Eddie Cota just loves it at Levitt

Four years ago, Eddie Cota had a problem. The then-24-year-old concert promoter and booker was hired to take the musically staid Pasadena and energize its live music scene.

This was an enormous undertaking for the new booker of Pasadena’s Levitt Pavilion for the Performing Arts. The free summertime shows were a reliable local draw, but the bookings had begun to feel uninspired. Though he’d thrived at internships at Capitol Records, Interscope Records and several radio stations, the nonprofit entertainment world was new to Cota, and he had to quickly instantly grow competent in a range of genres.

Four years later, and two years after taking on booking for Levitt’s sister amphitheater in Westlake, the venues have a summer of unexpectedly buzzy shows coming up. Artists include the noise-punk duo No Age, Chilean rap spitfire Ana Tijoux, Mexican alt-pop crossover Ximena Sarinana, indie up-and-comers the Belle Brigade and experimental electronica from Flying Lotus’ label Brainfeeder. They’re all free bills that could put L.A.’s larger outdoor venues on notice.

How’d the 28-year-old do it? He called his favorite touring acts and offered attractive deals on par with the big leagues in town.

“We’re nonprofit, but we still pay competitively,” Cota said. “We compete with festivals and can promise a thousand or more people a night as a reliable fan base, and what each artist’s popularity brings is on top of that. It’s a new audience for them, and often it’s a better time than just playing a club.”

The Pasadena and Westlake Pavilions, opened after renovations in 2002 and 2007, respectively, occupy an unusual place in the pantheon of L.A. concert venues. Operated under a national nonprofit, the Mortimer Levitt Foundation, the venues have dual goals of serving the myriad cultural interests of their local communities while attracting listeners from across the city to a variety of shows.

“Our audience is every demographic imaginable,” Cota said. “I even book the children’s programs.”

Booking the amphitheaters has introduced him to a wider swath of music, but Cota sees much of his job as introducing outsiders to the Levitts. Tonier Pasadena isn’t known as much of a nightlife destination, and MacArthur Park has only begun to shed its drug-hub reputation.

MacArthur Park, he said, is “very strong for Latin music, and we wanted artists with crossover appeal. Someone like Ana Tijoux can create an awareness that MacArthur Park’s changing, but also give people already in the community something to be really proud of.”

Some of the local artists playing there concede that the Levitts weren’t on many past tour itineraries.

Santa Monica native Alfred Darlington, who headlines the Westlake Levitt as experimental electronica act Daedelus on Aug. 20, remembered the MacArthur Park of his childhood as where “underage friends obtained fake IDs with the express purpose of going out to concerts -- not to attend them there. Thankfully it seems like that may have changed,” he said, calling Cota’s bookings “an amazing opportunity to float into someone’s rolled-down car window.”

Cota says the biggest payoff has been ever-escalating crowds for 2011’s initial summer shows -- its season kickoff in Westlake drew 2,500 for a cumbia showcase headlined by locals Very Be Careful. It’s also validating to know he’s landing some of the same big fishes.

“Stevie Wonder’s got his Global Soul festival at the Hollywood Bowl this summer,” he said. “And it turned out that four of the nine artists he booked to join him are also playing or have played a Levitt.”

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august.brown@latimes.com