Tuned to ‘tone: Mellowtones doing their best to keep big-band music afloat

Wednesday, June 26, 2002 | 8:34 a.m.

Each Sunday evening at JW Marriott's OXO restaurant a band of professors, attorneys, real estate agents, casino employees and other assorted professionals some retired gather to keep alive a form of music that is showing its age.

The Mellowtones are a 22-piece, big-band orchestra initiated by a handful of members of Christ Lutheran Church on North Torrey Pines Drive about 18 months ago.

The Mellowtones play swing, jazz, Latin and other music from the big-band era of the 1930s and '40s. Dancers of all ages come to the restaurant inside the JW Marriott to dine and to swing and sway to music first popularized by such legends as Fletcher Henderson, Louis Armstrong, Count Basie and Paul Whiteman.

Many of the musicians are too young to have experienced the era they are trying to preserve.

"It was a hobby that's gotten out of hand," quipped 52-year-old Kurt Swanson, a trumpet-playing accountant who was one of the driving forces behind the creation of the orchestra, whose membership has gone beyond the church and reached out to the community at large.

When the former Chicago resident decided to start an amateur band, it was hard to find enough musicians.

"They are called rehearsal bands," Swanson said. "I used to play in one in Chicago. Musicians just get together for their own amusement. Basically, The Mellowtones are a rehearsal band." Swanson and Al Hofmeister tried for nearly two years to put together a band in Las Vegas.

"We would have five people at one session, and maybe six at the next and three at the next," Swanson said. "On a good night, we might have had 10 or 11 musicians. Then about a year and a half ago we ran into Arnie Webster, a tenor sax player. He was interested in joining the band, and he knew three or four other guys and those guys knew some other musicians."

Suddenly, the band took off like a rocket (which may account for Bernard Beckleman, who is a rocket scientist).

"It amazes me," Swanson said. "For two years it was like pulling teeth."

And the group even has a dentist: Webster (who is retired).

"We can't keep the musicians away," Swanson said.

There's even a waiting list.

"A lot of musicians come by to let us know they are interested when there's an opening," Swanson said.

Staying alive

The Mellowtones may be the biggest big band in Las Vegas.

"More than all of our chairs are filled," Swanson said. "We even have someone who plays the congas, and there's a vibes player."

And there are two vocalists, Carolyn Wood and Tony Jordan.

"It's been a wonderful learning experience for me," said Wood, 53, who has been a vocalist with the group since September. "I had never been with a big band before. But I was familiar with the music. I had listened to it for years."

Although she is closer in age to The Beatles era, she has no difficulty belting out such big band standards as "The Nearness of You," "Makin' Whoopie" and "Jeepers Creepers."

"I'm having a ball," Wood said. "If I could, I would do it every day."

Wood is the treasurer of The Mellowtones Inc., formed to handle any money the group might earn. Swanson is president.

Before OXO's owner, Chef Gustav Mauler, decided to add to the ambiance of his restaurant, the band mostly played for free at church functions and charity events.

"When we got this job at OXO's last March we realized we would be taking in some funds, so we decided to incorporate," Swanson said.

Since band members aren't paid, money goes into the corporation's account to cover the cost of equipment and other necessities.

One of the reasons there are so few big bands today is the expense of paying so many musicians.

In a story in the June 16 issue of The Los Angeles Times, music critic Don Heckman wrote that big bands "face grave difficulties in simply surviving on the contemporary cultural scene ... the number of financially stable big bands performing on a regular, continuing basis is abysmally small."

Heckman said the biggest reason for the decline of large bands is money.

"The cost of salaries, maintenance and travel for an ensemble of 16 to 20 musicians can quickly rise to astronomical heights," he wrote in the Times article. According to Heckman, other reasons include new technology, which can produce a big band sound without a big band, and musical tastes have changed.

Thom Pastor, secretary-treasurer of Musicians Union of Las Vegas No. 369, says costs are not necessarily prohibitive, at least for local union players.

"We have scales in our book now that are specific to accommodating big bands, so the music gets to be heard in its full complement of players, so it won't be cost prohibitive."

Pastor believes the key reason for the demise of big bands is the change in tastes.

He said there are occasional resurgences in interest in big bands, but they are usually associated with an artist who has a hit CD associated with that form of music.

"The interest is short-lived," he said.

For the love of it

"We just do it for the love of it," trumpeter Ken Keiser said.

Keiser, 70, has been a musician most of his life. He started playing the marimba (similar to a xylophone) at age 5. After college he played marimba for four years with the band at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point.

Keiser spent 30 years with the Pine Bush (N.Y.) School District. He retired as music chairman of the district in 1987. In 1997 Keiser and his wife moved to Las Vegas.

"Kurt called me up and invited me to come to a rehearsal," Keiser recalled. "That night my lip was down to my ankles. I thought I was going to die. I hadn't used (the lip) muscles in years."

Ben Tolly, a retired plumbing contractor, is among the stalwart fans of big-band music. He plays saxophone for The Mellowtones.

"The big band is sort of a dinosaur," Tolly, 67, said. "But there is still a place for it ... there just isn't a venue where they pay a whole lot of people a whole lot of money ... but what we are doing (at the restaurant), people can enjoy the music and keep alive the big band sound.

"Also, it gives us retired people a place to play."

Tolly grew up in Pittsburgh listening to jazz, and thinking one day he might be a professional musician. He even performed in the army band when he was drafted in 1957. But when he got out of the service he took over his father's plumbing business and got married.

In 1974, after Tolly got divorced, he received a music scholarship to the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. But after getting his degree in music education he ended up back in the construction business.

After retiring in 1998, Tolly again focused on music.

"I've always had an intense love of music," he said.

While most of the musicians are amateurs, Tolly said a few are professionals, such as guitarist Ed Paliotta and pianist John Griffith, both of whom play at a variety of local venues.

Tolly called The Mellowtones "a double-edged sword."

While the musicians love to perform, it takes them away from their families at least twice a week -- one day for rehearsal and one day for performance.

"We have created sort of a monster," Tolly said. "It's a gigantic job just to set up and break down the stuff.

"In the future, we're not sure what's going to happen."