Jubilee by the Sea celebrates 40 years of jazz in Pismo Beach

Paso Robles resident Marc Caparone was a mere toddler the first time he attended the Pismo Beach jazz festival Jubilee by the Sea.

He’ll return to the Jubilee this year as a seasoned performer with a family of his own.

“It’s almost surreal for me to look out (into the audience) at the Pismo Beach Vets Hall and see my 5-year-old son there, sitting in the same place I was sitting” nearly four decades earlier, said Caparone, who turns 43 next month.

Jubilee by the Sea celebrates its 40th anniversary this week with four days of swing, big band, Dixieland and New Orleans-style jazz music at venues across Pismo Beach. Highlights include a “Mardi Gras in October” dance this Thursday night, New Orleans-style parasol parades Friday morning and a six-set “Women in Jazz” concert series Saturday.

Some of this year’s acts, such as singer Maria Muldaur and High Street Jazz Band, are new to Jubilee, while others — High Sierra Jazz Band and Night Blooming Jazzmen, for instance — have a decadeslong history with the festival.

“I tried to bring (in bands) that are very exciting to people,” festival director Rhonda Cardinal explained.

The acts range from out-of-town bands such as Sue Palmer & Her Motel Swing Orchestra and Tom Rigney and Flambeau to Central Coast favorites The Creole Syncopators, Rag Bone Saints, Royal Garden Swing Orchestra and Judith & the Jazz Krewe.

“At any festival, you’re going to see one or two sets that knock your socks off,” she continued. “My goal for the festival is that every set is going to knock your socks off. Every piece of music is going to make you get out of your seat and scream.”

The history of Jubilee by the Sea is tied to the local organization that’s hosted it since the beginning, The Basin Street Regulars. That group got its start as an informal club for traditional jazz fans.

“We used to meet in the conference room at the (former) Security Bank Building on Marsh Street and listen to records,” recalled founding member Dave Caparone, who works with his son, Marc, at Caparone Winery in Paso Robles. “It started out pretty simple, pretty basic.”

Then, he added with a laugh, “This thing just got out of control.”

A couple months’ shy of the Basin Street Regulars’ first anniversary, club members came up with the idea of starting a jazz festival modeled after the Old Sacramento Dixieland Jazz Jubilee (now known as the Sacramento Music Festival). At the time, there were only a handful of similar events in the country, Caparone said.

More than 1,000 people attended the first Jubilee by the Sea in late October 1977. Admission to the festival, which featured seven bands playing at five venues, cost just $6.

“When the festival started, it almost immediately was a big success,” Marc Caparone recalled. “Back in the old days, it really was a scene. … The crowds were so thick I couldn’t walk anywhere.”

Immersed as he was in the festival’s energetic atmosphere, the younger Caparone developed an interest in traditional jazz.

“To me, it’s one of the greatest musics ever invented. There’s enough structure in it to make it fun to play, but also you have a huge amount of freedom to play what you want,” Caparone said. “To watch someone up there (on stage) playing a solo or playing with a band is truly heroic. They’ve learned a tradition that’s been going on for almost 100 years.”

Caparone first sat in with High Sierra Jazz Band at age 13. He became one of two trumpet players in the band in 2009 and joined the group full time in 2013.

In addition to taking the stage with High Sierra Jazz Band at this year’s Jubilee, Caparone will perform with his trombone-playing dad in The Creole Syncopators.

“We go to Pismo Beach and everybody’s there,” said Marc Caparone, whose wife, vocalist and pianist Dawn Lambeth, is another Jubilee regular. “All the musicians are there and the fans show up. … There’s a lot of socializing.”

Guitarist Molly Reeves Zdybel is also looking forward to her Jubilee homecoming. Four years ago, the Los Osos native and her husband, guitarist Nahum Zdybel, moved to New Orleans, where they belong to hot jazz group The World’s Finest Apples.

Reeves Zdybel, 25, started attending Basin Street Regulars meetings at age 13 and made her Jubilee debut at 14.

“I had the opportunity to sit in with musicians I really admired,” she said.

In addition, the Basin Street Regulars gave her scholarships to attend summer camps sponsored by the Sacramento Traditional Jazz Society.

“They basically paid for my summer education,” said Reeves Zdybel, who now teaches at those camps.

This festival will mark the final performance of her Red Skunk Band, beloved among local jazz fans.

“It was too difficult to try and come out and maintain a band in California,” she explained.

Although there’s a bittersweet edge to her return to Jubilee, Reeves Zdybel said she’s excited about playing at the festival.

“There’s a lot of older folks who have really loved the music and the style for a long time. It’s nice to bring them that happiness,” she said.

While Jubilee by the Sea excels at drawing older jazz fans, Cardinal acknowledged that the festival has struggled to attract younger audience members in the past.

Cardinal, 56, started attending Jubilee by the Sea in the 1980s with her husband and his family.

“My in-laws were pretty hip to this music,” she said, and she liked it, too.

In an effort to lure music lovers with more diverse taste, she’s bringing in Muldaur, best known for her Grammy Award-nominated song “Midnight at the Oasis,” to this year’s Jubilee.

Despite Muldaur’s robust repertoire, which ranges from gospel to blues to R&B, Cardinal said the singer has never attended a traditional jazz festival before. By giving Muldaur a chance to shine in an unfamiliar setting, Cardinal hopes to attract a fresh crop of concertgoers while introducing longtime attendees to a new act.

“We think this music would appeal to all age groups if they would just give it a chance,” said Cardinal, a retired environmental engineer. “There’s nothing boring about this music. It’s really exciting.”

Dave Caparone, agreed, arguing that traditional jazz holds a basic fundamental appeal for music lovers.

“Traditional jazz has been played in this country since the 1920s. There’s never been a time when there hasn’t been significant interest in it,” said Caparone, who turns 77 in a couple of weeks. “It’s something that’s uniquely American.”

This story was originally published October 26, 2016 at 11:24 AM with the headline "Jubilee by the Sea celebrates 40 years of jazz in Pismo Beach."