Five Historic LA Jazz Spots - LA Weekly

Have you hugged a jazz musician today? You should. For the second year in a row, April 30th has been declared International Jazz Day by no less a reputable organization than the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. This year's host city is Istanbul.

But why not L.A.? After all, jazz matured simultaneously with the City of Angels and throughout the last 100 years some of the most important jazz musicians have lived and worked here. While clubs like the Blue Whale and the Jazz Bakery keep the spirit alive, many ghosts still swing in the dark corners of our desert grid. Here are five of the very best Los Angeles jazz landmarks.

Contemporary Records
8481 Melrose Place, West Hollywood

Lester Koenig's Contemporary Record label was probably the most vital chronicler of the Los Angeles jazz scene in the 1950s and '60s. The label recorded local legends like pianist Hampton Hawes and saxophonist Harold Land, as well as visitors like Sonny Rollins (Way Out West) and Ornette Coleman (Something Else!), the latter of whom lived briefly in Los Angeles, notably working as an elevator operator at Bullock's department store in downtown L.A.

The most impressive feat of Koenig's operation was that many of his releases were recorded in the wee hours of the morning at his distribution warehouse on Melrose Place, under the guidance of engineer Roy Dunann. It is unlikely that the shoppers in what is now a rather ritzy shopping district have any idea of the brilliance that once echoed in those streets.

Manne Hole

Shelly's Manne Hole
1608 North Cahuenga, Hollywood

Drummer Shelly Manne was Contemporary Records' go-to drummer. He had a long running series with the label entitled "Shelly Manne & His Men," featuring a rotating cast of local talent. From 1960 to 1972, he ran a Hollywood jazz venue called Shelly's Manne Hole.

Pianist Bill Evans recorded an immortal live session there in 1963 while Jazz Bakery impresario and vocalist Ruth Price recorded a live album with Manne and his men, while she was still in her early twenties. The small manhole plaque is embedded off-center on the once-again happening sidewalk of Cahuenga Boulevard, commemorating the spot where so many great heroes once stubbed their cigarettes.

Lincoln Theater sign

Central Avenue Jazz Corridor
Central Avenue between 23rd & Vernon Avenue, South Central Los Angeles

From the late 1910s until the early 1950s, Central Avenue was the center of the West Coast jazz world. No less than the inventor of jazz, Jelly Roll Morton, lived, recorded and even pimped on the Avenue while musicians like Duke Ellington and Lionel Hampton were regular visitors to palaces like the Lincoln Theater.

Miniscule joints like the Down Beat club housed equally great musicians like Los Angeles' own Buddy Collette, Dexter Gordon and Charles Mingus. A series of signs mark the spirits of jazz past on a rather run-down strip of Los Angeles. Important buildings like the Dunbar Hotel still remain intact, but the memories of walking into a room and witnessing Art Tatum pounding Pabsts and playing a busted piano are distant.

Where Les Paul's garage used to be

Les Paul's Garage
1514 North Curson, Hollywood

At the behest of crooner Bing Crosby, guitar god Les Paul set about converting his Hollywood garage into a recording studio. (Are there any personal garages that aren't studios now?) While tinkering with his toys, Paul discovered the indispensible technique of immediate multi-tracking that revolutionized the recording process. He also perfected a portable recording system that allowed him to record radio shows while on the road.

The recordings that came out of this tinkering, although viewed as a bit of a novelty, were intricate displays of music and mathematics, with Paul accompanying himself at all manner of speeds to create superhuman but swinging sounds. Paul's garage is no longer there -- it's a driveway for an auction house -- but it seems appropriate that Sunset Boulevard's massive Guitar Center is only a couple of blocks away.

Lighthouse Cafe
30 Pier Avenue, Hermosa Beach

The Lighthouse defined the West Coast jazz scene for many record buyers worldwide. The venue began booking jazz in 1949 when bassist Howard Rumsey hosted a jam session, which filled the dive with bare-footed beatniks almost immediately.

Central Avenue veterans like saxophonists Teddy Edwards and Sonny Criss traveled across town to play in Rumsey's integrated free-for-all, while trumpeting dreamboat Chet Baker, who lived nearby at 1011 16th Street, became a regular performer, launching a career that is romanticized as much for its decline as its rise.

The venue still hosts Sunday jazz gigs (at 11am!) but through the 1960s it remained a key venue for touring artists like Cannonball Adderley, Elvin Jones and Lee Morgan to record live sessions and take in that unmistakable Pacific breeze.

Five LA Jazz Spots @ LA Weekly

Joshua White's Top Five - OC Weekly

WireImage

Pianist Joshua White seeks the history of the music he loves and layers it into his own sound. His confident delivery and endlessly engaging approach have attracted a fair amount of attention including a second-place finish at the Thelonious Monk International Piano Competition in 2011 and constant appearances anywhere between San Diego and Los Angeles on any given night. Tonight, he'll be appearing at the Aliso Creek Inn with bassist Hamilton Price and drummer Marvin "Smitty" Smith. He spoke with us about five of those history-makers who have influenced him the most.

Richard Davis
"Number Two" on Booker Ervin's Space Book (1964)
I became aware of his work through a Booker Ervin record entitled Space Book which also features Jaki Byard on piano and Alan Dawson on drums. Overall, I find his playing very stimulating. His rhythmic choices and how he would break things up into different groupings. He's obviously well aware of the whole tradition. He's well aware of all sorts of music traditions not just Black American music. There's an overall guiding aesthetic with most great players that lead you into finding directions that are most positive in terms of the music. When I hear him play, it always inspires me to keep pushing forward, to think and to learn.

Geri Allen
"Blues In Motian" from Etudes (1988)
I find her music always interesting, always stimulating, always intriguing. There is a light that shines through when she is in the band. Lately, I've been going back and investigating her recordings with a wonderful trio featuring bassist Charlie Haden and drummer Paul Motian. There is always something wonderful happening. There isn't really too much to explain. You just have to listen to the dialogue because that's where I find the music is always found. Sometimes I think there is too much emphasis on arranging and setting up the music. I'm more interested in hearing things develop in the moment instead of having a super developed framework.

Steve Coleman
"Respiratory Flow" from Functional Arrhythmias (2013)
The first Steve Coleman album I picked up was 2011's The Mancy of Sound. I've been playing it at least once a week since I bought it. The compositions are brilliant, the playing is fantastic, the sound of the band is incredible. Having the opportunity to meet with him and talk with him really shed some light upon how things are developed within his language and within his band, his whole environment. I've definitely been embracing his work. I've been getting every record I can get my hands on. Enough can't be said about his work and his dedication and his constant development and his constant need to learn new information.

Andrew Hill
"Dedication" from Point of Departure (1964)
I would say he's a pianist and composer who just kind of turned me around and had my head spinning for quite some time now. To be honest, when I first heard Point of Departure I was super heavy into Tony Williams at the time but I was like "Who's this cat on the piano?" I really couldn't dig it. Some older cats were like "Go back and listen to him." I go back and start listening again and I guess I was just listening to him solo. I was listening to his last works with his trio and listening to his music and the way he played the piano and the command that he had in that environment just knocked me out. His approach to improvisation and his approach developing melodic content really opened a new world to me that I was never really aware of or really took the time to listen to and investigate. The thing that really strikes me about his playing is his compositions are so tethered to how he plays as an improviser. You are hearing him even when cats are soloing on his compositions. He has the ability to translate his language if the musicians are open into any vessel that's available.

Herbie Nichols
"Love Gloom Cash Love" from Love Gloom Cash Love (1957)

Nichols doesn't have a large recorded output but he does have a substantial body of work in a tight, compact package. Some of the same ideas that I hear with Herbie Nichols are present in what I hear with Andrew Hill but they are two completely different individuals. To listen to Herbie Nichols as a soloist and how he weaves lines using different rhythmic groupings outside of the perceived tradition of the music commonly referred to as bebop and his sense of swing and his feel for lines is something totally unique but equally as satisfying as any other player I hear from that period. It's wonderful to hear a fresh approach to a language that's constantly being developed as opposed to having some sort of definitive answer to what is right and wrong.

Joshua White @ OC Weekly

Introducing...Vince Abbracciante - Liner Notes

A stab at liner note writing...

Although this album is an introduction to accordionist Vince Abbracciante, he has already been at the party for a while. Not yet 30, Abbracciante made his mark by winning the prestigious Castelfidardo Accordion Festival International Prize before he was old enough to drive. Since then, he has criss-crossed the globe performing on five different continents in every setting imaginable, from ancient amphitheaters to stuffy, low-lit basements. Finally, with all of this experience under his belt, Abbracciante is ready for his close-up.

Wisely, the young man from Puglia is not doing it alone. Abbracciante has surrounded himself with a sharp crew of musicians to help him mingle. Veteran saxophonist Robert Ottaviano contributres the first and last subdued notes of the album, inbetween he provides a few ruthless solos. Fellow youthful Italian Fabrizio Scarafile provides soprano saxophone for a couple of tracks, the swinging “No or Yes” as well as “Nublu Bossa” a burning re-arrangement of the Kenny Dorham classic reworked into an homage to the unofficial headquarters of the lone American on the album, bassist Juini Booth.

The unflappable Booth got his start in his teens working for legends like Art Blakey before going on to expand his sound in the 1970s as a member of McCoy Tyner’s band as well as Tony Williams’ Lifetime. Aside from holding down the low-end Booth also contributes a third of the album’s compositions including the backbeat-heavy “MDX” which features a boisterous seduction from vocalist Giuseppe Delre. The other contributing vocalist, Adriana Ciannella, make her recording debut on “En Mi” blending seamlessly with Abbracciante’s reedy  accordion. And through it all is in-demand drummer Antonio Di Lorenzo keeping the pace on his gliding cymbals.

Of course all of this is in support of the man of the hour. From the clattering thunder of album opener “Visione” to his solo exploration on the swooning “Triss,” Abbracciante has presented a wide range of capabilities that only hint at what is to come in the future. His compositional talents combined with his breathless jaunts come together to form the complete package. His mastery of the handheld orchestra is a wonder to behold.

After taking the time to let Abbracciante introduces himself, you will only be left wishing he had done so sooner.

"Sean J. O'Connell scrive per DownBeat, LA Weekly e il New York Jazz Record. Gli piace ascoltare la fisarmonica, ma ha scoperto che i suoi avambracci gil fanno male de quando la suona."

Vince Abbracciante's Home on the Internet

Yusef Lateef - NYC Jazz Record

Yusef Lateef
Roots Run Deep

Yusef Lateef was 83 years old when filmmakers Nicolas Humbert and Werner Penzel spent a week at his home in Western Massachusetts, resulting in the short documentary “Brother Yusef.” They recorded his performances and meditations every day, leaving hours of performance material off of their finished project.  Nine years later, Rogue Art has released a lovingly compiled collection of some of those unused performances from that week, seamlessly blended into a brief, flowing album that finds Lateef both playful and introspective. 

The album is bookended by extended improvisations entitled “Roots Run Deep” that feature a melancholy mix of vocals, piano and flute. Lateef is the only performer on the album and it is his vocals that stand out the most. A strained but honeyed knowingness imbues the entire project with a relaxed wisdom. Four of the seven tracks feature Lateef reading short stories from his 1975 book “Spheres.” Behind the brief but amusing “Cream Puff” Lateef provides a honking tenor for his tale of his practicing limitations and the daily procedures while “Goodbye” remains a largely unadorned reflection on death until the end of the piece pops with descending sounds from his saxophone.  The most resounding piece on the album features a repeated and spacious piano figure used throughout the record as Lateef sings a slow and tragic rendition of the traditional blues standard “Motherless Child.”

The CD package includes a 22-page booklet with remembrances of that week from the filmmakers, a few words from Lateef, a handful of photographs and some sheet music. Now 92 years old, Lateef is still performing, no doubt still wrestling with many of the themes he revisited in 2004 and originally conceived in 1975. It is a beautiful project that is sadly far too short but serves as an intriguing companion to the documentary.

Yusef Lateef @ NYC Jazz Record

Jeremy Pelt - NYC Jazz Record

Jeremy Pelt
Water & Earth

 

Trumpeter Jeremy Pelt sets the tone quickly with his

newest release. An ever-present, oscillating Rhodes

played by David Bryant slides into place alongside

Burniss Earl Travis’ sympathetic bass for half a minute.

Pelt enters gently, building up steam until a Return to

Forever-esque vocal chorus soars with him. In just

under an hour, with the aid of voices, electricity and

effects, Pelt experiments with a psychedelic soul sound

without abandoning his command of the straightahead.

 

He has written all but one of the tunes. “Mystique”

and “Meditations on a Conversation We Had” hold the

spirit of Pelt’s straightahead leanings. He gives a

confident, blaring solo over the quickly moving

changes on the former while Bryant switches to piano

on the latter, swaying gently on Pelt’s breathy ballad.

“Boom Bishop” is the most adventurous track. Pelt

plugs in, getting his wah on and getting downright

funky on the extended workout. It’s a departure but it

grooves. “Stay” quickly digs into some post-production

with effects heaped on everyone’s performances.

Bryant’s Rhodes pans rapidly from left to right in

almost nauseating fashion while Frank LoCrasto lays

down some decaying keyboard effects. Vocalist Ra-Re

Valverde grooves with herself in a swirling call-and-

response. Drummer Dana Hawkins keeps it funky as

he does throughout the record. Pelt stretches out nicely

on “Pieces of a Dream”, Travis’ low-end splat bouncing

off of the trumpeter’s streaking sound before letting

tenor saxophonist Roxy Coss wail over Hawkins’

perpetual syncopated snap.

 

The liner notes consist of a single promise from

Pelt: “This music isn’t about a change in direction as

much as it’s about strengthening my commitment to

my art at present.” There will likely be some people

caught off guard by the amount of electrical outlets

required by Pelt’s new direction and whether they’re

all necessary will probably take a couple of releases to

sort out. In the meantime, this is a promising exploration

into a new realm.

 

Jeremy Pelt @ NYC Jazz Record