Fresh, Hot Jazz
By Andrew Wenzlaff
Nov. 19, 2003 9:00 p.m.
Even a sore back won’t keep this woman down.
Ruth Price, UCLA jazz vocal instructor and owner of Los
Angeles’s only seven-night-a-week non-profit jazz club, The
Jazz Bakery, mentioned offhandedly that she is going in for back
surgery soon. To Price, this is just another obstacle that she
refuses to let interfere with her dedication to running the club.
Instead, she has recently expanded the hours of the Jazz Bakery
from six nights a week to seven.
“The board and my landlord said, “˜It won’t be
any harder to do seven nights; you’re still just booking one
or two acts,'” Price said with a smile. “They
were wrong! This thing took over my life! Totally!
Totally!”
Price keeps busy for a woman in her 70s. She teaches vocal jazz
on a weekly basis at both UCLA and Santa Monica College. She also
instructs high school students during the summer at Cal Arts. Over
the years, she has tried to entice her students to attend shows at
The Jazz Bakery by offering discount tickets, and sometimes free
tickets, but said they rarely come.
At this past Thursday night’s Jazz Bakery show featuring
vocalist Rene Marie, a mere 30 audience members turned up in a
230-seat theater. And not one of them was under the age of 35.
“It’s usually just like this,” said Marie.
“If I had a different attitude, I would be
discouraged.”
However, according to Price, this isn’t always the
case.
“There are some bands that play here where I look out and
see a whole theater of fans under 30, and sometimes under
20,” Price said.
Developing a future audience for jazz is a big concern for
Price.
“I have an absolute positive feeling that anything you get
to hear has a chance of being something you like,” Price
said. “If you never hear it, you’re never going to like
it. And I think that a lot of young people are coming here now to
hear this music, maybe at first kicking and screaming because they
had to get a grade, but when they come back, it’s because
they’re feeding off of that energy. And they will develop a
taste for it.”
Price said she just “fell into” doing this.
“I never intended to have a club,” Price said.
“But now that it’s happened, I’m very proud of
it.”
The Jazz Bakery emerged in the early 1990s when Price and some
friends began performing in the studio of a photographer who was
storing Ruth’s piano.
“People would come in and we’d give away coffee and
loaf cake and charge at the door,” Price said.
“That’s how it started.”
The studio was located in the territory of the historic Helms
Bakery, which used to deliver baked goods in Los Angeles from the
1930s to the late 1960s.
Some friends suggested that Price call the venue
“Ruth’s Joint.”
“But I didn’t want to call it Ruth’s
anything,” Price said. Instead, she named it The Jazz Bakery,
based on their location.
All of the employees of The Jazz Bakery are volunteers,
including Price. The place exists merely under the philosophy that
people need to hear jazz music and that jazz musicians need a venue
during the week.
The Jazz Bakery is one of a handful of places in the nation that
permits bands to do a full-week run. Whereas most clubs put a band
on stage for just one Saturday show, The Jazz Bakery features the
same band from Tuesday to Sunday. Price said that this arrangement
is “what the artists need. A longer run allows the musicians
to settle into the venue and maximize their performance.
“When you work a place for one night, you’re almost
forced to do everything you’re relativity sure works; you
have to put your best foot forward because it’s the only
chance you’re going to get,” Price said. “But
with jazz, the beauty of it is when you can really stretch out and
take chances. You don’t get a chance to do that if
you’re only there one night.”
Price said that people often wonder why she doesn’t
convert The Jazz Bakery into a bar or a restaurant where young
people would be seduced to come for dinner and drinks. She said
that she is “not even remotely tempted” to do this.
Since its inception, The Jazz Bakery has been a place where
musicians can play and the audience can listen without being
distracted by waiters, tinkling glasses and conversation.
“I wanted to do a concert theater,” said Price.
“And to do a concert theater, I automatically gave up the
very revenue that keeps a jazz club going. So it had to be a
non-profit.”
Price put a lot of effort into making the auditorium sound great
so musicians would enjoy playing there and audiences would love
listening to music there. She designed the theater to have
non-perpendicular walls for better acoustics, and she procured a
top-notch piano.
Bassist Herman Burney Jr., who has performed at The Jazz Bakery,
showed appreciation for these details.
“There’s good acoustics in here,” Burney said.
“It’s warm and cozy. Got a great piano. Friendly
people. It’s a great place because it’s really
dedicated to doing live jazz music, which is a dying thing around
the country; it’s not very prevalent.”
Price is hopeful that young people will start to catch on.
“They are not dumb,” Price said.
“They’ve got ears.”
