Coke and listen to the band.

"I remember vividly parking up on Pier Avenue on the hill and walking down the street into the fog and out toward the ocean," Koenig said. "I was absolutely thrilled."

Making the leap to documentarian wasn’t nearly as hard as picking the first subject.

Koenig’s grown son, a former film student, offered some salient advice:

Choose a topic you love because there’s going to be hurdles, "and you’re going to need to have something to carry you through to finish it," Koenig said. "And he was absolutely right.

Koenig admires a host of filmmakers but acknowledges that "Jazz on the West Coast" borrows from Ken Burns’ widely admired style, evident in camera shots that pan across still photos.

In fact, Burns’ 2000 10-episode documentary "Jazz" partly inspired Koenig to tell this story.

"Jazz" drew as much praise as it did criticism -- the latter over its final episode, which chronicled the last 40 years of jazz history but played down contributions from some artists, omitted others altogether and dismissed the jazz-rock fusion trend of the early 1970s.

"It was painfully obvious that jazz on the west coast got short shrift in his production probably due to the influence and biases of the jazz experts with whom he consulted," Koenig said in a followup e-mail.

Koenig, who directed, wrote, edited and produced the film, uses the 22-year relationship between Lighthouse Cafe club owner John Levine and Rumsey as a platform to tell the story of the West Coast jazz sound.

Koenig draws on rare footage of the All-Stars performing at the club. He also interviews Rumsey (now 88 and living in Newport Beach), bassist Max Bennett, arranger Bill Holman, saxophonists Bud Shank and Buddy Collette, and several former Lighthouse employees.

Koenig started the venture as a fan out to make a tribute. He researched the subject matter with several tomes about West Coast jazz, album liner notes and articles from jazz trade magazines.

But he found that most of that material sanitized the subject matter. In the film, we learn that Levine was an inveterate gambler with ne’er-do-well friends that hinted of connections to the underworld. Rumsey candidly talks about a pot bust that put him in jail for six months.

"As the film evolved, and as I got more information, I realized I could tell a story that was more than just a tribute," Koenig said, acknowledging he morphed from fan to journalist in the process. "It really involved the back scene of what was going on at the Lighthouse, and I thought that was just as interesting, if not more interesting, than just telling the story of the music itself."

Koenig has no interest in theater distribution but hopes the film, which has enjoyed good reviews at several screenings, will find a home on PBS or in DVD distribution. The latter would allow him to supply outtakes of interviews, including an eyewitness account of a brawl between trumpeter Davis and one of the Lighthouse’s bartenders.

One hangup, however, is paying for publishing rights to the many songs used in the film’s soundtrack. Koenig has been discussing a potential deal with Concord Jazz. The Beverly Hills label recently bought the catalog of Fantasy Records, one of three imprints that released most of the West Coast jazz recordings.

If an agreement can be reached, Concord would buy and distribute the film, pay the publishing rights and package the DVD with recordings of West Coast jazz artists.

"It’s been wonderful," Koenig said. "I can’t tell you how thrilled I am to sit at a computer and make a film like this that can show on a big screen.

It still amazes me."

Reach Charles Levin wmlevinotd@earthlink.net.