Fresh out of a recording session in L.A., Bruce Forman speaks happily about making people mad.
“I loved it that my band Cow Bop pissed off my jazz friends,” he says, “because jazz has become so serious.”
Forman recently relocated back to Carmel Valley Village after a decade-long absence while serving as a faculty member at the USC School of Music. A gifted jazz guitarist, his is a world replete with sideman studio sessions and gigs, yet these days it is his 12-year-old, five-piece country swing band that floats his boat.
Given a deep jazz resume and plenty of work to go with it, starting a country swing band could seem suspect. Not so much for Forman.
“Well, first of all, I am a cowboy,” he says. “I ride and train horses – that’s why we came to Carmel Valley. If you listen to Cow Bop it’s just a jazz musician’s idea of a cowboy band.”
Forman revels in the versatility, and equal-opportunity offensiveness. “I play jazz because it’s fun,” he says. “The cowboy lovers hate us ’cause we got jazz and the jazz lovers hate us ’cause we got cowboy. But the audiences – they get it. It’s perfect. Yes, we wanna have fun and make fun, but when it comes to the music, we’re dead serious.”
Following Cow Bop’s set this weekend will be the California Cowboys, returning to headline Party in the Village for the fifth year in a row, with special guest Bobby Black, a bona fide pedal steel guitar virtuoso. “California Cowboys might be the best pure dance band I’ve ever heard,” says event founder Marj Ingram Viales, a lifelong musician. “If we don’t stop them, they’ll play for three hours straight without a break.”
The Carmel Valley Historical Society and the Carmel Valley Village Improvement Committee are the beneficiaries of the barn-burning soiree.
Longtime Will’s Fargo-chef-turned-Village-Market proprietor Jerome Viel will cater appetizers and local musician/promoter Kiki Wow will emcee.
PARTY IN THE VILLAGE 6-11pm Saturday, Oct. 29. Hidden Valley Theatre, 88 West Carmel Valley Road, Carmel Valley. $25. 659-4204, www.partyinthevillage.org.
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