Skip Spiro hadn’t played music in over 10 years. He was busy raising a family and writing and directing movie trailers and TV ads.
However, when he moved to the Santa Clarita Valley in 1984, he came across a newspaper article that made him want to pick up the trumpet again.
“There was a story about a bandleader who lived in Canyon Country,” Spiro said in an interview. “It read: ‘The big-band era is alive again,’ or whatever it was, and it had a picture of a middle-aged guy with a trumpet. I kind of felt like, ‘I’d love to start playing again.’ But I hadn’t been playing, so, I had no chops. In order to play the trumpet, you’ve got to practice.”
So, Spiro got a hold of this Canyon Country bandleader. Over the phone he told the guy he’d read about him, adding that if he ever needed a sub, let him know. Before Spiro could say anything more, the bandleader asked what he was doing the following night.
Spiro got the gig. And while he said he was a little rusty during that first performance, he got through it and would continue playing with the band regularly, getting better and better each time around.
Then he met some guys playing under the late College of the Canyons jazz band director Dirk Fischer.
“I played with Dirk’s band for years and years and years,” Spiro said. “And the beauty of playing with his band was that he was a writer, so it was all original material. What I learned from that, I applied to my band. I loved the uniqueness of his band because it’s all material written specifically for his band.
Spiro has since formed Skip Spiro’s 10-Piece Jazz/Blues Project, and they’ll be performing from 7 to 9 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 24, at Pocock Brewing Company on Avenue Tibbitts in Valencia. This will be the first public show they’ve played in the SCV since before the pandemic, when the band used to perform consistently at Vincenzo’s Pizza in Newhall. After the pandemic, the band has played in Ventura and the San Fernando Valley, but nothing here until now.
Spiro, 77 years old, began playing music when he was 14. This, he said, was well before there was any kind of jazz music education in school like there is now. He added that he came from a long line of musicians in his family. Of that group of people was one of his grandmothers who was a piano teacher in Brooklyn, New York. And then there was Spiro’s dad, who played the clarinet and saxophone in big bands during college.
“He worked his way through dental school, playing with all these bands,” Spiro said. “And then, like all of us who decided to have families, he kind of put it aside. After he retired from dentistry, he moved to Florida and formed another band — a swing band — and he started booking the band on cruises through the Caribbean. Every so often, he called me. He says, ‘Skip you want to fly out to Florida and do a cruise with us?’ Talk about a gift.”
But growing up on the East Coast and with a father in the big-band scene, Spiro got to see many legendary jazz musicians perform.
“One of the famous jazz clubs in New York City was Birdland,” Spiro said. “He (his dad) used to take me down there when I was 11 or 12 years old. I saw Miles Davis, John Coltrane and Count Basie. I kind of got the very tail end of that golden era of music.”
When he was 13, Spiro became the youngest musician admitted into the Stan Kenton Band Clinics at the University of Connecticut. There he played lead trumpet with the Herb Pomeroy Orchestra.
At 14, Spiro assembled his first band, which was a 15-piece jazz ensemble. Skip Spiro and the Rhythm Kings Orchestra would even appear on television. One show he said they did was NBC’s “The Merv Griffin Show.”
Throughout high school, Spiro and his band played weddings, jazz clubs, high school proms and local beach clubs, appearing several times with Canadian jazz trumpeter Maynard Ferguson.
Spiro would go on to attend the University of Massachusetts and continue to play with a jazz ensemble that, he said, was in high demand, touring the New England area. Over the years, Spiro would play music with Spiral Staircase, Bill Medley of The Righteous Brothers and Tina Turner.
But the jazz musician would ultimately find work in the film business. He’d attended film school at the University of California, Los Angeles, and when he got out, he began writing and producing promotional materials for film and television.
Later in life, when he got back into music, Spiro recalled how much it rejuvenated his spirit. And he’s been enjoying it since. He said he’s even noticed a recent revival of big band-era music, a surprise that’s worked out well for him.
“There are a lot more dance events using live music lately, which is encouraging,” he said. “And Los Angeles — I mean, it’s an embarrassment of riches in terms of musical talent. There are so many talented musicians out here. It’s great.”
Spiro’s band plays an eclectic mix of the traditional big band-era hits of the ’30s and ’40s from the likes of Count Basie, Glenn Miller, Tommy Dorsey and Duke Ellington; the New York bebop scene of the ’50s and ’60s; the rock/funk/Latin fusion scene that came to follow; and what he called “our unique original material from our concert book, designed to feature the exciting soloists in the band — all at very danceable tempos.”
There is no charge to see Skip Spiro’s 10-Piece Jazz/Blues Project on Oct. 24 at Pocock. The doors open at 6 p.m. For more information about the band, go to bit.ly/3ZYtYdc.