Hands-On Jazz

Tickets for Wednesday’s free concert from the American Jazz Philharmonic in Long Beach were snapped up quickly, but don’t despair. While it was the first community event sponsored by the newly formed Henry Mancini Institute at Cal State Long Beach, it won’t be the last.

The institute has been created as something of a West Coast, pop-music-centered version of Tanglewood, the classical music academy in Massachusetts.

“They have a wonderful program for young musicians there,” said Mitchell Glickman, executive director of the AJP and the Mancini Institute. “But it all has a classical focus. There’s nothing that addresses jazz or pop or any other music outside the classical arena. What happens if a student wants to start a jazz band or go on to back Gloria Estefan someday?”

Toward that end, the Mancini Institute will offer aspiring musicians from around the country a chance to learn the hands-on, professional side of the music business during a monthlong, in-residence program scheduled to begin July 27 in partnership with the California Institute for the Preservation of Jazz (also on the CSULB campus) and the American Jazz Philharmonic, which is directed by Jack Elliott.

Glickman promises a huge series of concerts throughout Long Beach in August by students and instructors, including bassist Ray Brown, trumpeter Ray Hargrove and the Turtle Island String Quartet.

The fact that the institute will concentrate on styles of popular music and the professional side of the business, Glickman said, is one of the reasons the name Mancini was attached.

“This program is about everything that Hank Mancini was about. His film music, his symphonic work, his studio work, his songs. He and [AJP director] Jack Elliott were long, long friends and this is a wonderful way to honor his legacy.”

Mancini’s widow, Ginny, has been the vice president of the AJP, the institute’s partner organization, since 1979. Funding for the Mancini program has come from a variety of sources, the largest being the Recording Industry’s Assn. of America’s Music Performance Trust Fund.

The institute’s faculty of about 20, including Grammy-nominated pianist Billy Childs, will be pulled from the ranks of the 72-piece AJP and augmented with guest instructors including saxophonist Bud Shank, bassist Brown, flutist Hubert Laws and others. Guest artists will conduct master classes, Glickman said, as well as just “hang out” with the students and discuss their lives in music.

The 75 students, ranging in age from 17 to 27, were selected by auditions held in major cities across the country, as well as from recorded submissions. Included are students already enrolled at Boston’s Berklee School of Music, the Juilliard School and schools ranging from Yale and Harvard to North Texas State, UCLA and L.A.’s Hamilton High School.

A schedule of the concerts to be held during the institute’s August run will be announced later.