Underneath Larry Vuckovich's trademark beret is a head crammed with the names of jazz greats from Vernon Alley to Michael Zisman -- men mostly, whose talent, energy and musical grace inspired generations of young musicians, including one young Montenegrin Serb listening to Armed Forces radio as it drifted into his home in Kotor, courtesy of Voice of America.

"I heard the big bands and that was it, that hooked me," Vuckovich said. Nearly 60 years later, the Yugoslavian transplant and a group of Bay Area musicians are paying homage to the big bands of the 1930s, '40s and '50s -- Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Woody Herman, Stan Kenton, et al. -- Aug. 24, at 7:30 p.m. on Copia's River Concert Terrace in Napa.

Vuckovich will be at the piano with a lineup of jazz veterans including Allen Smith, John Worley, Tom Bertetta and Fred Berry playing trumpet; Jim Rothermel on alto sax and clarinet; trombonists Wayne Wallace, John Gove, Al Bent and Chuck Bennett; tenor sax players Noel Jewkes, Jules Broussard, Hal Stein and Joe Agro; guitarist Josh Workman; bassist Nat Johnson; drummer Matt Guggemos. Special guest for this big band concert will be Jamie Davis, former vocalist with the Count Basie Orchestra.

Vuckovich, who started playing piano as a youngster, was trained in classical piano by a teacher who also instilled in her students a love of folk songs and the passionate Gypsy music of the region.

It's Vuckovich's notion that the music's inherent melancholy is the emotional background that informs his playing of the blues. When Jon Hendricks put together his "Evolution of the Blues" tour in 1973, Vuckovich was at the piano. He notes proudly that he was the only non-African-American in the band.

Although Vuckovich's admiration for jazz and swing began in the late '40s, it wasn't until his family fled Yugoslavia in 1951 and settled in San Francisco that the music took firm hold. As a student at Lincoln High School, he was part of a jazz ensemble called "The Musical Sharps," playing at rallies, school dances and private parties around town. He also played in a quintet that had a "George Shearing sound" combining vibes, guitar and piano.

Remembering the '50s

"The '50s were unbelievable, all the big bands, all these clubs," Vuckovich recalled recently as he shared apples, cheese, crackers and jazz with a visitor to his Chateau Calistoga home.

Then he unrolled his mental map of San Francisco's North Beach and Tenderloin districts and rattled off the names of jazz and vocal clubs of the '50s and '60s -- the Jazz Workshop, El Matador, Basin Street West, Sugar Hill, Casa Madrid, the Moulin Rouge burlesque house ("I even subbed there one time"), Ann's 440 Club, then down the street to the Purple Onion, Enrico Banducci's hungry i, Goman's Gay Nineties, the Copacabana, Sinaloa, the Coffee Gallery, the Place, the Cellar and Jimbo's Bop City, an after hours club that didn't open until 2 a.m.

"Today, to be honest there isn't that much for my taste," Vuckovich added. "If I'm going to hear something that's going to lift me, I have to take a CD out. If I was going to hear everything that's being played today I would be upset. ... When I hear jazz being played incorrectly, it's like somebody interpreting Beethoven, Mozart or Debussy too aggressively and with the wrong feeling. I don't want to hear that."

Who's Who collection

That accounts for the CD-packed bookcases of jazz recordings, all in alphabetical order, that line the Calistoga home. Vuckovich is always on the lookout for an album remembered from years past. The most recent acquisition is a CD of the late Victor Feldman's "The Arrival" album originally released in 1957 on the Fantasy label. The collection is a who's who of American jazz and swing featuring artists Vuckovich has rubbed shoulders with, performed with or been influenced by.

He met Vince Guaraldi at the Black Hawk and became his only student. On occasion, he subbed for Guaraldi.

"I was learning on the job," he recalled. And meeting and playing as a sideman for musicians and vocalists such as Irene Kral, David Alley, John Handy and Drew Moore. In 1963, he met Mel Torme and became his first-call pianist when he was in town. Three years later he met Jon Hendricks of Lambert, Hendricks and Ross, and worked with him for nearly two decades, playing major festivals across the country, in Europe and Scandinavia.

'Like being in a movie'

Being in Europe "was like being in a movie," he said. He met or played with the likes of tenor saxmen Don Byas and Paul Gonzalves, renowned jazz drummers Philly Joe Jones and Elvin Jones, as well as swing and bop trumpeter Clark Terry, a pioneer of flugelhorn in jazz.

For a year he lived and performed in Munich, met and married his first wife, then returned to the states where he was soon traveling with Hendricks' "Evolution of the Blues" show. From 1978 to '84 he was the featured pianist at the Grand Hyatt in San Francisco and zipping over to Keystone Korner as house pianist there.

Busy as he was, he felt that he was missing out on the real jazz scene.

"All the great musicians I was hearing were in New York," he said. "I wanted a taste of that scene so I took my wife and my little boy, Alexi, and we all went."

He was there for five years appearing at clubs like the Village Vanguard, West End, Hanratty's and the Blue Note. He would have stayed longer, he said, if he hadn't been a family man and getting tired of the commute from New Jersey to New York in ice and snow.

Back to the Bay Area

So back the family came to the Bay Area. Vuckovich returned to the Grand Hyatt, where the new manager, impressed with Vuckovich's "Blue Balkan" album, asked him to put together trios, quartets and quintets.

"It was unbelievable," Vuckovich said. "On Monday I would have a trio, it was a jam session. On Thursday, I would feature vocalists. Friday and Saturday I'd have quartets or quintets." He knew he had arrived when the bands earned a mention by legendary Chronicle columnist Herb Caen.

He formed tribute bands dedicated to the music and style of noted musicians such as Lester Young and Dexter Gordon, or to a specific sound such as his Latin-style La Orquesta El Vuko or the Blue Balkan Band with its Gypsy influences.

He has played major jazz festivals in the United States and Europe and although the jazz scene mainstay enjoys a reputation as a versatile musician, he stays true to his roots in bebop and swing, he said.

"I put together different things, contemporary elements," he said. "I like to keep fresh so improvisations are spontaneous, not predictable."

Vuckovich credits legendary tenor sax players Charlie Parker and Lester Young as major influences and proves his point by performing a percussive riff on the dining room table. Then he slips into a short course in music theory.

"Bill Evans came bringing an impressionistic influence to the piano, and some classical. Then Bud Powell, of course, and Red Garland and McCoy Tyner, Coltrane's pianist. Art Tatum ... experimented a lot, changing keys all the time and ... was all over the keyboard. I like it all but you try to make it your own expression when you play."

Currently Vuckovich and his second wife, Sanna Craig, a vocalist and percussionist, are promoting the most recent CD on their Tetrachord Music label, "Street Scene."

Their latest venture includes Vuckovich on piano and features, depending on the cut, Larry Grenadier, bass; Akira Tanna, drums; Hector Lugo, congas; and Vince Delgado, bongos and Egyptian tabla. Jazz historian, critic and concert producer Herb Wong wrote the liner notes.

Vuckovich's other albums and CDs since 1983 include "Reunion: with Jon Hendricks," "Blue Balkan: Then & Now," "Young at Heart," "Deja Vuk," "The Good Old Days are Right Now," "Tres Palabras" "Blues for Red," "Cast Your Fate," "City Sounds," "Village Voices" and "Blue Balkan."

At 69, Vuckovich manages to keep his piano-playing fingers in shape by appearing at Bay Area clubs, private parties and wineries. He also plays at Meadowood Resort in St. Helena every other week, as well as at Wappo Bar and Bistro and Brannan's, both in Calistoga.

"There is," he said, "no retirement in music."