By the time you've hit 90, there's the chance that the major sounds of your life will be muted, distant echoes. In Howard Rumsey's case, such a fate would be cruel indeed, because the man was there when sound was everything.
He was there when jazz legend Stan Kenton put together his first orchestra. He was there, either in person or spirit, in every ballroom or saloon of the last half-century where guys thrummed a bass, tickled a keyboard or worked a drum kit.
And he was there when West Coast jazz took hold in the 1950s and 1960s, competing for the first time with the East Coast guys. In fact, whoever writes the Howard Rumsey obituary will refer to the cool sound of West Coast jazz in the first paragraph.
But, to circle back, Rumsey still can conjure up the sounds. He's battling a medical condition known as dysphagia that makes swallowing difficult, but his hearing is plenty good. And so is his memory. Sometimes, he says with a laugh, he remembers too much, leaving me to wonder whether he's got some things he doesn't want to talk about.
I wanted to meet Rumsey, partly out of a star-struck thing I have about music people and partly because he's a bit of a historical figure -- although he balks at the latter characterization repeatedly during our conversation in his Newport Beach apartment.
To anyone else, however, Rumsey is the former face of the Lighthouse Cafe in Hermosa Beach. Starting in 1949, he put in 22 years there, first as a bass player in the band and later as the frontman who introduced and lined up acts -- known collectively as the Lighthouse All-Stars -- that popularized the West Coast "cool" sound.
After that, he buttressed his reputation by running the show for another 10 years or so at the Concerts by the Sea club in Redondo Beach.
Last fall at a restaurant in Los Angeles, a sold-out crowd threw him a 90th birthday party that featured performances by some of the later-vintage acts he helped get started.
"Howard is just very important in getting jazz into the West Coast and forming the music that came to be known as cool jazz," says Scott Janow, the author of nine books on jazz.
OK, Mr. Rumsey, please confirm your place in local jazz history. "It's West Coast jazz," he agrees. "It's being part of the birth of the cool."
He'll have none of this "legend" business. "When I was on the stand at the Lighthouse," he says, "I played and presented these individuals with the idea of selling them. And that was by putting myself and my playing in a backup role. I was fortunate enough to accomplish that."
