Vine Street

NEVADA CITY--The public is invited to dress the part at the Victorian Christmas, 6-9 p.m. Wednesday and Dec. 17 and 1-5 p.m. Dec. 21 along Broad Street. There will be strolling musicians, hay wagon rides and a bonfire. Free admission. Telephone (800) 655-NJOY. PASO ROBLES--It may seem like Christmas past, but it's Christmas present at the Vine Street Victorian Showcase, 6-9 p.m. Saturday along Vine Street from 8th to 21st streets.

Hollywood's Vine Street School unveiled a renovated and expanded library Thursday that includes $10,000 in books, reading and study areas, and a newly designed interior. More than 150 guests crowded into the elementary school's library to view the improvements that were made possible by school fund-raising and a grant from The Wonder of Reading, a nonprofit organization that supports school libraries. "It is wonderful," said Vice Principal Marianna Roberts.

Mitch Miller is onstage telling the audience how Frankie Laine's "Mule Train" was cut in three hours. Then Kay Starr follows and belts out a swing tune and Frankie Laine accepts the year's tribute. 1949? No, it's 1994 and the annual gathering of the Vine Street Irregulars, a reunion of those who walked that golden musical crossroads when Ciro's ruled the Strip, Billy Berg's jazz joint swung on Vine and life seemed to be one "Make-Believe Ballroom."

Just because keyboardist Patrice Rushen's appearances on the L.A. club circuit have become infrequent at best, don't think she's given up her jazz career. "I love to play, I have to play," says the 39-year-old Los Angeles native. "So even if I'm playing less in the clubs, I get together with musicians and play. I make time because it's fun and I want to stay sharp so that if someone calls, I'm ready."

Things got off to a slightly rough start at the Vine Street Bar & Grill in Hollywood the other night when bassist Marshall Hawkins missed the first tune with alto saxophonist Richie Cole's quartet. But if you closed your eyes, you might not have noticed his absence the way the ever-exuberant Cole, pianist George Gaffney and drummer Sherman Ferguson roared through a medium-fast take of "There Will Never Be Another You."

Five years ago Marcus Roberts, then 21, joined the Wynton Marsalis group as pianist and composer. Roberts, who was heard last year at Hollywood's Vine Street Bar & Grill during a leave of absence, has now left Marsalis permanently and is back at Vine Street (through Sunday), leading a unit that is similar to the one he presented previously.

It's enough to make one dizzy. The whirlwind pace of John Birks Gillespie's activities of late would tax the endurance of a man half his age (that would be 36).

Bob Dorough might best be characterized as Dave Frishberg with an Arkansas twang. Actually Dorough, who opened Wednesday and will close Saturday at Hollywood's Vine Street Bar & Grill, is several years Frishberg's senior, but a decade or two ago both men eased out of early roles as nightclub pianists into popularity as songwriters who performed their own hip material. Dorough and Frishberg, in fact, collaborated on the song "I'm Hip," with which Dorough closed his set Wednesday.