Lunaria’s Cooking With Musical Potential

Listening to jazz in a nightclub should be a comfortable experience, with good food and a pleasant setting. Often it’s not. But Lunaria, an attractive Westside venue with the easygoing elegance of a Manhattan bistro, is making a determined effort to create just such an environment.

The club, which has a Tuesday through Saturday entertainment policy, has a bar, a dining room, and a listening area. The stage is visible from each, with more direct sight lines in the listening section, making almost any part of the venue a remarkably pleasant place to hear music.

“What I wanted to do with Lunaria,” explains owner Bernard Jacoupy, “was create a fine room for listening to jazz that also would be a first-class restaurant as well. So these different areas allow our patrons to decide if they want to just concentrate on the music in our listening area, or if they want to listen while having supper in our dining room.”

Not necessarily an easy decision in a dining room connected to a kitchen as fine as Lunaria’s. Before he opened the room, Jacoupy was the proprietor of Bernard’s in the Biltmore Hotel, one of the most highly praised Los Angeles restaurants of the ‘70s and ‘80s, and the Lunaria menu is similarly well-done.

With the ambience, the physical layout and the cuisine of a major nightspot, Lunaria only needs to take its bookings up to the national level to transform itself into a significant jazz room. Although it presents plenty of talented local performers, it clearly has the potential to become considerably more than a showcase room.

There are two shows a night at Lunaria, at 9 and 11 p.m., with an additional late set on Fridays and Saturdays. Among upcoming performances at the club, singer Thelma Jones presents a tribute to Billie Holiday on Saturday night. Young tenor saxophone star Zane Musa performs on Nov. 20, and talented singer Dani Thompson appears Nov. 22. On Tuesday nights, Conrad Janis and George Segal make weekly appearances with the Dixieland band the Tuxedo Junction.

Lunaria is at 10351 Santa Monica Blvd., with on-site valet or self-parking. Information: (310) 282-8870. Internet: https://ladining.com/Lunaria

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Tune Train: Jazz returns to the elegant travel days of the ‘30s and ‘40s on Nov. 15, when singer Kevin Mahogany entertains passengers aboard the Amtrak Coast Starlight on the run from San Diego to the San Francisco Bay Area. Mahogany, whose self-titled Warner Bros. album was released a few months ago, performs with pianist James Weidman at 11 a.m. in the first-class coach, and at 1:30 and 4 p.m. for all passengers in the sightseeing coach.

Winners of a special promotion sponsored by Warner Bros. Records, jazz radio station KLON-FM (88.1) and Borders Books & Records in Westwood will receive a first-class ride to the Bay Area on the Starlight. Additional prizes include gourmet meals, a wine tasting, a weekend stay at a San Francisco hotel and a jazz brunch at the Ritz-Carlton. Entries for the drawing can be made at the Borders store in Westwood or by sending a postcard with name and address to Amtrak Giveaway, Radio Station KLON, 1288 N. Bellflower Blvd., Long Beach, CA 90815. Entries must be received by Monday. (Information for travel aboard the Coast Starlight’s Amtrak jazz trip: [800] USA-RAIL.)

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Quick Takes: The John Coltrane Festival presents its 1996 competition for musical groups, soloists, vocalists, dancers and musicians at noon, Nov. 16 at the Pierce College Performing Arts Building, 6201 Winnetka Blvd, Woodland Hills. The winner of the Youth Competition (ages 10-17) receives $500; winner of the Young Adults Competition (ages 18-39) receives $1,000. (Info: [818] 225-7640.) . . . The eight-hour-long “Miles Davis Radio Project,” a remarkably comprehensive overview of the great trumpeter’s life and times, will be rebroadcast on KCRW-FM (89.9) on Nov. 28. . . . Bjlauzez’s, the peculiarly named but attractive jazz room in Sherman Oaks, has closed shop.

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On the Bandstand: One- and two-night gigs are among the most quixotic performances for jazz players: It’s great to have a chance to play, but by the time any listeners find out about it, the job’s over. So here, in advance, are a few of the more appealing short runs taking place around town in November:

The Carnegie Hall Jazz Band appears at Cal State L.A.’s Luckman Auditorium today at 8 p.m., (213) 343-6610. . . . Vocalist Stephanie Haynes also performs today at 8:12 p.m., at Ca del Sole in North Hollywood, (818) 985-4669. . . . Eddie Palmieri brings his stirring Latin jazz to the House of Blues on Saturday night, (213) 848-5100. . . . Singer Allan Harris is at the Jazz Bakery Sunday night, and bassist-vocalist Kristin Korb is at the same venue Nov. 18., (310) 271-9030. . . . The Phil Norman Tentet plays the Pasadena Baked Potato on Nov. 14, (818) 564-1122.

On Nov. 17, Charlie Haden’s Quartet West and the Jacky Terrasson Trio perform at the Alex Theatre in Glendale in the third event of the Playboy Jazz Festival in Concert series, (800) 414-ALEX. . . . Baritone saxophonist Ronnie Cuber makes a rare L.A. appearance at the Jazz Bakery with the Jon Mayer trio Nov. 20. . . . Pianist Jane Getz and her trio are at Club Brasserie on Nov. 21, (310) 854-1111. . . . Bay Area saxophonist Harvey Wainapel also plays the Bakery on Nov. 24, performing the music of pianist Kenny Barron. . . . The Buddy Childers Big Band roars into the Moonlight Tango with singer-pianist Buddy Greco on Nov. 26, (818) 788-2000. . . . And check out the this month’s two-nighters at Catalina’s: the Ernie Watts Quartet with Phil Upchurch next Tuesday and Wednesday; the Billy Childs Trio, Nov. 19 and 20; the Gerald Wilson Orchestra, Nov. 26 and 27; and the Kenny Rankin Trio, Nov. 29 and 30.

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Free Music: Guitarist Kenny Burrell, new director of UCLA’s jazz studies program, performs tonight in a free concert with the UCLA Jazz Ensembles under the direction of Gerald Wilson at Schoenberg Hall on the UCLA campus, 8 p.m., (310) 825-6540. . . . November’s free jazz concerts at Pedrini Music in Alhambra include pianist Ann Farnsworth’s quartet (Saturday), singer Sonny Craver (Nov. 16), an open jam session (Nov. 23) and Buddy Collette, executive director of Cal State Long Beach’s new Institute for the Preservation of Jazz, with his Swinging Shepherds (Nov. 30). Information: (213) 283-1932. . . . The free jazz concerts at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art continue every Friday night in November. The Horace Tapscott Trio performs tonight; the Kenny Burrell Quintet, Nov. 15; the Theo Saunders Trio, Nov. 22; and the Michael Session Quintet, Nov. 29. Information: (213) 857-6115.