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Introduction
A Night at the Hermosa Beach Light House
By Dick Williams,
Entertainment Editor Los Angeles Mirror, Oct. 16, 1954
Some 400 people were turned away at a little beachfront jazz bistro in Hermosa Beach called The Lighthouse last Saturday night. Several hundred others, who arrived early, managed to sandwich themselves inside.
Now Hermosa isn't exactly the easiest place in the world to reach if you live in Pasadena, the San Fernando Valley or Long Beach. That's where many of these people came from.
And lately, the nightly fog along the coast has been as thick as spider webs in a haunted house.
What's the lure? Last night, I found out when I wandered down through the mists to the foot of the Hermosa Pier.
The Lighthouse is the home of an exceptional jazz group known as Howard Rumsey's Lighthouse All-Stars. In the last six years they have built the place into the top citadel of jazz on the south coast.
This sextet (a quintet on week nights) is a long jump ahead of most of the jazz squealers, howlers and blasters who rend the night from one end of L.A. to the other.
They operate in a long, low, oblong, dimly lit room with an informal, easy atmosphere for shirt-sleeve jazz. At one end are photos of Stan Kenton (most of this group including leader Rumsey are ex-Kentonites), June Christy and other artists. At the other is a green-lit clock and a couple of red glowing ship's lanterns.
Along the walls are a series of impressionistic paintings done in bas-relief with Plaster of Paris. They have such titles as "How Can I Understand You If You Don't Say What I Already Know Blues?" "Some Days I Feel Aggressive" and "Who's Got The Melody?"
Overhead, above a false ceiling of open crossed batting strips, are a set of four, newly installed, giant hi-fidelity speakers. Their mission is to carry accurate sound without distortion to every far corner of the room. They do.
The patrons sit in a semicircle at low tables around the small bandstand with its mirrored back, or on cushioned stools at the bar which runs the length of the room on the opposite side.
Very few patrons are from the Hermosa Beach vicinity. They're from all over the L.A. area. A great many of the UCLA, SC and L.A. City College crowd headquarter here, which may account for the uncommonly high percentage of classy, good-looking girls. The average age is in the mid-20s, but there are older and younger steady patrons.
Jazz Came to Hermosa Beach in this Fashion
One day after World War II, Rumsey, a tall black-haired chap, was strolling the town. He was tired of playing in big band groups and could get nowhere with his own big group.
He walked into the Lighthouse. It was virtually empty. Developed that Owner John Levine had bought it, sight unseen, on the basis of its huge wartime business.
Rumsey asked Levine if he'd ever experimented with a music policy.
"Everybody and his brother has tried to tell me how to run this place," Levine snapped. "Now you walk in off the streets and tell me what I should do."
But he finally agreed to give Rumsey a chance.
"I hired the loudest musicians I could find," Rumsey reminisces. "We propped the front doors open and started to blast off. The people began to filter in. Pretty soon the place was full. There were more people than Levine had had in the entire preceeding two weeks."
Rumsey and his group were hired on the spot.
Since then, Rumsey has had three different jazz groups. He considers the current one the finest of the lot. The personnel: Rumsey on bass, Bob Cooper (husband of singer June Christy) on tenor sax, Bud Shank on alto sax, Claude Williamson, piano, and Stan Levey, drums. Claude Williamson on trumpet, joins them in week ends.
Eighty percent of their music are originals. They are tunes such as "Viva Zapata," "Witch Doctor," "Warm Winds," "Albatross," "Mambo Los Feliz," "Comin Thru the Rye Bread."
Last year Bob Cooper and Bud Shank decided to explore the possibilities of the flute and oboe in jazz. It was such a success that the group's latest long-play record for the Contemporary record label features their oboe-flute duets.
Such tunes as "Aquarium," "Still Life" and "Hermosa Summer", with the soft brush of drums and Rumsey's forceful bass beat as accompaniment, are some of the most beautiful and moving jazz numbers I have heard.
By Dick Williams,
Entertainment Editor Los Angeles Mirror, Oct. 16, 1954
Some 400 people were turned away at a little beachfront jazz bistro in Hermosa Beach called The Lighthouse last Saturday night. Several hundred others, who arrived early, managed to sandwich themselves inside.
Now Hermosa isn't exactly the easiest place in the world to reach if you live in Pasadena, the San Fernando Valley or Long Beach. That's where many of these people came from.
And lately, the nightly fog along the coast has been as thick as spider webs in a haunted house.
What's the lure? Last night, I found out when I wandered down through the mists to the foot of the Hermosa Pier.
The Lighthouse is the home of an exceptional jazz group known as Howard Rumsey's Lighthouse All-Stars. In the last six years they have built the place into the top citadel of jazz on the south coast.
This sextet (a quintet on week nights) is a long jump ahead of most of the jazz squealers, howlers and blasters who rend the night from one end of L.A. to the other.
They operate in a long, low, oblong, dimly lit room with an informal, easy atmosphere for shirt-sleeve jazz. At one end are photos of Stan Kenton (most of this group including leader Rumsey are ex-Kentonites), June Christy and other artists. At the other is a green-lit clock and a couple of red glowing ship's lanterns.
Along the walls are a series of impressionistic paintings done in bas-relief with Plaster of Paris. They have such titles as "How Can I Understand You If You Don't Say What I Already Know Blues?" "Some Days I Feel Aggressive" and "Who's Got The Melody?"
Overhead, above a false ceiling of open crossed batting strips, are a set of four, newly installed, giant hi-fidelity speakers. Their mission is to carry accurate sound without distortion to every far corner of the room. They do.
The patrons sit in a semicircle at low tables around the small bandstand with its mirrored back, or on cushioned stools at the bar which runs the length of the room on the opposite side.
Very few patrons are from the Hermosa Beach vicinity. They're from all over the L.A. area. A great many of the UCLA, SC and L.A. City College crowd headquarter here, which may account for the uncommonly high percentage of classy, good-looking girls. The average age is in the mid-20s, but there are older and younger steady patrons.
Jazz Came to Hermosa Beach in this Fashion
One day after World War II, Rumsey, a tall black-haired chap, was strolling the town. He was tired of playing in big band groups and could get nowhere with his own big group.
He walked into the Lighthouse. It was virtually empty. Developed that Owner John Levine had bought it, sight unseen, on the basis of its huge wartime business.
Rumsey asked Levine if he'd ever experimented with a music policy.
"Everybody and his brother has tried to tell me how to run this place," Levine snapped. "Now you walk in off the streets and tell me what I should do."
But he finally agreed to give Rumsey a chance.
"I hired the loudest musicians I could find," Rumsey reminisces. "We propped the front doors open and started to blast off. The people began to filter in. Pretty soon the place was full. There were more people than Levine had had in the entire preceeding two weeks."
Rumsey and his group were hired on the spot.
Since then, Rumsey has had three different jazz groups. He considers the current one the finest of the lot. The personnel: Rumsey on bass, Bob Cooper (husband of singer June Christy) on tenor sax, Bud Shank on alto sax, Claude Williamson, piano, and Stan Levey, drums. Claude Williamson on trumpet, joins them in week ends.
Eighty percent of their music are originals. They are tunes such as "Viva Zapata," "Witch Doctor," "Warm Winds," "Albatross," "Mambo Los Feliz," "Comin Thru the Rye Bread."
Last year Bob Cooper and Bud Shank decided to explore the possibilities of the flute and oboe in jazz. It was such a success that the group's latest long-play record for the Contemporary record label features their oboe-flute duets.
Such tunes as "Aquarium," "Still Life" and "Hermosa Summer", with the soft brush of drums and Rumsey's forceful bass beat as accompaniment, are some of the most beautiful and moving jazz numbers I have heard.
Contact Info
Address:
30 Pier Avenue
Hermosa Beach
California 90254
United States
Hermosa Beach
California 90254
United States
Tel:
(310) 376-9833
Fax:
(310) 372-0773
Website:
http://www.thelighthousecafe.net/
Offering
- Live Entertainment
- Dine in
- Fine Dining
- Breakfast
- Beers
Hours of operation
| From | To | From | To | From | To | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Monday | Open | 17:00 | 02:00 | ||||
| Tuesday | Open | 17:00 | 02:00 | ||||
| Wednesday | Open | 17:00 | 02:00 | ||||
| Thursday | Open | 17:00 | 02:00 | ||||
| Friday | Open | 17:00 | 02:00 | ||||
| Saturday | Open | 11:00 | |||||
| Sunday | Open | 11:00 | |||||
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