Running a non-profit jazz club that features big national acts and low ticket prices 7 days a week ain't easy. When your philanthropic landlord dies and the new owner(s) announce they're turning your club into a furniture store, you need to be imaginative.
What Owner/Chief Bottle Washer Ruth Price has done since May 31 of last year is what she calls a Moveable Feast. Even if there is not a permanent place to hear them, jazz artists line up and play for Ruth's club wherever it happens to be this week. Regina Carter, Tierney Sutton, Hubert Laws, Mose Allison, Dave Frishberg, John Beasley, Benny Golson and his quartet of Bill Cunliffe, Bob Magnusson and Roy McCurdy, Tomasz Stanko, Antonio Sanchez, Pharaoh Sanders, the list of musicians who support and have been supported since last summer goes on and on. The Jazz Bakery will never die because it lives in their hearts.
This Sunday, August 1st, the Moveable Feast starts with a 3:00 p.m. wine reception at the Silent Movie Theater (611 North Fairfax, Los Angeles, CA 90036) before the curtain goes up at 3:30 p.m. on the Los Angeles premiere of The Anatomy of Vince Guaraldi, a film by Andrew Thomas and Toby Gleason. The film features Dave Brubeck, Dick Gregory, George Winston, Irwin Corey, John Handy, Malcolm Boyd and David Benoit, among others. Leonard Maltin will moderate a Q & A. Tickets are $20.
The promo I received points out to astute observers that despite the name of the theater, the film about Vince Guaraldi is “definitely NOT a silent film."
