A Song In His Heart, A Dental Drill In His Hand

WOODINVILLE

We should all be so crazy as Per Isberg, the Woodinville dentist who refers to himself as "the crazy Swede."

He keeps going at things slightly sideways, and he keeps making them work.

He came to the United States 18 years ago, building a one-chair dental office next to his house on Hollywood Hill and developing a successful practice despite its countryside location.

Then four years ago Isberg bought a saxophone at a pawnshop and picked up where he'd left off as a musician in Sweden, forming a band, buying a nightclub in Woodinville, and getting gigs as a performer, arranger and composer.

Now, Isberg will produce "A Tale of Music: An Untrue History of Sound," a show he wrote and composed, Thursday through Sunday at the Kirkland Performance Center.

The show, a comedy-laced musical review combining original music and pop classics, is performed by a partly amateur, partly professional cast: Isberg's band, a 20-person choir, 40-plus student dancers, an award-winning barbershop quartet, and a handful of seasoned and newly minted soloists.

It starts with a dialogue between The Creator and The Emcee, and goes on to involve an ape banging out rhythms with a stick, a cannibal number (lyric: "I'm hungry - why is my food singing?"), a jazz scene set in a monastery, songs from Ray Charles and the musical "Hair," and swing, mambo and rock numbers.

Sit with Per Isberg on the deck beside his swimming pool, and he'll tell you all about it.

He is a man of great enthusiasm - "excellent" is a favorite word - and expressive eyebrows. When he gets to the part about the ape beating rhythms on the stage floor, he jumps out of his chair to demonstrate.

And Isberg is clear: The show will be great, he says.

"You surprise people, you give them humor, you give them good, honest, simple music, you give them a cute story, and you do it very dynamically," he says.

Born in Sweden in 1942, Isberg started performing on the saxophone when he was 15, playing in rock bands and taking night classes in arranging and composing throughout high school and dental school. By his early 20s, he was fixing teeth by day and performing with some of Sweden's top musicians by night.

"I was playing with those old folks who were my idols when I was young. It was a very proud time for me," Isberg says.

He also played with well-known U.S. musicians who toured Sweden - Quincy Jones, Stan Getz, Dexter Gordon and Hank Crawford - and with the internationally known Swedish group ABBA.

Although he practiced dentistry, Isberg's heart was in music - that is, until he met Maria, who agreed to marry him only if he'd give it up and stay home. He kept his word, practicing dentistry and investing in real estate.

In 1981, Isberg, discouraged with Sweden's socialist political system, bought three tickets to the United States for himself, his wife and their 6-month-old daughter. He chose the Seattle area because it was one of the places that SAS Airlines flew.

The Isbergs planned to spend a year traveling and deciding whether they wanted to stay in America. After he passed the Washington state dental exams, the couple decided to stay, buying property on Hollywood Hill, where they built a large house and next to it the one-chair dentist office.

Isberg remembers a journalist calling him to ask how he thought he could get patients to come to an office so far off the beaten track. But come they did - at least enough for a half-time practice, which is what he'd wanted.

Isberg practiced dentistry, and he and Maria raised two daughters. Sophie, the oldest, is a college student, although she's taking a bit of a detour to join the Young Americans, a touring group of young performers. Cecelia, 15, has a lead role in her father's musical.

In 1992, a year of drought locally, Isberg patented and began producing a device that could be placed in a toilet so it would flush using less water.

"I still sell it - Isberg Enterprises," he says.

Then four years ago, Isberg saw an alto saxophone for $200 in a pawnshop.

"I couldn't help it," he says. "I had my checkbook with me, and I went in and bought it."

At first he hid it, playing in the garage.

"To my surprise, I played quite OK," he says. Then he bought a keyboard and some recording equipment.

He finally told Maria. "She said, `OK, you're not going to be successful, you don't know any musicians here' - I guess she figured it was safe."

But Isberg went on to assemble a band, and then bought the former Koyote's tavern in Woodinville's Towne Center, turning it into Per's Pub and Eatery, which offers rock on Friday and Saturday nights, and Per and his Little Big Band playing jazz on Sunday evenings.

He was asked to do some arranging and musical directing for shows at Kirkland Performance Center, including a tap-dance review.

"I did a few shows, and it started to snowball, the same as in Sweden," he says. Last fall he decided to try writing the script for an entire production. Theater management liked it, and "A Tale of Music" was born.

After "A Tale of Music" closes, Isberg has a couple more gigs on the Eastside - another tap-dance review at the Kirkland Performance Center and a summer concert at Woodinville's Wilmot Gateway Park - but after that he'll start a new chapter in his life.

It sounds a little crazy, too, except Isberg's got it all figured out.

He and his wife have put their Woodinville home up for sale. They plan to move to the Las Vegas area - just for a year, on a trial basis.

Isberg plans to open a 4,000-square-foot performance space outside Las Vegas. Half of it will be the "cash cow" - rehearsal space for professional musicians with audio and video capabilities. The other half will be a smoke-free, slot-machine-free club where three nights a week he and his band will put on vaudeville-style shows.

He will not forsake dentistry: He plans to outfit a recreational vehicle as a mobile dentist's office. He'll work on his family's teeth, his friends' teeth, his musicians' teeth - "that's 50 people right there," Isberg says.

Practicing dentistry might even create an entree into Las Vegas music circles, as his own musicians play with other, bigger name musicians and his name gets passed around as a dentist with musical leanings. After all, Isberg says, it worked that way in Sweden: practicing dentistry got him gigs as a musician.

But a Las Vegas club with no smoking? No slots? Owned by a dentist who plays saxophone - or is it a musician who fixes teeth?

Well, why not?

After all, Isberg has always believed that "you don't compete with what everyone else is doing. You have to be a little crazy and invent things to succeed."

Eastside Profile is an occasional feature of The Seattle Times Eastside edition. Have a suggestion on someone we should write about? Contact us via the address or phone numbers at the top of this page. ------------------------------- A Tale of Music

"A Tale of Music: An Untrue History of Sound" will be performed at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Friday and Saturday, with 2 p.m. matinees Saturday and Sunday, at the Kirkland Performance Center.

Tickets are $15 for adults, $10 for students and seniors. For reservations, call the box office at 425-893-9900.