‘Birth of the Cool’

Cool is the operative word these days at the Orange County Museum of Art.

Beginning tonight, the museum will present a series of Cool Jazz concerts in its outdoor pavilion, in conjunction with the Birth of the Cool art exhibit running through January.

The Leviathan Brothers, Sean O’Connell and Miles Senzaki, are the opening band for the series, but the duo are just average-size guys and they aren’t related.

O’Connell said the two were trying to come up with a good name for the band, and when he heard the word leviathan on the radio he decided to use it in the title.

“Leviathan is a good, archaic word, and all the best bands are brother bands — The Kinks, the Beach Boys, Van Halen,” so the name stuck, he said.

That name also doesn’t limit them to a set number of members in the band, which O’Connell said would happen if they had gone the way of other jazz bands, who often use a name and a number.

He didn’t want to be “The O’Connell Duo,” and there were three of them before the bass player left to go off on his own.

A “straight-ahead jazz band” when the trio started, O’Connell said the group’s music has changed some since it’s just keyboard and drums now.

It’s two keyboards, though, and O’Connell plays both of them at once but said that’s not that big of a deal since he does have two hands.

O’Connell has been playing piano since age 5, when he began taking lessons on an old one his mom picked up for $100.

He and Senzaki, friends since their college days at UCLA, are “pretty well versed in traditional jazz,” O’Connell said.

They’ve been performing together since 2005, but O’Connell said breaking into jazz clubs is very difficult, and often times the group ended up playing jazz in rock clubs, sharing the bill with other rock or country bands.

Appearing at the Orange County Museum of Art is something O’Connell is looking forward to.

“These are very professional people,” O’Connell said, which means they’ll have the sound check done for them, they’ll have time to get the pianos aligned and the whole process will be done earlier than it is when they perform at a club.

“When we perform in a club, usually the first song we play is the sound check,” he said.

In addition to the music, the Leviathan Brothers’ performance features a screening of old travel slides from the ’60s that O’Connell purchased at an estate sale.

The slides, of a guy who traveled all over the world, are just “another expression of art,” O’Connell said, and the collection has grown over the years.

“The Man who Lost his Shadow” is the Leviathan Brothers’ second album, but it’s the first one since they became a duo, and O’Connell said it’s “doing all right and getting good air play” since being released in July.

He also wants people to experience Birth of the Cool.

“Come out. Listen to the music. We’ll try to be our best, and we’ll make as much noise as two men can,” he said.

The Cool Jazz series will continue with performances by Quetzal Guerrero and the Warriors on Nov. 15 and the Andy Martin Quintet on Dec. 20.

The Orange County Museum of Art describes “Birth of the Cool: California Art, Design and Culture at Midcentury” as “an ambitious exhibit,” featuring painting, architecture, furniture design, decorative and graphic arts, film and music that helped define Los Angeles as a major center of culture in the 1950s.

Creative artists including Chet Baker, Charles and Ray Eames, Pierre Koenig and Julius Shulman are represented.

Inspired by Miles Davis’ album, “Birth of the Cool,” the exhibit explores the “affinities among these innovators of art, design and style working on the West Coast in the postwar era.”

IF YOU GO

WHAT: Cool Jazz Concert Series

WHEN: 8 p.m. today

WHERE: Orange County Museum of Art, 850 San Clemente Drive, Newport Beach

COST: $5; free for members

INFO: (949) 759-1122 or go to www.ocma.net

SUE THOENSEN may be reached at (714) 966-4627 or at [email protected].