Legendary Blue Note club opens outpost in LA to jazz lovers

The famous New York jazz club Blue Note officially opened its first outpost in Hollywood on Thursday night.

It’s not the first time the club has set roots in a new city — locations include Milan, Hawaii, Shanghai and São Paulo — but the club’s owners hope that it’ll soon become an integral part of L.A.'s jazz scene, especially as other venues have closed in recent years.

About new space

The Blue Note Los Angeles captures a classic jazz club vibe, with waiters taking orders off a prix fixe menu while squeezing in between tightly packed tables.

In a jazz club that prides itself on its intimacy, that’s a feature, not a bug. The club has open seating, so if you’re sat at a larger table, you’ll share space with — and inevitably meet — a cadre of fellow music lovers.

Guests at a pre-opening event at the Blue Note L.A.

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Kevin Tidmarsh

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LAist

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I walked the venue at a pre-opening event Wednesday, and there doesn't seem to be a bad seat in the house. There was even good sound all the way to the side, and the views of the blue-lit stage were excellent. If anything, since performer Robert Glasper was facing off to the side toward my table, it felt like I had a front-row seat. And I can definitely attest that the sound system is top-tier.

If you’ve been to the Blue Note in New York, you may notice that the space here appears a little bigger and swankier. My tablemates mentioned that they were immediately struck with how “L.A.” the club looked compared to its New York counterpart.

Blue Note Entertainment Group president Steven Bensusan told me this was a trick of the eye due to the L.A. club’s higher ceilings, which are meant to improve the space’s acoustics.

“ The club looks a lot bigger, but it really isn't,” Bensusan said. “The dimensions are almost the same, just about 10 feet wider.”

And Bensusan would know: His father, Danny Bensusan, founded the famous jazz club in 1981.

The club’s history

When the first edition of the Blue Note got started in Greenwich Village, it sought to bring legacy acts back to more intimate stages. Acts like Sarah Vaughan, Dizzy Gillespie and Tito Puente started to become regular fixtures there, long after they’d sworn off performances at other jazz clubs.

“I grew up at the Blue Note in New York and really did get to be friendly and knew a lot of the legendary jazz musicians that really established the club,” Steven Bensusan told LAist. “You know, artists like Ray Brown and Milt Jackson and  some of the legends that really helped the Blue Note in New York.”

The photos on the Blue Note LA's walls double as a "who's who" of the last few decades of Jazz.

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Kevin Tidmarsh

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LAist

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And you can certainly feel the presence of those jazz legends — quite literally. Photos of performances from the Blue Note’s four-decade history adorn walls all over the venue.

Bensusan said creating camaraderie and a family atmosphere at the Blue Note L.A. was important to him.

To do so, the club’s owners tapped into the L.A. jazz scene. Bensusan said he’s consulting local acts like saxophonists Terrace Martin and Kamasi Washington to bring younger artists to the stage, as well as established acts.

At Wednesday's preview, as Grammy-winning keyboardist Robert Glasper played, it was easy to see jazz camaraderie at work. Glasper brought several collaborators on stage, including Martin and singers Ledisi and Lalah Hathaway. (Even if you’re not familiar with all these names, you may have heard the contributions Martin, Glasper and Hathaway made to Kendrick Lamar’s To Pimp a Butterfly album.)

What’s to come

The venue’s upcoming slate of performers includes luminaries with deep jazz chops like Ravi Coltrane, Esperanza Spalding and Kamasi Washington. The venue’s bookers aren’t purists, though. Rapper Killer Mike, alt-rock pianist Ben Folds and pop star Charlie Puth are set to perform later this year.

And the venue still has more in store. Bensusan told LAist that in October, a second room called the “B-Side” will open. That’ll be a smaller venue, with a capacity of about 100 people.

Bensusan said that he hopes both stages at the Blue Note L.A. will fill a niche that doesn’t exist, allowing larger artists to play more intimate venues while also giving stages to up-and-coming artists.

“A  lot of times you'll have a younger artist that'll perform at a club, but nobody really knows about it,” Bensusan said. “So we're hoping that we help develop them and give them audiences that they may not have been able to play in front of.”

How to go

Location: 6372 W Sunset Blvd, Los Angeles
Hours: 7 p.m. to 9:30 pm.
Website: Blue Note LA | Upcoming shows