![]() ![]() ![]() “On my way back from school Claude Kennedy-he came from Houston-would say, ‘When are you going to give somebody a headache with that horn?’” “When I passed in front of the Dunbar Hotel, they’d be hanging around talking,” he remembered. That’s where all the night people hung out the sportsmen, the businessmen, the dancers, everybody in show business, people who were somebody stayed at the hotel.” Norman Bowden recalled walking by the hotel as a youth, his trumpet in hand as he walked past his hometown idols. “That’s my favorite spot on Central Avenue,” saxophonist Jackie Kelso recalled, “that spot in front of the Dunbar Hotel, because that to me was the hippest, most intimate, key spot of all the activity. Journeymen jazz musicians hung against the outside wall or in the lobby or cocktail lounge, waiting to catch a break or a glimpse of their heroes. The luxurious hotel soon attracted the likes of Louis Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald, Lena Horne, and Billie Holiday. John and Vada Sommerville as a place where black travelers could stay in style and comfort. Undoubtedly the epicenter of the jazz scene in Los Angeles, the Dunbar Hotel was built in 1928 by Drs. Join us as we take a trip down the Avenue, and discover some of the places that made Central Avenue swing. ![]() “The dizzy white lights are dancing daringly again, lightsome, lilting, laughter, is tinkling from lips curved merrily in happy faces of white, brown cream or rich orange as the gay, many colored gowns of women of all races flutter like so many tropic butterflies,” California Eagle columnist Harry Levette wrote of the Avenue in 1931. By night, it turned into a dynamic multi-cultural thoroughfare of music, entertainment, and mirth. “I didn’t know where Sunset Boulevard was when I moved to L.A., but sure I knew Central,” legendary producer Quincy Jones recalled.īy day, Central Avenue was a pleasant downtown for the majority of black people in Los Angeles it was middle class, respectable, and family friendly. Famous the world over, “the Avenue,” as it was lovingly called, was a must visit destination for jazz lovers staying in Los Angeles. From the 1920s to 1950s, Central Avenue was the hub of the West Coast jazz scene. ![]()
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