Getting Down With Jazz Lovers at Loa Club

On a recent Thursday night on the bandstand of the Loa jazz club, Ray Brown smiled and swayed as he played his upright bass.

He wasn’t the only one who was happy. In the crowded, intimate Santa Monica nightspot, the audience appeared to be having a great time. As Brown’s trio--sparked by earthy pianist Gene Harris and drummer Jeff Hamilton-- got down , people smiled, rocked back and forth in their chairs, clapped their hands and tapped their feet in time to the music. More than occasionally, they shouted, “Yeah!” and “All right!”

Three times during the group’s performance, there was a rare sight in a jazz club: a standing ovation.

After the set, as Harris mingled with members of the audience, one patron grabbed him by the arm and exclaimed: “That was wonderful!” Nearby, another customer was heard to say: “That was worth missing a little sleep for!”

The Loa, which has been open about a year and a half, is becoming known for just the kind of rousing and contagious jazz performance that the Brown trio delivered. According to owner Mariko Omura, 59, “We get a lot of people who have never been to a jazz club, and they keep coming back.”

Omura has been involved with jazz for years. From 1960 to 1973, she was a disc jockey for Tokyo Broadcasting System in Japan--”I played nothing but jazz”--and she produced LPs with greats such as Sonny Stitt and Art Pepper for the Atlas label. But she always had a desire to run a jazz club and, when she was able to line up some investors in Japan, she opened the Loa, which means “eternal” in Hawaiian.

The cozy club is divided into three listening areas: a front room, where a handful of tables and booths surround the bandstand; a middle room with 20 tables, and the bar area, with stools at the bar and along a wall. The sound system is good, so everyone can hear the music equally well.

The club books both “name” artists such as Oscar Peterson, Dudley Moore, Benny Carter, J.J. Johnson and Tommy Flanagan, and lesser-known though excellent musicians such as guitarist Bruce Forman and pianist George Cables. Cover charges, usually $5 to $15, vary with the performer. It cost $12.50 to hear Brown’s trio. A Stan Getz engagement Thursday and Friday will cost $25 for the bar, $30 and $35 in the main rooms.

“It’s doing what most jazz clubs do, some nights great, other nights not so good,” Omura said when asked how the club--located in the building that was formerly Fran O’Brien’s Greek Restaurant--is doing. “We would do a lot better if we had a liquor license.”

A full-service liquor license is pending. The club serves domestic and imported wine and beer, by the bottle and by the glass. Glasses of wine are about $4, bottles of beer $3. The room also offers a menu of what Omura calls French-Japanese cuisine, including seafood and cheese pizzas, sushi and such nightly specials as stir-fried chicken with vegetables, shrimp and scallops. Entrees average about $8.95.

Omura said she loves running the club, and especially listening to the musicians.

“After hearing Benny Carter with the Ray Brown trio, I was so happy I wouldn’t have minded if I’d gone bankrupt the next day.”

The Loa, 3321 Pico Blvd., Santa Monica. Music Thursday through Sunday, 8:30 and 10:30 p.m., cover varies. (213) 829-1067.