How Hollywood’s Legendary Catalina Jazz Membership Endured for 37 Years

This story is a part of an ongoing Eater LA collection concerning the final nice jazz supper golf equipment of Los Angeles, the place the pioneers of the jazz fusion period are on stage for his or her closing curtain name.

On any given night time at Catalina Jazz Membership in Hollywood, proprietor Catalina Popescu does a closing walk-through at nighttime, transformed warehouse minutes earlier than a jazz present begins. Live performance-goers wander throughout the worn purple carpet, eyes mounted on a stage illuminated in deep blue, violet, and purple lighting — the common colours of jazz golf equipment. For the second, the devices are at relaxation. Because the lights dim, your entire membership appears to snap into place beneath an industrial checkered ceiling that fades into darkness as performers, like iconic bassist Marcus Miller and his band, stroll onto the stage.

Jazz golf equipment have an extended historical past in Los Angeles that stretches again to the Nineteen Twenties on Central Avenue, the place followers listened to reside performances at legendary rooms Membership Alabam and the Dunbar Resort. In 1945, bebop pioneers Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie performed a two-month run at Billy Berg’s, a jazz venue in Hollywood. Elvin Jones’s 1972 Dwell on the Lighthouse recording in Hermosa Seaside impressed post-Coltrane saxophonists like Michael Brecker, Bob Berg, and Bob Minzter.

When Popescu and her husband Bob opened Catalina Jazz Membership in October 1986, a decade after leaving communist Romania, it was the heyday of LA supper golf equipment that showcased refined postmodern jazz, a style that blends advanced improvisation with electrical beats, in addition to extra pop-oriented clean jazz. Studio Metropolis’s the Baked Potato, Westwood’s Bon Appetit, and different widespread Valley venues Le Cafe and Cafe Cordiale had set the stage for Catalina Bar & Grill, fueling Angelenos’ urge for food for up to date jazz music. Kenny’s G’s sappy soprano saxophone hit, “Songbird,” was the quantity 4 monitor on the Billboard Sizzling 1oo, an unheard-of feat that was orchestrated by music mogul Clive Davis’s vigorous marketing campaign. The feeding frenzy of reside music venues surged with the bossa nova-leaning La Ve Lee in Studio Metropolis and clean jazz-oriented Spaghettini down in Seal Seaside. It was the late Eighties and Los Angeles was dwelling to a resurgent reside jazz scene.

A era of postmodern jazz artists of their prime discovered a captive viewers at Catalina Bar & Grill, initially positioned alongside a chaotic strip of Cahuenga Boulevard earlier than it moved to its present 235-seat Sundown Boulevard location in 2003. “It was at all times a problem crossing that avenue, however it was value it for the purchasers, for an opportunity to see these nice musicians,” says Popescu. She’s proper. I used to be one in all them.

In 1989, I used to be ending my final 12 months on the College of the Pacific’s Conservatory of Music and visited Los Angeles to catch a Brandon Fields set at Bon Appetit in Westwood. After commencement, I performed in blues, up to date jazz, and R&B teams within the Bay Space however typically dreamed of transferring to Southern California to play with LA musicians in its legendary jazz golf equipment. Whereas touring with Bay Space blues legend Chris Cain within the fall of 1995, I made the transfer to Los Angeles to pursue a profession enjoying saxophone.

Sadly, by the point I arrived in LA, Le Cafe and Bon Appetit had already closed. Dwell jazz in Los Angeles was trending downward following a collection of occasions, together with the 1990 recession, 1992 Los Angeles rebellion, and 1994 Northridge earthquake. However I may nonetheless go to Catalina Bar & Grill to see each one in all my favourite artists that got here to city, and it rapidly grew to become a go-to hang-out for me, the place I may get pleasure from garlicky fries, seafood pasta, and lengthy pours of sauvignon blanc whereas listening to inspiring, thunderous trendy jazz units by the likes of Michael Brecker, Mike Stern, and the Dave Weckl Band.

Nearly 20 years later, on a cold night in October 2023, I returned to Catalina — now referred to as the Catalina Jazz Membership — to see Marcus Miller carry out. I wasn’t the one one excited. The viewers, largely folks of their late 40s, 50s, and 60s, had come to listen to one of many world’s most influential jazz bassists play.

Like many Los Angeles supper golf equipment, Catalina attracts from the properly of California delicacies and Italian meals that’s now seen as dated however soared in reputation within the Eighties and Nineties. Starters embrace a beet and mesclun salad punctuated by damaged morsels of goat cheese and walnuts; fried calamari rings accompanied by chipotle aioli; and pork and tangy veal meatballs — Popescu’s favourite dish — beneath a tent of grilled ciabatta slices. Eighties hits like shrimp scampi and blackened catfish nonetheless play prominently as entrees on Catalina’s menu.

Our server Frank Chavez, who has labored for Catalina Jazz Membership for 21 years, handed us a menu that now consists of widespread Mexican American starters like nachos, chips and guacamole, and quick rib quesadillas. However the core of the supper membership fare stays a number of pastas and assertion entrees — dishes like seafood fettuccine with caper-white wine sauce, a rack of lamb with rosemary cabernet tarragon sauce, and rooster piccata.

Miller kicked off the set carrying blue denims, a black “Jazz Isn’t Lifeless” T-shirt, and his signature black felt porkpie hat. He switched between a pair of Sire basses and his trusty 1977 Fender Jazz Bass, laying down the funky, soulful grooves which have outlined his profession. As Miller soared with lyrical ease over the intro to “Run For Cowl,” our mains arrived. A row of eight plump shrimp sat face down in a pool of buttery caper sauce, surrounded by a mound of rice pilaf and steamed greens. I dove into the ice cream scoop of mashed potatoes positioned subsequent to an similar steamed vegetable medley — broccoli, two sorts of squash, and carrot — that got here with the restaurant’s tangy, salsa-laced blackened Cajun catfish.

The meals at these supper golf equipment doesn’t simply have to return out quick. Kitchens at supper golf equipment are sometimes small — and generally even nonexistent. Once I was enjoying at La Ve Lee within the early 2000s, I remembered seeing pan racks being delivered from a neighborhood restaurant with salads, appetizers, and dinner plates coated in plastic wrap. The dishes had been warmed up on-site, however jazz lovers gamely accepted it: Dinner and drink minimums hold the music flowing. One of many oldest jazz golf equipment within the metropolis nonetheless solely serves baked potatoes for meals. Catalina’s menu is designed to accommodate all of the visitors arriving on the identical time and putting orders simply earlier than the cats start to play. There’s one fixed concerning the viewers: They’re there to assist reside music, and the meals is commonly secondary.

A spot like Catalina Jazz Membership, with its retro Cal-Italian menu, will not be held in the identical esteem as different Los Angeles establishments like Musso and Frank’s, Dan Tana’s, or Casa Vega, however stays a eating vacation spot for Angelenos who assist — and, in some instances, survive on — reside music. Landmark eating places like these possess a timeless high quality and will be given a little bit leeway in the case of their time capsule menus and design as a result of they maintain sentimental and cultural worth.

Catalina Jazz Membership’s plates of primavera pasta, served in opposition to mellifluous tenor saxophone tones, remind me of a time when Los Angeles was a significant heart of reside jazz. The supper membership’s meals is inexpensive, however, extra saliently, it’s relatable to the gang. Music lovers who frequent supper golf equipment would probably be turned off by costly chef-driven menus that would render them unable to handle the cumulative price of a canopy, drinks, and dinner. Whereas the membership’s Italianesque dishes are dated in comparison with the likes of Bestia, Mom Wolf, or Antico Nuovo, to some diners, they fulfill like an encore.

At 67 years previous, Popescu nonetheless works the room and books the bands, lots of whom hold coming again out of respect for the unlikely jazz promoter. “I used to be not occupied with jazz, however I got here from a rustic the place we couldn’t see [movies, television, or anything censored by the government] — however I used to be in a position to hear Dizzy Gillespie,” she says.

Catalina met her husband, Bob Popescu, an American born in Romania, in 1975 whereas he was vacationing at a preferred Romanian seashore on the Black Sea. “He wooed me by filling a taxi stuffed with dozens and dozens of purple roses on our first date,” she says. Following a long-distance courtship, the couple married, and in 1976 Catalina and her mom got here to reside with Bob in Los Angeles, the place he ran a number of companies. Though neither Bob nor Catalina had a musical background, they had been interested in the artists and their cultured viewers.

“Jazz audiences are so refined — savvy and educated folks. I like jazz music. And, extra importantly, I like jazz musicians,” she says. Earlier than they opened the supper membership, Catalina labored for a decade as a supervisor at Bullock’s Wilshire Tea Room, a swanky Artwork Deco eating room that served tea, finger sandwiches, escalloped white fish, and crab a la Newburg. It’s the place Popescu discovered about service and elegance within the restaurant trade. Although California-Italian meals was the most recent eating pattern within the late ’80s, Catalina drew on her personal expertise to develop the menu and repair mannequin. “Our menu displays consolation meals that satisfies Los Angeles audiences, however we’ve got to ensure it may also be ordered and served rapidly,” says Popescu.

Within the early days, the couple struggled to realize traction, however had been in a position to attraction artists like Gillespie to return play at Catalina Bar & Grill. In line with Popescu, her husband cold-called the jazz legend, and Gillespie discovered his Romanian accent and jovial character inconceivable to say no to. All year long, Popescu stays in contact together with her secure of artists like they’re household. Birthday messages, vacation greetings, or simply pleasant check-ins are routine, and the assist Catalina Jazz Membership has given these artists through the years doesn’t go unnoticed. “{Our relationships} with music professionals are essential to us. We nurture these relationships, and we rely on one another,” says Popescu. Thirty-seven years later, Catalina nonetheless will get on the telephone, and the artists present up. Within the late ’90s, Catalina Bar & Grill was one of many few locations I may depend on every week to see jazz legends for a really cheap worth.

In 2003, Catalina and Bob took a danger in transferring what was already a longtime establishment to a bigger venue off Sundown Boulevard in Hollywood. Within the early 2000s and 2010s, up to date jazz was in decline. By 2010, beloved native radio station the Wave had eliminated all references to “clean jazz” in its branding, and in the identical 12 months, the introduction of the controversial Transportable Folks Meter, or PPM, led radio stations nationwide to drop the style in a single day. In 2014, jazz music was listed because the least widespread music in america in keeping with Nielsen’s year-end report. And but Catalina Jazz Membership stayed busy in its new location. “Catalina is among the uncommon nice ones that pulled that transfer off efficiently and nonetheless is prospering,” says skilled drummer Bernie Dresel, band chief of The BBB That includes Bernie Dresel.

For Los Angeles-based musicians like Dresel, Catalina was a spot the place musicians and jazz listeners may congregate throughout these lean years for the style within the 2000s. As Catalina Jazz Membership tailored to the diminished curiosity within the style, the jazz neighborhood relied on Popescu’s knack for bringing everybody collectively. “[Supper clubs] have been essential to the neighborhood of Los Angeles and to the musicians like myself which have referred to as Catalina one in all our favourite houses to play and listen to music regionally,” says Dresel.

After an extended day of studio classes for motion pictures, tv, and data, Dresel may sit up for enjoying with bands like all-star up to date jazz powerhouse Gordon Goodwin’s Huge Phat Band; legendary composer Johnny Mandel; and former Glad Days star and jazz singer Don Most. Catalina Jazz Membership, seeming unflappable, saved jazz alive in Los Angeles for its devoted followers, and offered a payday for prime native musicians — that’s till the COVID-19 pandemic suspended reside music performances all over the world.

In 2020, when the membership remained closed through the pandemic, lots of its employees members needed to discover work elsewhere. However Popescu had earned sufficient loyalty that servers like Chavez ultimately returned when Catalina Jazz Membership reopened on July 15, 2021, although with extra seating restrictions and uncertainty. “Despite the fact that I used to be making extra at [Century City’s] Toscanova, I missed being right here and got here again,” he says. Luis Guzman, the restaurant’s chef de delicacies, began as a line prepare dinner at Catalina 29 years in the past. “Guzman began out as a dishwasher, however quickly took over the kitchen, and we’ve labored collectively on the menu,” says Popescu.

Catalina has at all times offered a platform for jazz’s main artists, however after greater than 50 years, the center and soul of this highly effective style is winding down, with lots of its final performing practitioners passing away or retiring from touring. Chick Corea’s dying in 2021 marked an unofficial finish to an period. (“We’re dropping so many nice musicians,” says Popescu.) On Might 12, 2024, essentially the most influential alto saxophonist in up to date jazz, David Sanborn, died on the age of 78, whose practically six-decade profession outlined the position of the instrument throughout all widespread American music.

Even in the present day, Popescu’s supper membership depends on in-house promotions and its enduring hospitality to maintain jazz lovers coming again. The unstated fact about supper golf equipment is that there’s an interdependent connection between the artists on stage, passionate homeowners who hold well-known rooms going, and the viewers. If big-name artists resolve to headline a present, that membership turns into the place to be.

Whereas legacy acts assist to protect the establishment, Popescu is at all times in search of new expertise. Current performers embrace Dayren Santamaria, an acclaimed Cuban violinist, and Brian Justin Crum from America’s Bought Expertise, each of whom boast sizable Instagram followings. “We at all times adapt ourselves to the altering occasions and that features discovering new methods to achieve audiences. We have now the ardent assist of our legacy acts, however we nurture new and rising artists,” says Popescu.

Even after 4 a long time, Popescu welcomes a neighborhood of artists, staff, and patrons with one objective: to convey jazz lovers the music they will’t resist. Legendary percussionist Poncho Sanchez performed on New Yr’s Eve, and up to date reveals featured the good Cuban trumpeter Arturo Sandoval, and David Benoit, a prime clean jazz pianist. Folks from throughout have come to Los Angeles to see their favourite artists at Catalina Jazz Membership, like sports activities followers who dream of seeing a baseball sport at Fenway Park or a soccer match at Maracanã Stadium. The supper membership has defied the chances, and it’s exhibiting no indicators of slowing down. It could appear outstanding, however for Popescu, it’s a easy formulation.

“Years and years — 37 to be precise — of laborious work, persistence, plenty of smiles, and nice music,” says Popescu. The jazz supper membership isn’t lifeless. Lengthy reside the jazz supper membership.