MARK WAITE / PVT Tom Saitta plays trumpet at the Nevada Silver Tappers annual holiday benefit show recently. Advertisement

Patrons at the Pahrump Nugget this weekend will get to sneak preview some of the entertainment at the new Tommasino's Italian Restaurant and jazz nightclub, when Tom Saitta and Friends take the stage with a show called "All That Jazz."

Saitta and his backup musicians will perform four sets from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m. on both Friday and Saturday nights at the Pahrump Nugget Stagebar Lounge.

"It'll all be jazz and old standards, a la Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett, Jack Jones, you could call it big band-type swing," Saitta said. "It's got a nice dance beat people would recognize and then we do a lot of lovely, love ballads."

Dennis Mellen, who played with the U.S. Air Force Band for 11 years, will play keyboards, including a bass and rhythm machine. Saitta and Mellen played together in Wednesday night jam sessions at the Kitchen Cafe in Las Vegas for years.

"We're going to do the same thing at Tommasino's Restaurant in Pahrump. Musicians and players will be invited to come in and sign a clip board. As the evening progresses, we invite different people to come up and perform," Saitta said.

Autie Goodman, a member of The Four Freshmen since 1970, will play saxophone.

"He's an excellent performer and what's mind-boggling is he's 83 years old," Saitta said.

The Four Freshman played recently at the Pahrump Nugget. A younger quartet was formed to replace the original band which was founded in 1948.

Saitta said the three musicians will sound like a quintet.

A special guest will be arriving for this weekends show from Portland, Ore., female vocalist April Spain, whose jazz singing and soulful pop renditions resemble Diana Krall and Nancy Wilson, he said.

Saitta is more well-known locally as co-owner, along with Don Trudeau, of Saitta Trudeau Chrysler-Jeep-Dodge, which was Pahrump's first car dealership when it opened in 2001. But he's also been a longtime trumpet and flugelhorn player as well as a vocalist.

"I was about five or six years old when I started playing the trumpet and I'm 56 years old so I've been playing a long time. I used to make a living playing trumpet," Saitta said. But he added, "I was tired of being broke, like most musicians are, so I quit music as far as making a living and got in the car business and now I've been in the business 44 years."

Since he was a car dealer by trade and a trumpet player by hobby, Saitta resigned himself to occasionally sitting in on gigs at Las Vegas venues like Fellini's Restaurant. He surfaced occasionally in Pahrump with his horn, like when Wulfy's Restaurant and Lounge opened in 2004 with live entertainment on a small stage. Recently he performed a couple of numbers for the Nevada Silver Tappers' annual holiday benefit show at the Saddle West Hotel and Casino. Over New Year's Eve, he crooned a few songs at the Pahrump Nugget dinner.

Saitta will have his perfect venue with the opening of his restaurant and nightclub at 250 S. Humahuaca St., which he expects to be finished sometime in March.

The restaurant will feature a large dining room and a nightclub with live music every night involving different artists. A grand piano will be a centerpiece of the nightclub, there will also be a dance floor.

On his Web site, www.tommasinos.nv.com, he states, the restaurant will feature casual "come as you are" dress, never a cover charge and reasonably-priced meals. Saitta hired Las Vegas chef Mike Parascandolo, who is a Pahrump resident.

During an interview this summer at a chamber mixer at the car dealership, Saitta said he plans to have a stage on wheels that can be shuttled into the lounge after the dinner hour, about 9:30 or 10 p.m. Seating capacity for the live entertainment will be about 120 in the lounge and dinner area, another 18 seats at the bar and eight around the piano.

There will be no smoking and no gaming in the new establishment. It will be also open for a businessman's lunch. He plans to have an electronic sign that will be visible from Highway 160.

So is Pahrump ready for this level of sophistication?

"I think Pahrump is screaming for this type of music because there isn't any of this music here. There's rock and roll, there's country and western and there's a place for that. But there's also a place for music we do," Saitta said.