Can A Worm Cha-Cha-Cha? by Jules

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Hawaiian shirt, dark pants, white tennis shoes and a dark baseball cap with "JULES" in white stitching. 55 years old. That's Jules.

A few minutes before show time, Jules bounces on his toes and talks fast between sips of his iced mocha.

He's nervous.

"I'm always nervous until I start," Jules says in his gravelly Queens accent. "I'm not Carly Simon, though. She used to throw up every time before she went on stage. Every time."

Not that a little spit-up would concern this crowd, which has grown to more than 100 youngsters and adults.

"They're everywhere," he says. "OK. It's show time."

He gives a little jig, circles to the back of the crowd and then makes his way to the stage stepping between strollers and toddlers.

On stage, it's just Jules, his guitar, a microphone and a speaker.

It's a far cry from his life as a drummer in New York City – jazz clubs, pop and rock bands, Broadway shows, recording sessions.

That was Jules. Until he no longer dug the scene and the scene no longer dug drummers as much drum machines.

When he turned his back on it all and moved to Orange County with his wife Serra, a singer/songwriter turned chiropractor, Jules couldn't have imagined he'd become a favorite with the local preschool set.

• • •

Are you destined to be a musician if your mom plays classical piano at home and your dad, a bugler and jazz drummer while in the Army, keeps drumsticks and brushes around the house?

What if during a family move from New York City to Connecticut, you, 8, and your two brothers discover your dad's drum kit in these big black boxes? And the beat he plays hooks all three of you?

Or if your dad takes you to see some of the greatest jazz legends perform and on one of those occasions you, 9 or 10 years old, get to meet Louis Armstrong backstage?

That's Jules.

It's summer, it's hot and he and his older brother Dave knock on the door of Armstrong's dressing room.

"He looked at me and he said, `C'mon in Pops,' " Jules recalls, with a laugh.

His dad also took him to see drummers Buddy Rich and Gene Krupa. "Oh, I want to do that," Jules told himself.

He took piano lessons, played bugle in the Boy Scouts and by the time he was 13, dedicated himself to the drums.

Roy Moss gave his sons this piece of advice: "Drummers should keep the beat."

Jules went beyond that. He learned to read music, practiced three to four hours every day after school – "They had to tell me to stop" – and played in his high school's concert and jazz bands. He earned money on the weekends with jazz and rock gigs.

"I was a working musician at 13 or 14 years old," he says.

After high school, Jules spent two years at Berklee College of Music in Boston before heading to New York. He performed in and around the city, traveled the U.S. and the world as a member of various jazz groups.

In the early to mid '80s Jules met Serra. She had grown up around Southern California, but came to New York seeking a career. After 20 years on the music scene, they both wanted a different life.

"It's a tough business in a lot of ways," Jules says. "I came to a point where I was kind of done."

He sold all his drums.

Jules doesn't mention the intrusion of drum machines on his livelihood, but Serra does. The session work disappeared, she says.

"Sometimes life does that and you've got to change.

• • •

Serra took pre-med classes to become a chiropractor. Friends helped Jules get a job as a teacher's assistant at a kindergarten.

They came to California in 1991, settling in Huntington Beach when Serra got accepted at a chiropractic college in Whittier. Jules found work as a substitute teacher at several preschools and spent about eight years at the Irvine Child Development Center.

"It was fun. Kids at that age are fun," he says. "They're totally honest and their honesty is hysterical. I like to laugh and they made me laugh. And I, in turn, made them laugh."

The music crept back into his life. But unlike all the years he spent keeping the beat as a drummer but never opening his mouth, he sang.

"When I read a story and it had a rhyme, I did it with a rhythm and I gave it a beat. I'd make a little rap and the kids loved it."

Soon, the schools were asking him to do more music with the kids. He started listening to children's music.

"I thought, well, that's kind of corny. Maybe with my musical hipness, I could make some cool songs for the kids."

He sang about school pets: "Pinky the rat, rat-a-tat-tat." And Slither the Snake, "make no mistake, he's a slithery snake."

Parents began asking where to buy his music. So Jules made some tapes and sold them at a school fundraiser.

"We raised enough money for the school to buy a vacuum cleaner."

Serra encouraged Jules to record his children's music professionally. They found a studio in the Yellow Pages and she helped write the songs.

The first CD, "Can a Worm Cha-Cha-Cha" came out in 1997, and the second, "Everybody Has a Bellybutton!" in 2005. In between, Jules expanded his business – JULES Music & Entertainment 4 Kids – to include birthday parties, fundraisers, summer camps, preschool music classes.

At the Barnes & Noble performance, Lukas Beste, 3, of Aliso Viejo dances by the stage the entire half-hour show.

"It's his favorite thing to do, to come watch Jules," says Lukas' mom Nicola Beste. "It's really good fun."

Jules has another CD in the works and plans to produce a DVD. As surprised as he is about his success, he expects this new beat in his musical career to last a long time.

"Think Raffi meets Dan Zanes on Sesame Street," says his tagline. "Giggle & Wiggles Guaranteed!"

That's Jules.

Contact the writer: 714-796-7793 or twalker@ocregister.com

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