Watanabe Makes Video Debut in Front Seat; Loa Bites the Dust, Blue Note May Fill Gap

To celebrate the release of “Front Seat” (Elektra/Asylum)--his 50th LP--Japanese saxophonist Sadao Watanabe is in Los Angeles this week, shooting his first major video. Watanabe, with guest vocalist Patti Austin, are performing “Any Other Fool,” the LP’s first single, in shoots at Helena’s, the one-time chic Silver Lake nightspot that closed in April.

“Sadao’s tremendously charismatic, so I’m going to film him in an all-crane shoot, with a lot of sweeping shots,” said director Blaine Novak, whose credits include such features as “Good to Go” with Art Garfunkel and “Stranger’s Kiss” with Peter Coyote.

Novak, who is filming the video for Warner Pioneer of Japan--in cooperation with Elektra/Asylum--said he was going “to try and re-create the feeling of Helena’s, with maybe a hundred friends there as guests.”

Novak added it was an unusual video in that he was using an all-feature-film crew, including camera operator Joe Urbanichek and art director Richard Sawyer, both of whom worked on Jack Nicholson’s “Two Jakes.” “Nicholson was instrumental in me getting these people,” Novak said.

Watanabe returns to Los Angeles on Dec. 11-12, when he will be in concert at the Wiltern Theatre. The concert is part of a seven-city tour and all profits from the tour will be donated to the Homeless Children charity.

After months of rumors, the Loa jazz club in Santa Monica has finally closed. And while there isn’t a new jazz club in Santa Monica to immediately take its place, there is a strong possibility that the New York-based Blue Note nightclub may open a room on that city’s recently remodeled 3rd Street Promenade.

“It’s in the talking stage, I have a feel it’s close, but nothing has been signed,” said Danny Melnick, a spokesperson for the Blue Note.

A new club that does have its doors open is the Count Basie Ballroom, which, as part of the Compton-Lazben Hotel, sports jazz-based music on Tuesdays and Sundays.

“I’m planning on featuring jump bands, which is a dance band that plays very hip music, and big bands playing for dancers,” said Ozzie Cadena, the room’s director of entertainment.

As for dancing to big band jazz, Cadena said, “it’ll be tougher than with just a ballroom band, but we did it when I was coming up in the ‘40s and ‘50s.”

The current schedule finds Tuesdays occupied by the Dirty Dozen Jump Band, led by saxophonists Wilbur Brown and Pat Britt and including such top locals as trumpeters Jerry Rusch and Nolan Smith, trombonists Thurman Green and Buster Cooper and pianist Dwight Dickerson. Bands vary on Sunday, with Jules Radinski’s Jazz Band this Sunday, followed by Buddy Collette’s Jazz Orchestra, Oct. 8, and Bill Holman’s Orchestra, Oct. 15. Cover is $10, $5 for those over 65.

Also part of the complex is the 250-seat Indigo Jazz Club, which is due to open in the near future. The hotel/ballroom is located at 111 E. Artesia Blvd., at Alameda Street, in Compton. Information: (213) 632-1234.

The great drummer Sonny Greer--who was the rhythmic heartbeat of the Duke Ellington Orchestra from the band’s beginnings in the late ‘20s until 1951--will be feted at the October meeting of the Southern California chapter of the Duke Ellington Society. The event, held Monday, 8 p.m., at the Veteran’s Memorial Building in Culver City, will feature performance tapes of Greer, who died in 1982, along with Ducal recordings spanning the years 1924-1974 from the collection of Bill Hill. A $2 donation is requested. Information: (213) 290-1291.