Anyone who visits Doc Burnstein’s Ice Cream Lab in Orcutt on the evening of Nov. 12 is in for a treat beyond the confectionery creations the shop is know for. Members of the Central Coast Chordsmen—the local chapter of the Barbershop Harmony Society—will serve ice cream from 6 to 9 p.m., stacking sweet harmonies in the signature barbershop style while they scoop.
A percentage of the night’s sales will be donated to the chapter, explained its co-director Gene Kai, who is an original charter member who helped found the chapter more than 40 years ago.
“I’ve sang all my life—since the first grade—and this is a great place to continue using your voice, other than singing in church choirs,” Kai said. “But those groups are mixed, with ladies and men, and barbershop is all guys, just from all walks of life who enjoy getting together to make harmony.”
The barbershop style is four-part a cappella, with bass and baritone on the lower end and tenor and lead on the high end. It was formed in the late 1930s, Kai explained, and has been used to sing favorite music—from Broadway show tunes to songs from pop music—ever since.
The Doc Burnstein’s event isn’t the only fundraiser the Chordsmen are organizing. A fundraiser barbecue—which won’t feature a performance—happens on Nov. 14 at the Masonic Lodge in Orcutt. The event will raise money for the chapter’s youth outreach, Kai said, including the Youth in Harmony festival fundraiser in February. The festival is a collaboration with the Sweet Adelines, the local female barbershop organization.
Happening sooner than that though, Kai said, is an international competition of boy choruses and senior quartets happening in Reno, Nev., in late January. The fundraiser barbecue will help alleviate the costs of travel, board, and registration fees for the chapter, Kai said.
“We’re excited about doing that, we’ve never done it before and it’s reasonably costly,” he explained. “Matt Ringer, the director of the Righetti Chorale and Dona Kintzi from Orcutt Academy are also helping develop the songs the boys will sing during the competition, so both of those choral directors are helping us old barbershoppers to teach the music.”
The young singers participating in the convention are from Righetti High School, Santa Maria High School, Pioneer Valley High School, Orcutt Academy High School, and even Allan Hancock College.
Youth outreach is a big part of the Chordsmen’s activities each year, Kai said, with the Youth in Harmony Festival serving as not just a showcase of youthful talent, but a valuable recruiting method for the chapter. While many of the chapter’s members are retired gentlemen, Kai explained, they do have several young members.
“We had a young boy who came and joined from high school and said, ‘Whoa, this is way different than practicing with my high school choir and even the boys’ chorus,’” Kai said. “We have experienced singers in our chapter, and they know how to do things, and he is learning a lot by singing beside us old guys.”
Though the barbershop style is often stereotyped as a relic of yesteryear performed by mustachioed men in straw hats, its popularity hasn’t really died in all the years since it began. Locally, youth involved with the Chordsmen have performed at local talent shows, and nationally, the style has been used to set contemporary pop, R&B, and hip-hop songs on the comedian Jimmy Fallon’s late night show.
For singers like Kai, and the members of the Central Coast Chordsmen, it’s a chance to get together and make harmony, regardless of a singers’ age or the tunes given a singer’s voice.
“There’s nothing like ringing a chord and hearing that expanded sound,” Kai said. “It’s hard to explain the feeling of making that chord ring, and you know, four guys can sound like eight or 10 when you have the chord balanced properly.
“You can come having the worst day of our life,” he added, “but after an evening of barbershop, you can leave with a smile on your face—it’s that uplifting, just singing chords and the tunes you all remember.”
Arts Editor Joe Payne can be reached at jpayne@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Nov 12-19, 2015.
