In 40 years of organizing the Dixieland Party Band and Friends Labor Day weekend event, Harry Brown learned at least one constant: Musicians will take every opportunity to play for people.

That fact has helped drive the event over the years, from its earliest nights at Manley’s Tavern in Crescent Lake Junction in 1979 to its current location at the Moose Lodge in La Pine. What started as two nights — Friday and Saturday — expanded to three, then four, then five, adding a venue nearly each time a night was added.

In recent years, musicians start out at the Ponderosa Pizza Parlor for what Brown calls “rehearsal” Thursday nights (“We call it rehearsal, but it’s just more playing — more chance of playing,” Brown said with a laugh). The event moves to the Moose Lodge Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights, then closes out with an afternoon jam at Faith, Hope and Charity Vineyards. The festival returns for its 40th year this weekend.

Brown started attending meetings of the Traditional Jazz Society of Oregon in Eugene in the mid-’70s, after going to a music event at the Valley River Inn. He became an instant fan, and soon musicians, such as founding members Phil and Jan Stiers, took notice of the fact that he was always hanging around the meetings.

“One of the musicians at the event organizing everything (Phil Stiers) — I happened to run into him sometime later,” Brown said. “And he said, ‘You know, you always come every month to our sessions; would you like to help out?’ … I said, ‘Well, yeah, I could help you, but I don’t know what I’d be doing or how I could help you.’”

Stiers wanted Brown to help organize sets for the jam sessions and other events the society played. He did this for about three or four years, he said, until in 1979 he invited a group of the musicians to his cabin in Crescent Lake Junction to do some fishing.

“(They said,) ‘Well, that sounds like fun, but is there a place we can play?’” Brown said. “It was a tavern there called Manley’s Tavern, which I hung out there some — probably sometime too much. So I talked to the owners (Jim and Liz Ward) about it, and they were interested in some of the musicians coming there and playing.”

A group of about 12 to 15 musicians dragged a piano into the tavern and played for two nights — Friday and Saturday. They kept coming back every year, and eventually managed to get Thursday night, too.

But the event wasn’t done growing. Sometime around 1994, musicians traveling through La Pine on the way back home to Salem or Portland suggested they play at a barbecue Sunday afternoon. They found another willing venue at the American Legion Post 45, and the event became a Labor Day weekend tradition. Soon the Moose Lodge became involved as a second venue — and then the primary venue after the American Legion and Manley’s Tavern dropped out.

Over the years, Brown has remained the event’s main organizer and emcee.

“I could be considered a groupie, you know, but I mentioned that to Jan Stiers,” he said. “… She said, ‘You may be a groupie, but you do something for us.’ So I felt good about that.”

This year’s event will feature trombonist Bill Allred, whose career playing traditional and Dixieland jazz stretches back to the 1960s with the U.S. Navy. In 1971, he auditioned as a staff musician for Walt Disney World in Orlando, and got the gig, playing at the park’s grand opening Oct. 1, 1971.

“I gotta be honest with you, (that was) probably the best career move I could have ever made,” Allred said. “I met everyone in the business; I was traveling more when Disney sponsored events.”

Through these travels, Allred met Brown sometime in the late ’70s, according to the latter. They met when Allred and his eight-piece band played a couple of shows in Eugene with the Traditional Jazz Society. The two became friends, and Allred and his wife stayed with Brown and his wife, Elaine, numerous times over the years.

“My wife and I went out several times (and) stayed with him; my wife got her first snowmobile ride — stuff like that,” Allred said. “So did I, as a matter of fact. But Harry’s been a good friend. And there’s a lot of people there that are coming to the festival that I will probably know, and I’m really looking forward to it.”

Brown recalled taking the couple skiing at Mt. Bachelor one year.

“He was gonna go to Switzerland as a featured guest, and a trombone player over there wanted to take him skiing in the Alps,” Brown said. “He was originally from Illinois and he hadn’t skied for years, so he asked my wife and I if we’d take him skiing. Well we took him to Mt. Bachelor and he would not slow down. He just knew that he could get it all back. Well, he finally — he sprawled out, crashed and he injured his knee.”

In March, Elaine Brown died of a stroke. Harry Brown reached out to Allred with a copy of the obituary and “a picture of Bill sprawled out in the snow.”

“He just had to come to honor her,” Brown said.

Allred, who recently survived a second bout with cancer, doesn’t tour much these days. His most recent album, “The New York Sessions,” an album of more mainstream jazz classics from the 1950s (as opposed to Dixieland’s 1930s heyday) that also features his trombonist son, John Allred, came out in 2010.

Like Allred and Brown, most of the players at these sessions are on the older side. Musicians come from across the West Coast. Some, such as drummer LeRoy Newport of Redmond, have been coming to events for years; others come for one or two years and drop off, Brown said.

Still, there are a few younger players helping to keep the tradition alive, notably saxophonist Gerrit Cooper, in his 20s, who has been attending these events since he was 15 years old.

“He’d sit in for a tune or two or three, something like that — something that he’d get his feet wet,” Brown said. “I gave him 20 bucks one time, told him, ‘Now you’re a professional musician.’ We get a kick out of that.”