I came to teach at Westlake just as [Paul] was leaving. I didn't know him too well so can't tell you too much, except that he was a wonderful arranger, one of the fine arrangers of our era. Students were studying with monetary help from the G.I. Bill. The efficiency “expert” told Alvin Learned (owner of the school) that instead of this money going to the teachers who were giving private lessons to students, it should go to the school and advised him to put the teachers on salary and route this money to the school. He lost all his good teachers through this and the school went down the sewer. Sad, sad, sad.

(Russ Garcia, email to Villepigue’s daughter

Desne, September 29, 2004)

Villepigue joined the faculty at the American Operatic Laboratory, teaching small classes in addition to giving private lessons. There he came within the circle of influence centered around Dr. Wesley La Violette, the highly venerated instructor of music theory and composition, whose private students over the years included Jimmy Giuffre, Shorty Rogers, John Graas, Red Norvo, Skippy Martin, and Bob Florence. Dr. La Violette’s philosophical approach to creativity and musicianship had profound effect on both students and colleagues, particularly Villepigue. According to trombonist Milt Bernhart:

A marvelous arranger named Paul Villepigue referred to his teacher, La V., and gave me a book of his, The Creative Light. I know I still have it, and it had a lot to do with my rising interest in metaphysics for a number of years. . . . The book pursues its title subject with a passion—to be genuinely creative, the artist must exist on a level—both conscious and subconscious—that can only be achieved through serious meditation. The way to meditate is suggested by La Violette in thought patterns which over a period of time would become virtually automatic. And in this way, the artist’s inner vision would expand dramatically. In the case of Giuffre and Shorty Rogers this did happen. If it sounds easy, it isn’t.

 

(Milt Bernhart, post on the Jazz West Coast

mailing list, December 15, 1995)

Another student of Dr. La Violette was Bob Keane, who began his music studies as a clarinetist and composer. Keane’s career path later took a radically different turn into rock-and-roll promoter and self-described hustler as head of Del-Fi Records, founded on his discovery of Ritchie Valens with the hit song La Bamba. In reminiscing about the early days of his serious music studies, Keane says,

I have a score for a full (and I mean full) orchestra that I wrote while studying with La Violette. Unfortunately, I didn’t continue my studies, since he told me I had talent as a composer. It is so strange the way one’s life evolves through no human efforts by the person involved. I should have been a performer and artist, but life turned me around into all kinds of situations that were away from that destiny.

(Bob Keane, letter to Villepigue’s daughter

Desne, August 3, 2004)

Yet in the early 1950s, Keane was avidly intent on pursuing his dream of playing jazz clarinet as leader of his own swing band, styled after his heroes Benny Goodman and Artie Shaw, even though the swing era was fading fast. Going then by the name of Bob Keene, he sought the well-connected musician and copyist Vern Yocum to help him put together such a band. 

I got a call from Bob asking if I’d be interested in taking care of the business end of the band for him. The musicians, playing in the band and so forth. I said, “Sure.” I got Paul Villepigue to write some scores for me and a couple of other arrangers

to do some for me and got some top dogs around town to play in the band. Gozzo and Mickey Mangano. All good musicians, all good players. We started doing gigs in town.

(Vern Yocum, oral history, September–November 1990,

transcribed by his daughter, Vernise Elaine Pelzel)

After a series of successful engagements as popular headliner, including a gig for five nights at the famous Rendezvous Ballroom on Balboa Beach the summer of 1951, Keane decided it was high time to record the music. Yocum brought in more “top dogs” for two demo recording sessions in August, plus a third session three years later, on November 2, 1954. The star lineups included trombonist Bernhart, high-note trumpeter Maynard Ferguson, and tenor saxophonist Bill Holman, as well as the combined writing talents of Holman, Billy May, Nelson Riddle, Shorty Rogers, Gene Roland, and Johnny Thompson for a slew of new arrangements. Paul Villepigue contributed two of the instrumental charts for these sessions: the lovely Rodgers and Hart ballad It’s Easy to Remember and a swinging rendition of Dancing Tambourine, both of which showcase the fluency of Keane’s airy clarinet.

By this time, musicians on the West Coast scene knew Paul Villepigue’s work.

“He was a quiet, intellectual man with a huge talent,” wrote Milt Bernhart some 50 years later to an online jazz discussion forum. At the age of 16, Bernhart had played his first Villepigue chart in Boyd Raeburn’s band back in Chicago in 1942.