Bob Florence

Sometimes our images of public personalities differ radically from their own reality. Rob McConnell, the composer, arranger and valve trombonist long respected as leader of Canada's best and best-known big band, the Boss Brass, typifies that disparity. His 22-man ensemble has built a library of music now played throughout the United States by thousands of students in hundreds of colleges. Records by the Toronto-based band have enjoyed considerable U.S.

There'll be no rest for the merry men and women of jazz this holiday season. But when you're ready to step back from hectic holiday preparations with a toddy and swinging sounds, musicians will be there, ready to cool frazzled nerves. Here's a list of recommended December dates sure to make the month festive.

One of the main functions of the annual Orange Coast College Jazz Festival, which opens Thursday on the Costa Mesa campus, is to give young musicians a chance to learn directly from top jazz performers. But considering how the festival has struggled with a financial crisis almost every year since it began in 1969, one non-musical lesson jazz students learn is that jazz and financial security rarely go hand in hand.

Here is the complete schedule for "Back to Balboa: a 50th Anniversary Celebration of the Stan Kenton Orchestra." All events, unless otherwise noted, take place at the Hyatt Newporter Resort, 1107 Jamboree Road, Newport Beach. Four-day registration: $225, though tickets to individual events are available. Cruises optional. Information: (213) 430-6960, (213) 985-5566 or at the Hyatt Newporter, (714) 729-1234. TODAY: 8 a.m.: Registration begins. 9:45-11:15 a.m.

"Grinchmas" is returning to Universal Studios Hollywood this weekend, and a sleighful of celebrities have signed on for the twice-daily readings of Dr. Seuss' classic, "How the Grinch Stole Christmas. " Bob Newhart, Florence Henderson, Wayne Brady, Donna Mills, Fred Willard, Luz Rios, Tiffani Thiessen, Brandy and Nolan Gould (who plays Luke on "Modern Family") are among the performers who will be doing readings at the annual "Grinchmas" celebration. It also includes a snow-filled play area, a 60-foot Christmas tree, costumed singers, photo opportunities with the characters of the Grinch and his dog, Max, and a view from the tour tram of sets that were used in Universal's 2000 film adaptation of the book.

"Big bands are not dinosaurs. There's still an audience for them," says Bill Holman, who leads his own orchestra and who has written arrangements and compositions over the years for Stan Kenton, Buddy Rich, Woody Herman and Doc Severinsen. Holman gets plenty of agreement from Diane Varga, the Los Angeles jazz producer who is the main thrust behind "Best of the Big Bands of '91," an eight-week series of Monday night concerts in the 300-seat Blossom Room of the Hollywood Roosevelt hotel.

Eight singers, each with a particular and valid definition of jazz, crooned, wailed and scatted Wednesday evening at Hollywood Bowl, leaving one of the 11,782 patrons at the conclusion of the three-hour Jordache jazz at the Bowl concerts to remark, "I didn't know there were so many kinds of jazz." Indeed, the variety of jazz styles presented covered the hyphenate spectrum from Latin-jazz to jazz-rock. And in-between came plenty of scat and soul, with swing serving as the common denominator.

At El Segundo's Library Park, they'll gather 'round the gazebo bandstand Sunday at 2 p.m. to hear a little Dixieland and barbershop harmony. At Polliwog Park in Manhattan Beach, eyes and ears will be on Tex Beneke and his orchestra, who are famous for music in the Glenn Miller mood. They perform at 5:30 p.m. Sunday in the amphitheater, against the backdrop of the park's lake. On Tuesday at 7 p.m.

The Brecker Brothers are back. Saxophonist Michael Brecker and his trumpet-playing brother Randy, who from 1975 to 1982 led one of the finest jazz/funk/rock ensembles, are teaming up again. Next week, they go into a recording studio in New York to make their first Brecker Brothers album in 11 years, for GRP Records. The pair's last recording was "Strap-hangin'," made for Arista. The Breckers hadn't planned on a decade-plus hiatus, said Randy Brecker, but things just kept coming up.

"It was overwhelming!" That's the way trumpeter Conte Candoli, a longtime member of Doc Severinsen's "Tonight Show" Orchestra who has also played with Woody Herman, Stan Kenton, Howard Rumsey's Lighthouse All-Stars and Shelly Manne and His Men in his four-decade career, enthusiastically recounted the goings-on Sunday, when he was presented with the Los Angeles Jazz Society's 8th annual Tribute Award at a gala concert in the Pacific Ballroom of the Los Angeles Hilton Hotel and Towers.