Jazz Festival

Quick history lesson: Built in 1928, The Dunbar Hotel, at 4225 S. Central Ave. in Los Angeles, hosted the first NAACP national convention and soon became known as “the hub of Los Angeles black culture.” In the 1930s and ’40s its nightclub hosted some of the most well known jazz figures of the time, including Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, Count Basie, Lena Horne, Ella Fitzgerald, and Billie Holiday. The neighborhood around the Dunbar was home to other famous jazz clubs (Club Alabam, the DownBeat, and Ivie’s Chicken Shack, etc.). The Dunbar and surrounding area began to deteriorate in the 1950s for various reasons, but Central Avenue is part of jazz and Los Angeles history.

The annual Central Avenue Jazz Festival is held in front of the Dunbar Hotel on Central Avenue and 42nd Street. There are a few blocks of street vendors, culminating in a tent where a live jazz band is playing.

The Dunbar Hotel now houses The Museum in Black, a collection of historical items related to “Black” culture from throughout history and around the world. — clothes, albums, photos, books, etc. The museum’s owner has apparently been collecting items for about 50 years.

There’s always some nice about community-oriented street fairs, especially in a city as diverse as L.A. The problem with this one is that the Jazz Festival does a good job of bringing people to this historic part of L.A., but does a good job of blocking the historic parts with canopies and consumerism.

I love the historic buildings, but couldn’t get a clear shot or good look. This one was interesting because the top part of the building seems like an add-on — not sure if it is or not, but, you can see in the photo, there’s the brick part then the newer-looking stucco part above. They seem to be in two different styles.

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