Los Angeles

I'm sure i won't be the last to say it, but a little info in the profile would go along way. That aside, I'll do my best to shine a little light for you.

I don't know what scene you're interested in, so the first two questions are sort of difficult. But there's a whole lot of people here, doing everything you can imagine, so it's easy to get something going, hard to get paid. sort of like anywhere else, but with more people.

clubs/sessions/oppurtunities? that's a little vague, but like i said there's something happening everywhere. pick your poison.

gigs pay worse in LA than any city I've ever played in. Unless you've got some kind of name, you're going to have to play for pennies. I travel out of town for gigs alot.

i don't play weddings and have done only a few corporate jobs. so i don't really have enough experience there.

I have my work done at Stein on Vine in Hollywood. But there is also the LA Bassworks in Silverlake.

Affordable places to live in the greater LA area probably include, Glendale, Eagle Rock, Alta Dena, Mount Washington, south Pasadena, and then points north in the Valley, but then you're living with nightmarish traffic.

Give me a little more info, and I can maybe offer more specific help.

K.

 

If you want to play jazz, why choose LA? There hasn't been a really vibrant scene since the 40s and Central Avenue. There are a lot of great players there who make their nut playing other kinds of music. The only guys from LA I know left to come to NYC.

You could too, always room for one more.

 

Then get used to playing not a lot of jazz. Well, at least for money. You can prolly hook up sessions, if you can play at your house/apartment.

The guys that I've met from LA all say that the city is just too spread out to get much of a scene happening. To get somebody to come hear you at a club, they need to plan on making a night of it - driving, parking etc. So to get them to come out (and make what might be an hour and a half drive), you need a LOT of people who really want to hear the band.

It's not such a big investment here in the city. If I walk into Small's and don't dig it, I can hop on a train and go someplace else. If I'm downtown I can WALK someplace else. Every restaurant in the city can count on walk in traffic, it's pedestrian friendly. Makes for a more conducive music scene...

 

Jazz in LA seems a bit iffy to me as some of the other guys have said. I don't live there so I don't really know. I do know someone, however, that plays in a couple of salsa/latin groups in the Pasadena/Alta Dena area. Seems like there's more business in that genre, especially since people do go out to dance 'n stuff.

I spent a couple of summers in Pasadena. As a sweeping generalization, I can't see the average Angelino going out JUST to hear Jazz. Maybe a little too cerebral for them? Just my opinion.

 

the jazz scene is kind of messed up. there's a bunch of great players, but the clubs aren't jazz friendly and there's a wierd segregation to the types that will actually go out and see it. the clubs are in strange places (and by that I mean really spread out) and even then they usually have salsa one night, blues the next, a dj, and then on sunday afternoons John Heard plays with a trio.

but Peter Weller and Jeff Goldblum had a "jazz" weekly for years as I recall. Starting to make sense? Or at least cohesify in lack of sense?


If you come down, you'll find places and people. It's just not a scene in the sense of NY or even SF. Gary at Stein on Vine is a good resource for this stuff. He knows where people are playing, cause he won't really listen to anything else. And plenty of the heavies that come through have a relationship with him.

K.

 

where are you moving from?

 

Say, you don't know Jeff Sloane by any chance do you?

K.

 

I was wondering where he had disappeared to

 

too bad.
he owes me fifty bucks.

so when might this migration occur?

K.

 

Too bad. I thought that maybe you had access to the afterlife or some parallel universe.

 

I've had some days in my past where my access to the afterlife was a bit too close for comfort.

 

I'll keep you in mind when i hear of any promising jazz spots, and definitely hit me up when the day gets closer. I'll be happy to hoist a few, and point out the finer (haha) qualities of LaLa land.

K.

 

With all said about LA, and being a neighbor to LA and I think San Diego has a similar profile, especially with lots of low paying jazz gigs.

Is there some part of the country, besides NYC, that has a thriving jazz scene with better paying gigs? I already have heard that gigs on the East Coast pay better in general, but I don't know if that's just hearsay.