Lighthouse Café
The Lighthouse Cafe Kirk Fletcher
The Lighthouse Café is a nightclub located at 30 Pier Avenue in Hermosa Beach, California. It has been active as a jazz showcase since 1949 and, under the name “The Lighthouse”, was one of the central West Coast jazz clubs from the 1950s through the late 1970s’.
History
A restaurant called Verpilate’s was built at 30 Pier Avenue in 1934, and it was converted into the Lighthouse, a bar, in 1940. (“Café” was added to the name only several decades later.) The club first began showcasing jazz music on May 29, 1949, when owner John Levine permitted bassist Howard Rumsey to start a recurring Sunday jam session on a trial basis. The experiment was a success. Rumsey became club manager soon after, and put together a house band called the Lighthouse All-Stars.
While the club also hosted visiting groups, the Lighthouse All-Stars became a noted ensemble in its own right, which had among its guest musicians Chet Baker, Gerry Mulligan and Miles Davis. The longest-running members of the Lighthouse All-Stars were Bob Cooper (tenor saxophone), Conte Candoli (trumpet), and Stan Levey (drums).
West Coast jazz stalwarts Shorty Rogers, Richie Kamuca, Bud Shank, Shelly Manne, and Jimmy Giuffre were also regulars in the early days. Max Roach was the regular drummer for a while in 1953. The club also became an important venue for recordings; Art Pepper, Lee Morgan, Cannonball Adderley, Don Ellis, Mose Allison, Ramsey Lewis, the Modern Jazz Quartet, The Three Sounds, the Jazz Crusaders, and Joe Henderson all made recordings there.
The Lighthouse sponsored an inter-collegiate jazz festival late in the 1950s, and the competition’s winners included Mike Melvoin and Les McCann.
John Levine died in 1970, and his family sold the club to Rudy Onderwyzer, manager and part owner of Shelly Manne‘s club, Shelly’s Manne-Hole. Rumsey left the Lighthouse in the 1970s, and Onderwyzer sold it again in 1981. The new owners remodeled the club and mostly discontinued the jazz-music policy. From the middle of the 1990s, jazz began to come back to the club, first on Sundays, then two days a week.
Recordings made at the Lighthouse
- 1952: Art Pepper – Early Days Vol. 1 (Norma, 1991)
- 1953: Howard Rumsey‘s Lighthouse All-Stars – Sunday Jazz a la Lighthouse Vol. 1 (Contemporary)
- 1953: Howard Rumsey’s Lighthouse All-Stars – Sunday Jazz a la Lighthouse Vol. 2 (Contemporary)
- 1953: Chet Baker and the Lighthouse All-Stars – Witch Doctor (Contemporary, 1985)
- 1953: Miles Davis and the Lighthouse All-Stars – At Last! (Contemporary, 1985), same day as with Baker, playing one track together
- 1956: Howard Rumsey’s Lighthouse All-Stars, Barney Kessel, Hampton Hawes‘ Trio with Shelly Manne – Lighthouse at Laguna (Contemporary)
- 1957: Howard Rumsey’s Lighthouse All-Stars, Music For Lighthousekeeping (Contemporary, 1956)
- 1958-60: Joe Gordon & Scott LaFaro – West Coast Days – Live at the Lighthouse (Fresh Sound, 1992)
- 1960: Cannonball Adderley – The Cannonball Adderley Quintet at the Lighthouse (Riverside)
- 1962: The Jazz Crusaders at the Lighthouse (Pacific Jazz)
- 1962: Curtis Amy – Tippin’ on Through (Pacific Jazz?)
- 1965: The Ramsey Lewis Trio – Hang On Ramsey! (Cadet)
- 1966: Art Blakey – Buttercorn Lady (Limelight)
- 1966: The Jazz Crusaders – Live at the Lighthouse ’66 (Pacific Jazz)
- 1966: Mose Allison – Mose Alive! (Atlantic)
- 1967: Modern Jazz Quartet – Live at the Lighthouse (Atlantic)
- 1967: The Three Sounds – Live at the Lighthouse (Blue Note)
- 1968: The Jazz Crusaders – Lighthouse ’68 (Pacific Jazz), reissued as Live Sides (Blue Note, 1980)
- 1969: Richard “Groove” Holmes – Recorded Live at the Lighthouse (World Pacific Jazz)
- 1970: Lee Morgan – Live at the Lighthouse (Blue Note)
- 1970: Joe Henderson – At the Lighthouse (Milestone)
- 1972: Charles Earland – Live at the Lighthouse (Prestige)
- 1972: Grant Green – Live at the Lighthouse (Blue Note)
- 1972: Elvin Jones – Live at the Lighthouse (Blue Note)
- 1972: Ramsey Lewis – The Groover (Cadet)
- 1974: Ramsey Lewis – Solid Ivory (Cadet)
- 1989: Howard Rumsey’s Lighthouse All-Stars – Jazz Invention (40th Anniversary Reunion Concert) (Contemporary)
