The Love of Jazz : Terence Love lacked the chops to be a professional musician, but by opening Steamers Cafe he still became a key player.
Poncho Sanchez, the internationally renowned Latin jazz drummer, recalls hearing about this little jazz club in Orange County back in 1995.
Sanchez decided to take a look.
There it was among the narrow storefronts on Commonwealth Avenue in Fullerton’s old downtown, a neighborhood that goes dark before the sky does. Even the little used-car lot on the corner and the pawn shop across the street were closed.
The only place open was Steamers Cafe. “The first time I drove by I thought, ‘Is that it?’ ” said Sanchez. “There were high school kids sitting at tables on the sidewalk. It looked like a malt shop. I thought, ‘They sell ice cream there, right?’ ”
No, Sanchez had found what was then, and still is, the capital of club jazz in Orange County. Started in 1994 by a no-name jazz saxophonist who quit his job at a lumber mill and borrowed heavily from his father, Steamers Cafe has taken root in a region where predecessors have come and quickly gone.
It offered straight-ahead or Latin jazz live every night with no cover charge. (There’s now a $3 cover charge on weekends.) It has held on and climbed into the black. Tonight, it celebrates its fourth birthday.
Nowadays, Sanchez and his band play Steamers every other month. Bud Shank, one of the icons of original West Coast cool jazz, has played Steamers. So have legions of Southern California jazz pros the Kenny G crowd has never heard of.
They don’t do it for the money; Steamers is still struggling and pays under the norm. “I make my money when I go on the road,” Sanchez said. “I don’t make my money at Steamers.”
They do it for Love--specifically Terence Love, 44, the club’s founder, owner and manager. He has achieved a status rare among club owners: Musicians don’t hate him.
“He’s marvelous,” said Shank. “He’s really knowledgeable, really a good fan, which is unusual for a lot of club owners. He treats the musicians with respect. He treated us very well.”
Love does it for love, too. “The club’s his baby,” said Sanchez. “He’s there all the time. He loves jazz. He’s one of us.”
Not that Love hates money; he says he’d like to bring in a bit more of it to pad his $30,000-a-year personal income. He was making half again as much at the lumber mill.
Still, “I’m very happy where I am right now,” he said, “because I haven’t had too many disappointments, other than the bottom line.” All is going according to plan, he says.
Young customers were to be his emphasis. The club would be a place they could afford to attend--a jazz coffeehouse with no cover charge. It would be a place to hear live jazz every night, but also a place just to hang out.
He chose downtown Fullerton, he says, because it’s near Cal State Fullerton and a short walk from Fullerton College, which has a strong and popular jazz performance curriculum.
Go to Steamers nowadays and you see how well he’s succeeded.
On the sidewalk are tables, chairs and table service for those who want to sit and talk or study while jazz drifts through the open door.
It was exactly where four classmates from Fullerton College wanted to be recently while they discussed their marketing class project.
“It’s a great hangout,” Rich Bravo of Fullerton said, “a real good spot.”
Though not jazz fans, they say they are beginning to appreciate it more. “Jazz is making a comeback,” Mark Rich of Brea said. “They’re playing a lot more of it. There’s a good mood to it.”
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Inside, the dimly lighted club is a tall, narrow, long room decorated in sleek blacks and whites. Photographs and padded benches are to one side; on the other is framed art and a long bar at which coffee, beer, wine, sandwiches and salads are served.
Sit at one of the small tables near the door if you want to talk, but move closer to the back if you want to concentrate on the jazz.
It’s here that Love put his low and surprisingly large stage, which nearly held all 18 pieces of the Frank Capp Juggernaut Band. It’s here that he spent big bucks to install a beefy 24-channel sound system and buy a grand piano. To the amazement of cynical musicians, he keeps it in tune.
Good pianos and sound systems are the exception in jazz clubs and are cherished by musicians. “They’re the first thing we think of,” Shank said.
Until four months ago, there was no cover charge, though there was a two-item minimum order from the menu.
“The concept was to make it accessible to the kids and also to create volume,” Love says. “You offer something for nothing and people will come; people will see what you have.
“My plan was to get to the point where it’s so busy I can have a cover charge. I mean, if they’re not coming when it’s free, why are they going to come when it costs money?”
He started with local bands, capable but not well-known. It was what Love could afford.
But after the first year, he decided to take a chance and book a name player, saxophonist Charles McPherson, and his group.
“It looked at that time like Terence wasn’t going to make it,” said Ernie Del Fante, a saxophonist who has played at Steamers and teaches improvisation in Fullerton College’s jazz program.
“So Terence took a chance with McPherson and reached deep into his pocket. I and others told him, go for it.”
That’s easy to say, recalled Love, but it was “a real gamble.”
On the negative side were the consequences of failure. “If it didn’t work, you know, I would have had to borrow money somewhere. We’re only talking about a couple of grand, but at that time it was a large amount. When you’re just breaking even, losing a thousand dollars in one night can break you.”
On the positive side, it was the chance to “step up to a different league of players, the A-level players.” And that tipped the scale.
Love--born in Chicago, raised in Hacienda Heights, son of a fervent jazz fan, sax student at age 8--had since childhood wanted to be part of the major-league jazz scene. He hadn’t done it with his horn--”I was never very good at practicing”--but maybe he would do it with his club.
It worked. Though charging a cover for the first time, the 165-seat club overflowed, and Love covered costs with a thousand dollars to spare. McPherson sold 89 CDs from the stage that night, Love said.
Cecilia Coleman, a pianist whose quintet has a strong Southern California following, was next. Then Sanchez. Then others with large local followings: Alan Broadbent, Buddy Childers, Ernie Watts, Andy Simpkins.
“I’d say in two years, I’ll be bringing in the largest acts on the West Coast that play in clubs,” Love says. He has had success booking name players who have a day or two free after some other Southern California date.
Shank, who lives near Seattle and tours internationally, was one of them. He found himself in Southern California in April, and a friend put him in touch with Love.
“The date was fine,” Shank said. “The money was all right--a passing-through-type fee, not insulting but less than usual. So I said, ‘OK, and where is Fullerton?’
“Well, we packed the place. We couldn’t believe it. Here’s this funky little club sitting out there, and they don’t even have a hard-liquor license. Such a surprise. It’s very gratifying to find a place that’s that far off the beaten track.”
Intrigued, Shank afterward asked friends in Los Angeles about Steamers. “It turns out it’s well-known among the jazz fraternity--the jazz groups and musicians and fans. It’s not the Taj Mahal, but he treats you good.”
Snagging itinerant stars such as Shank will only be an occasional treat, Love said. Bringing in lots of big names for two- or three-night stands “would be cutting out the local players, and I don’t ever want to do that. That’s one of the things that’s built me to the level I am now--all the great players in L.A.”
Love’s policy of free or low-cover jazz has made a hit with cash-poor students, said Terry Blackley, dean of Fullerton College’s school of fine arts and creator of its jazz program. “Some of our students are starting to attend quite a bit. I was just knocked out by the number of young people under 21 in there to enjoy the music.”
Blackley directs his college’s annual jazz festival, which draws about 8,000 high school and college musicians. “Last year on the Friday night, a big school bus pulled up in front of Steamers, and we just took over the place,” he said.
The International Assn. of Jazz Educators will use the club as a performance venue during its convention in Anaheim next year.
Students do more than listen.
Ernie Del Fante’s jazz improvisation and combo students do their final exam on the Steamers stage before a regular Steamers audience. “Some classes that are particularly good, they’d do two or three sets in an evening before the regular group plays.”
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Ken Burt, 19, who moved from San Francisco to study jazz at Fullerton College, liked Steamers at first sight. He talked to Love, who hired him on the spot. Now, Burt has the honor of staying up until 3:30 a.m. to clean up before the club opens at 7 for breakfast. “I live here,” Burt said.
Debi Janton, a Santa Ana College student, was at the club for the first time, seated at the edge of the stage and taking notes for her class on American jazz appreciation. “I didn’t even know about this place until I took the class,” she said. “I love that it’s small, very casual and relaxing. I’ll be back.”
Love says he is confident about the future and wouldn’t mind continuing the way things are now. Still, things could be better.
He says he knows how to keep customers and musicians happy. Now his brother, a business consultant, is lending a hand. “I’m a people person, a jazz person” Love said. “He’s a numbers guy.
“I got lots of positives going for me. The negative side is I’m just not pulling in enough money.
“You walk into a big L.A. jazz club and you walk out spending $60. You walk out of Steamers spending $15.
“We want to make it so it’s $20--just a little bit more. Just something so I won’t be struggling, working seven days a week for the rest of my life.”
BE THERE
Steamers Cafe, 138 W. Commonwealth Ave., Fullerton. (714) 871-8800.
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Steaming Ahead
Some highlights of the Steamers lineup in the month ahead:
Friday--George Van Eps; Ron Eschete with Luther Hughes and Matt Johnson
Sunday--Frank Capp Juggernaut Band ($10)
Wednesday--Stephanie Haynes and Dave Mackay
Oct. 22--Ron Eschete and Dewey Erney
Oct. 23--Jack Sheldon Quartet
Oct. 29--Cecilia Coleman Quintet
Oct. 30--Phil Norman Tentet
Oct. 31--Kim Richmond; Clay Jenkins Ensemble with Bill Perkins
Nov. 4--Edmund Velasco Quintet
Nov. 6--Barbara Morrison
Nov. 7--Bobby Redfield Latin Jazz Band
Nov. 8--Poncho Sanchez ($12)
Nov. 11--Sal Cracchiolo Quartet with Melanie Jackson
Nov. 13--John Beasley with Marvin “Smitty” Smith, Bob Hurst and Ralph Moore