Zardi’s 1955 Sam Donato and Ben Arkin had been tinkering with the décor of Zardi’s ever since they acquired the club in 1953. The woven raffia ceiling that was framed in bamboo remained but the backdrop below the ceiling behind the musician bandstand changed several times. The strip below the bamboo termination of ceiling […]
Continue Reading200 Hyde Street
The building at the corner of Turk and Hyde. If you walk up Hyde Street toward Eddy from the corner of Turk and Hyde, a large sign hangs above the sidewalk proclaiming Lafayette Coffee Shop – Prime Rib. It is now closed, perhaps the same establishment now located at 611 Larkin Street in San […]
Continue ReadingZARDI’S – 1954
Zardi’s 1954. 1954 provided a cornucopia of modern jazz for Los Angeles jazz fans. In addition to booming business at the city’s leading jazz clubs, jazz impresarios Gene Norman and brothers Norman and Irving Granz staged sell out concerts to meet the growing demand for modern jazz. Gene Norman continued to wear several musical […]
Continue ReadingZARDI’S – 1953
Zardi’s adopted their final moniker in 1953 The musical merry-go-round of Sardi’s, Cardi’s, and Zardi’s settled with the latter name in March of 1953. The existence of the well-known New York restaurant might have been the motivation to make the name changes although evidence of any legal challenge did not make headlines in the newspapers. […]
Continue ReadingZARDI’S – 1951/1952
Zardi’s – 1951/1952 Ray Hewitt’s “The Spotlighter” column in the January 4th edition of the Daily News highlighted the vibrant entertainment scene kicking off 1951 in Los Angeles. The list of artists ran the gamut from top name jazz vocalists like Billie Holiday, Sarah Vaughan, and Ella Fitzgerald to society orchestras like Phil Spitalny […]
Continue ReadingZARDI’S – 1949/1950
ZARDI’S – 1949/1950 A column in the Daily News from February 18, 1949, noted that Pete Daily and His Chicagoans had been pumping out their two-beat stuff in Hollywood’s Monkey Room to good crowds for a solid six months. The Pete Daily engagement at Sardi’s that began in August of 1948 continued through most […]
Continue ReadingZARDI’S – The Early Years
The space at 6315 Hollywood Boulevard was a restaurant in the early 1920s and 1940s before it became one of the top jazz clubs in Los Angeles in the 1950s.
Continue Reading“Yerxa”
Thomas Edward Yerxa If you heard “YERXA(ELEGY MOVEMENT FROM THE JITTERBUG SUITE)” for the first time without any background information regarding its origin you might have assumed it was from a classic black & white film from the 1940s or early 1950s. Arranger/composer credits for “Yerxa” belong to George Handy and Hal McKusick, written for […]
Continue ReadingVIVIEN GARRY ON RECORD
Vivien Garry The initial musical career of Vivien Garry was intertwined with the emerging guitar career of Arv Garrison. They met in Monroe, Michigan at The Silver Moon, a nightclub where Garrison was performing with a Toledo band led by Bud Ziegler. Monroe was a lakeside town located twenty miles north of Toledo. Vivien […]
Continue ReadingTiffany Club 1950/1994/2021
I visited 3260 West 8th Street in 1994 when I was checking street addresses for some of the major jazz clubs that flourished in Los Angeles during the 1950s. The Tiffany Club had long since ceased functioning as a jazz club or burlesque venue, it now catered to the neighborhood as a Mercado Y Panaderia. […]
Continue ReadingTiffany Club – 1956/1957
Tiffany Club – 1956/1957 Shelly Manne and His Men continued to be the headline attraction through December 1955 at Tiffany Club and were carried over into January of 1956. The continuing engagement included a special “New Year’s Eve Gala” at the club with favors, hats, horns, and noisemakers. Manne’s working quintet comprised Stu Williamson […]
Continue ReadingEarle Spencer Remembered by John S. Lewis
This article was published in the IAJRC (International Association of Jazz Record Collectors) journal in 1982. It fills in some blanks regarding Earle Spencer’s activity after leaving California. SPENCERIA: A FORGOTTEN BAND OF THE LATE 1940S By John S. Lewis Geographically and politically there are two Kansas Cities, but musically the town to the […]
Continue ReadingTeddy Charles / Dave Brubeck / Chet Baker
Teddy Charles / Dave Brubeck / Chet Baker – Los Angeles 1953 The individual careers of Teddy Charles, Dave Brubeck, and Chet Baker intersected when they appeared at clubs and concerts in 1953. Teddy Charles shared the stage with the Dave Brubeck Quartet and a Shelly Manne group at Wilshire-Ebell in July for what was […]
Continue ReadingSHELLY’S MANNE HOLE – FIFTH ANNIVERSARY
By Charles M. Weisenberg “How many club owners could distinguish between Miles Davis, a glockenspiel and a C clef?” This question was raised about five years ago in an article by the poet Kenneth Rexroth who maintained that a jazz club is no place for a musician who considers himself a creative artist. Rexroth’s […]
Continue ReadingJACK WILSON – IVORY INNOVATOR
By Gary G. Vercelli Jack Wilson will be seen in a special screening event via Eventbrite on May 6, 2021. The occasion is the debut of several restored episodes of the heralded Los Angeles television series, Frankly Jazz, that aired on local channel KTLA 5, for twenty-four shows from August of 1962 through January of […]
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