Jazz : Jazz Puts in Stakes at Legends of Hollywood

Every time a jazz club folds, two others open up. The latest addition is Legends of Hollywood, a deli and steakhouse on Hollywood Boulevard, where straight-ahead sounds are now heard three nights a week.

Jay Migliori, best known for his long dues-paying with Supersax, is the regular Friday incumbent. With him are Stu Pearlman on electric keyboard, Larry Steen on upright bass and, as drummer and vocalist, Bob Marks, who owns the club and launched the jazz policy last month.

Given a rare chance to stretch out here, Migliori displays a strong be-bop orientation in his solos, bringing undulant life to such vintage works as “Billie’s Bounce.”

It was when he switched from tenor to soprano sax during this tune that his sound, phrasing and ideas best reflected his long years of creative input. The thought came to mind that Migliori was offering a slight idea of how Charlie Parker, who wrote this blues line, might have sounded had he played soprano (an instrument virtually unused in the jazz of his day).

Pearlman, who plays a Yamaha keyboard standing up, had to grapple with the instrument’s lack of a true bass function; in a long and otherwise satisfactory solo on “Just Friends,” he hardly used the left hand except for occasional punctuations.

Steen is a young, limber bassist whose works sparkled with fresh ideas. Marks, who was away from jazz drumming for years playing the Vegas circuit, has successfully made the transition back. His underlining of the accents in two bossa novas was brisk and propulsive. As a singer he ought to stay away from molasses-tempo ballads. His attempt to combine “Weaver of Dreams” and “There Will Never Be Another You” didn’t merely lose the audience, it never found them--they just yakked their way through it.

Ray Pizzi takes the stand Saturdays at Legends of Hollywood: Sundays are given over to jam sessions. The sound in the high-ceilinged, 107-capacity room is adequate, and the lack of air-conditioning is compensated for by eight large overhead fans. More fans--the human type--can be expected if Marks moves toward what he says may soon be a five-nights-a-week policy.