Things Looking Up in a Former Jazz Wasteland : The 66 California restaurant serves it up on Wednesdays and weekends. You’re too late for Halloween’s time warp.

At 66 California restaurant in Ventura, the low-key clientele and atmosphere aren’t exactly conducive to outlandish behavior or fashion statements--even last weekend, on Halloween. A few strands of Halloween decorations mingled with the in-house surf motif and a couple holed up in the bar indulged in a little harmless cross-dressing.

Later came the time warp.

All heads turned when an impeccably clad couple stepped out of the Flapper Era and into the club. On stage, robust jazz vocalist Leslie Bee was dancing around a vintage repertoire that included the Van Heusen/Burke classic “Like Someone in Love,” backed by the John Veith Trio--Veith on piano, Henry Franklin on bass and Kenny Dixon on drums.

Suddenly, cultural history did a bit of a double-take, right there in downtown Ventura. Jazz has that capacity, to telescope time and trends across decades.

For the late set, Bee covered a gamut of classic jazz bar material, flexing her blues muscle on “Stormy Monday” and gently torching the supple melodic line of “You’re Going to Hear From Me.”

For “Girl From Ipanema” (gender-corrected to “boy”), Bee began a search for the right key as the band fished around. But she took the gaffe in humorous stride, shrugging: “Sorry. It’s like looking for the right man, ladies. He’s so hard to find. Tonight, he’s in the key of F.”

Replacing vibist Fred Raulston as original 66 house leader, Veith has held down the fort as house pianist for the last few months, taking advantage of the baby grand in residence. He handles his task slickly, with technical ease and a good accompanist’s sense.

On Saturday night, Veith alternated between cascading solo piano runs and fool-the-ear synthesizer work, calling up samples of guitar and flute for timbral variation. Closing out on a more human note, Veith took the mike and vocally scatted up a flurry of notes on a fast be-bop break tune.

Before the 66 California began its jazz policy last spring, jazz itself was a stranger in town, a scene without a home. Apart from the ongoing jazz piano and occasional showcase concert policy up at Wheeler Hot Springs, the search for jazz in Ventura was a fairly futile proposition.

Now, jazz makes its voice heard on Wednesdays, Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays at the 66. Not far away, the Pierpont Inn has been featuring jazz on weekends. Things are looking up.

This Saturday, the special guest microphone goes to the fine L. A.-based trumpeter Jerry Rusch, who has appeared here in the past. Fluent in the vocabulary of post-bop expression, Rusch also has a sensitive palette of ideas on which to draw--broader in outlook than many West Coast peers.

Rusch’s album “Bright Moments” (on his own Jeru Records label) is a mostly mainstream affair, with some notable detours from the straight-ahead and narrow path. For the recording, the personnel included guitarist Mike Stern, drummer Victor Lewis, the late tenor saxophonist Clifford Jordan--who died only a few months ago--and a cameo by trombone legend Slide Hampton.

Rusch traverses bop and Latin terrain but also inventively adapts thematic material from great American composer Charles Ives’ haunting piece, “The Unanswered Question,” turning it into an introspective duet with bassist Tom Barney.

It’s doubtful that they’ll call up any Ives charts on Saturday night at the 66, but we can expect an admirable degree of musicality out of Rusch’s horn.

Come Nov. 13, the venerable saxophonist Red Holloway--a West Coast jazz pillar--returns to town to play with Veith and company.

GOING TO THE CHAPEL

Opening its season in an offbeat venue, the Ventura County Master Chorale is settling into the Victoria Rose Historical Wedding Chapel in Ventura this Saturday and Sunday to kick up its choral sound.

Officially, the Master Chorale made its public debut this fall with the rousing sonorities of Prokofiev’s “Alexander Nevsky” on the Ventura County Symphony Orchestra’s opening concert program in October.

For its first event, the Master Chorale is tackling lighter, site-specific fare--two one-act operas with love-gone-bad themes by Kurt Weill and Gilbert and Sullivan.

Weill’s “Down in the Valley,” written in 1948, is a melodramatic pastiche comprised of musical Americana. Gilbert and Sullivan’s “Trial by Jury” will make up the second half. Whatever you make of the music, you’ve gotta admire the creative oddity of the setting.

Josef Woodard is an avowed cultural omnivore who covers art and music.

Details

* WHAT: Ventura County Master Chorale

* WHEN: Saturday at 8 p.m. and Sunday at 4 and 8 p.m.

* WHERE: Victoria Rose Historical Wedding Chapel, 896 E. Main St.