The Blue Whale just celebrated 7 years in Little Tokyo and has become - despite its location on the top floor of Weller Plaza - the definitive room for hip, progressive, youthful jazz. And the audience at the club has gone from 3 awkward dudes nursing a Pepsi for two hours to a diverse, packed, engaged crowd.
And like the Village Vanguard and Birdland in New York, or Shelly's Manne-Hole and the Lighthouse here in LA, more and more artists are recording albums at the Blue Whale. Several have already been recorded at the club, and on Friday, Feb. 17, and Saturday, Feb. 18, keyboardist Mark de Clive-Lowe is throwing an album release party at the club called "Live at the Blue Whale." Mark can get them dancing in the aisles but he can also play a straight-ahead Ahmad Jamal groove all day long.
Joon Lee admits he didn't pick the best time to start a businesses, especially one in an obscure corner of an obscure mall in downtown LA. "I built it Winter 2009. It was bad timing. Everything was going down. And we had many nights when there were more employees than customers ... for at least a year. I was thinking at least two years, I'm gonna lose money for sure." Why has he succeeded when other jazz clubs have failed? "First of all you have to believe in this music. And then you have to believe in this community."
Mark says, "There are some clubs where you're fighting with patrons who don't want to hear music, or staff who wish it was the rock night. When I play The Blue Whale, creatively it feels like a safe space. Whatever I want to do - and I've seen this with other musicians, whatever they want to do - is accepted by the audience and the venue. The staff culture here is really strong, supportive, and friendly. The space is made for music; the only reason for it to exist is for people to perform their art."
No comments:
Post a Comment