Working in a World of Unheard Wonders

Spry and ebullient at 68, Los Angeles native Herb Geller has been a world-class, globe-trotting jazzman for more than half a century.

But delivering the same tunes night after night, year after year, might--like chewing gum on the bedpost overnight--lose its flavor.

So look for new material when alto and soprano saxophonist Geller, who has been living in Hamburg, Germany, since 1965, appears Saturday at Steamers Cafe in Fullerton.

“I’m a song freak, and I try to find those good ones that nobody does and rework them for my own taste,” Geller said in a phone interview from his home.

Typical of Geller’s current choices is Billy Strayhorn’s “Orson”--written for Orson Welles by the composing genius and Ellington associate responsible for such classics as “Chelsea Bridge” and Duke’s theme song, “Take the A Train.”

“My friend, the saxophonist Jack Montrose, said he had a song that nobody knew,” Geller said, all the while acknowledging that the obscure “Orson” had been recorded by Ellington in the early ‘50s.

“I looked at it. It had very few chords, and these were obviously wrong. So I reharmonized it, made five different versions, then a final composite from those. It’s now the way I imagined Strayhorn would have done it.”

Geller’s date at Steamers, where he plays with pianist Milcho Leviev, bassist Tom Warrington and drummer Paul Kreibich, will also find the saxophonist exploring other rarely heard wonders. Among them: Cole Porter’s “All Through the Night,” written for the 1934 film “The Gay Divorcee”; Walter Donaldson’s “Changes,” recorded in 1927 by cornetist Bix Biederbecke with background vocals by Bing Crosby et al.; and “Restless,” made famous by Helen Ward’s vocal with Benny Goodman.

Tunes by jazzmen don’t usually appeal to Geller. Of acclaimed composer Thelonious Monk, Geller allowed: “In my opinion, he’s written about five good songs.”

Saxophonist and composer Al Cohn is another story.

“All of Al’s tunes are wonderful,” said Geller, who last year released a tribute to Cohn on the Hep label from Scotland and plans to perform Cohn items at Steamers. “He wrote heartfelt yet very sophisticated melodies, and he was harmonically astute. He was a master.”

“The Herb Geller Quartet” (V.S.O.P.), his latest domestically available release, features the bursting-with-life jazzman overflowing with feeling.

“I would like to play as fast as anyone, but the emotional content is the most important thing,” he said. “To play a medium groove tempo, trying to make good music with nice chords, that’s the real challenge. And that’s where the knowledge, the maturity, the taste and the living come in.”

Geller got off to a quick start in music, working with violin great Joe Venuti in 1946. A decade later he was a central cog in the then-booming Los Angeles jazz scene, but when wife Lorraine died in 1958 after a sudden illness, Geller felt at loose ends.

In 1962, he vacationed in Europe and was offered a job with a German radio orchestra in Hamburg. He recently retired and spends time performing or, at the Hamburg Conservatory of the Performing Arts, teaching. He tries to instill the idea of making music emotional.

“That’s the hardest thing to teach,” he said. “I tell the students to write down 20 different emotional experiences and then try to employ those feelings in their music. That’s my own method.”

Herb Geller plays Saturday at Steamers Cafe, 138 W. Commonwealth Ave., Fullerton. 8:30 p.m. No cover. Two-item minimum. (714) 871-8800.