JAZZ REVIEWS : TEDESCO JAMS AND JOKES AT BLUE NOTE

The Blue Note, yet another addition to the fast-growing list of Southland jazz clubs, is presenting small groups, most of them led by guitarists, nightly except Sunday.

The room is small, the food Italian, the location--on Ventura Boulevard just east of Laurel Canyon Boulevard--convenient, the music mostly mainstream. Tommy Tedesco, the veteran studio guitarist who books the talent, appears there himself every Wednesday.

Tedesco, as most of his peers know, is not only a versatile and compelling artist, but also a comedian whose stock in trade consists of long, generally witty raps about the life of a studio musician, the art of fooling producers and the anonymity of working session jobs (“I had an identity crisis before it was hip to have one”).

Switching between acoustic and electric guitars, Tedesco managed, without verbal self-interruptions, to get through a wide-ranging series of selections that included a soaring samba, a gentle ballad medley, an electric blues solo on “Bags’ Groove” and a splendidly chorded acoustic treatment of “Ain’t Misbehavin’.”

Often he played unaccompanied, but at times he would be joined by the remarkably able left-handed bassist, John Leitham, and by Mat Marucci, an unpretentiously efficient drummer.

For the most part the Blue Note provides low-key music guaranteed not to upset the digestion. Tedesco will remain on hand every Wednesday in June, teamed successively with four fellow-guitarists: Joe Pass next Wednesday, followed by Pat Kelly, Herb Ellis and John Collins. Now and then owner Tom Tarpinian is apt to sit in on drums.