2 SHOWS IN FULLERTON : JOHNNY OTIS RETURNS TO R&B; CIRCUIT

At 64, Johnny Otis is getting a second chance to do the thing he loves best: make music.

Just a few years ago, the creator of such jazz and rhythm-and-blues hits as 1946’s “Harlem Nocturne” and 1958’s “Willie and the Hand Jive” found himself in involuntary retirement. Interest in R&B; was on the wane and concert dates were scarce.

“We had no audience at all for more than 10 years,” Otis said earlier this week in an interview at his Altadena home. “But things started to get hot again, and now I’m back in business.”

Otis, who brings his 14-piece band to Fullerton’s Dal Rae Restaurant for two shows Saturday, speaks fervently of his affection for early jazz, blues, gospel and R&B.; To him, these early styles of black popular music are not simply entertainment but a part of America’s cultural heritage.

“I’m not suggesting our music is the only music, but I am suggesting that there are certain elements in America’s culture that are so precious that it would be a shame for them to go down the drain and that young people are not to be enriched by this,” the musician said.

“I have no quarrel with what they like musically today--that’s their business. But to the exclusion of everything else, that’s not good. There were some great things that went on in American cultural history that should be part of their experience.”

So Otis welcomes the new interest in his favorite music, a revival he sees not only from his vantage as a musician, but from his weekly radio show on KPFK-FM in Los Angeles.

“We’ve been on now for four years,” Otis said of his oldies program, “and suddenly in the last year-and-a-half we feel this big surge. When I say I’m going to take phone calls, every light on the telephone line lights up.”

And now, when he plays, Otis sees young fans in addition to the 40-to-50-year-olds who grew up with his music. Most of the younger fans are white, says Otis, who bemoans the lack of interest among young blacks.

“We’re beginning to see some now as against none a few years ago. It’s important that that happens because some of our young black talented people may take the tradition on,” said Otis.

“It’s important that the blues and jazz elements are not only kept alive by reviewing them on record or through an old fossil like myself, but that the young people get involved with them and carry on the traditions. That’s what we’re hoping for.”

Otis, who is white, has spent a lifetime immersed in black culture. Born in Vallejo, near San Francisco, he was already an accomplished drummer by his teens and he began touring with various swing bands. By the mid-’40s, he had his own big band, which he later pared down to a nine-piece unit.

As a band leader, nightclub owner, talent scout and record producer, Otis went on to nurture a number of emerging R&B; artists in the years to come. Among his discoveries he counts Esther Phillips, Big Mama Thorton, Jackie Wilson, Little Willie John, Etta James and Hank Ballard and the Midnighters.

Music is still the driving force in Otis’ life. He plays locally, tours, writes music and records--a new single, “Fonk-it-up,” has just been released, while a new album, “Otisology,” is due out this month. “Fonk-it-up” is a rare excursion into contemporary pop, in this case funk.

“I don’t do anything past the mid-’60s arbitrarily because that’s my taste, that’s what I like. And no hard rock at all. Early rock ‘n’ roll, yes, early rhythm and blues, even touches of gospel. That’s what we do.”

The current version of the Johnny Otis Show features six horn players, five rhythm players and three singers. Otis plays piano and vibraphone and also sings. Featured vocalist is Barbara Morrison, and sons Shuggie Otis plays guitar and Nickie Otis plays drums.

Otis also channels his energy into art, and many of his works--paintings, wood carvings and fanciful plaster sculptures-- decorate his home and crowd a backyard workshop. “It’s just a hobby for me, a way to keep from going nuts between gigs.”

Another outlet for Otis is the nondenominational Landmark Church in Los Angeles, of which he is minister.

With the recent sale of the church building, church members and fans of his radio show now congregate on Otis’ vast front lawn on Saturdays. There, they prepare meals and bring them to downtown Los Angeles to distribute to the homeless. The program has fed as many as 1,600 people on a single day.

Otis and his wife of 45 years, Phyllis, share their large Altadena home, on two acres in the shadow of the San Gabriel Mountains, with a menagerie of pets and farm animals, including a quintet of exotic birds that squawked lustily throughout the interview. Even they display an affinity for music: One of the birds, an acrobatic African gray parrot named Jomo, can whistle an old jazz tune called “Lester Leaps In.”

“I nervously whistle that all the time, and he’s picked it up,” Otis explained.