Anniversary of Note

SIMI VALLEY — There are lazier ways to spend a Sunday afternoon than jamming on stage with a jazz band or dancing hard to the horns.

But for the music enthusiasts who, on the second Sunday of the month, turn the Simi Valley Elks Lodge into a swinging jazz club for senior citizens, an afternoon of Dixieland tunes is the perfect way to end the week.

The horns sounded louder and the dancers worked up an even bigger sweat than usual this weekend.

That’s because the Simi Valley Jazz Club celebrated its fifth anniversary as a hub for jazz lovers across Ventura County and neighboring communities. Hoping to ensure the club’s longevity, members have set their sights on younger musicians to boost the current membership.

After all, club members said, with playfulness as its trademark, jazz is a celebration of youthfulness.

“It’s all really danceable,” said Martha Simpson of Oxnard, a 73-year-old retiree who treks to Simi Valley to get her jazz fix. “It’s just so much spirit and life. It doesn’t matter how gray the hair. They’re full of life.”

The Simi Valley club focuses on Dixieland jazz, a New Orleans-style of jazz that’s best known for such brass-filled hits as “When the Saints Go Marching In.”

Still, there is plenty of improvisation. The jazz club’s programs feature “sit-ins,” where friends and newcomers take the stage and launch into tunes, even if they have never practiced together before.

To start the afternoon, three or four improvisational sessions take place. Then a featured band, which receives a nominal fee, plays an extended set to close out the three-hour program.

Club President Tommy Pinto, a saxophone player who lives in Ventura, said the local ensembles started gathering several years back when so many senior citizens in and near Simi Valley realized they had a big love for jazz but no regular place to play or listen to their favorite tunes.

So the club started a regular gig at the Elks Club. Today there are 175 members, who pay an annual fee of $10 and about $5 for the Sunday performances. The majority of the members are senior citizens and most do not play an instrument; they just love to dance and listen.

A sister club, the Oxnard-based Channel Cities Jazz Society, also has regular meetings, as do two other clubs in the San Fernando Valley. They all cater mostly to senior citizens.

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Pinto, a retired construction worker, said he toured Southern California as a young bandleader playing clubs and weddings. He moved from the San Fernando Valley more than 15 years ago to Simi Valley, and has since moved to Ventura.

His love of music started, he said, with Sunday jam sessions that followed family get-togethers when he was a kid.

“It was the Italian style,” he said. “After dinner on Sunday, we’d all go in the living room and play. I fell in love with jazz.”

Simi Valley Jazz Club enthusiasts would like to pass some of that love on to younger generations.

In the past, they tried to recruit new members by inviting high school musicians to sit in on Sundays, but nothing lasted beyond those visits.

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A few key club members have passed away recently, and the remaining musicians worry that local interest in jazz might be fading.

So, they have asked members to bring their grandchildren or any young people they know to their festivals.

Bobby Vinton, the club’s treasurer and a bass guitar player, said he is confident that a younger generation will develop a taste for Dixieland.

“Jazz never really dies,” said Vinton, who is no relation to the singer. “It just goes off in a corner and slows down once in a while.”

The turnout by those under 30 was small Sunday, but those who attended were taken by the elderly horn and banjo players, decked out in bright colored shirts and suspenders.

“I think it’s good music--upbeat and a lot of fun,” said Laurie Tactay, a 17-year-old Thousand Oaks High School student. “It’s something to do with my grandmother.”

Katie Cavera, a 27-year-old banjo player from North Hollywood, played Sunday with some older musicians in the Danny Davis Roaring 20s Band.

She said people her age do appreciate Dixieland and similar music, as evidenced by the many swing clubs that have popped up near her home in the San Fernando Valley.

But having a chance to play with some seasoned musicians is an even better way to get into jazz than going to hear it in a club, she said

“I love playing with these guys a lot,” she said. “They know numbers and songs that are amazing. I love the experience.”