{"id":1960753,"date":"2025-08-14T20:47:20","date_gmt":"2025-08-14T20:47:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=1960753"},"modified":"2025-08-14T20:47:20","modified_gmt":"2025-08-14T20:47:20","slug":"blue-note-opens-new-club-in-los-angeles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/blue-note-opens-new-club-in-los-angeles\/","title":{"rendered":"Blue Note Opens New Club in Los Angeles"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\n\tA<\/span>t a time when many music industry sectors are undergoing consolidation, Blue Note is expanding its footprint domestically and globally. In June, the brand partnered for the first time with the LA Phil to present the Blue Note Jazz Festival at the Hollywood Bowl (formerly known as the Hollywood Bowl Jazz Festival and, before that, the long-running Playboy Jazz Festival). Now tonight (Aug. 14), the brand will celebrate the grand opening of its new club in Los Angeles.<\/p>\n

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\n\tTo jumpstart the grand opening, a private VIP party was held at Blue Note Los Angeles<\/a> last evening (Aug. 13). Calling the occasion \u201can historic night,\u201d Blue Note Entertainment Group president Steven Bensusan <\/strong>added, \u201cIt\u2019s been a long time coming.\u201d Both he and his brother, Blue Note Entertainment Group COO Tsion Bensusan<\/strong>, thanked all involved in bringing the club to fruition \u2014 and also introduced their father Danny, who opened the first Blue Note Jazz Club in New York in 1981. Rounding out the evening, artist Robert Glasper<\/a><\/strong> and surprise guests \u2014 among them Ledisi<\/a>, Lalah Hathaway<\/a> and Terrace Martin<\/a> \u2014 performed before an audience that included Dr. Dre<\/strong>, veteran music industry executives Jimmy Iovine<\/strong> and Don Was<\/strong> and Abbot Elementary<\/em>\u2019s Quinta Brunson<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

\n\tLocated on Hollywood\u2019s famed Sunset Boulevard, Blue Note LA will kick off its grand opening with Glasper headlining. The new club extends the five-time Grammy winner\u2019s ongoing partnership\/creative ambassador role with Blue Note. The club\u2019s upcoming lineup (playing two sets at 7 p.m. and 9:30 p.m.) includes rising and established acts like Alex Isley<\/a>, Mayer Hawthorne<\/a>, Ravi Coltrane<\/a>, Killer Mike<\/a> and Adam Blackstone<\/a>. The venue itself features two performance spaces: the main showroom, which accommodates 200 people, and a B side room with a 100-person capacity. \u00a0The venue will also serve brunch and dinner through the week. Blue Note Entertainment Group has also partnered exclusively with Mastercard to give cardholders special access to various experiences at Blue Note LA.<\/p>\n

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\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Blue<\/p><\/div><\/div>

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\t\t\t\t\tBlue Note Jazz Club Los Angeles<\/span><\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tCourtesy Photos<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

\n\tBlue Note LA joins the company\u2019s other stateside clubs in New York, Honolulu and Napa, Calif. Currently under construction is another new club in London\u2019s West End. It will be the latest addition to Blue Note\u2019s family of global venues in Tokyo, Rio, San Paulo, Milan, Bejing and Shanghai. The clubs in New York, L.A., Napa, Honolulu and London are owned by the Blue Note Entertainment Group; the others are licensees.<\/p>\n

\n\tAround the corner, in the meantime, is the Glasper-curated Blue Note Jazz Festival (Napa) \/ Black Radio Experience <\/a>(Aug. 29-31). Now in its fourth year, the festival will present performances by The Roots<\/a>, Questlove<\/strong>, Jazmine Sullivan<\/a>, Hiatus Kaiyote<\/a> and Esperanza Spalding<\/a>. Ahead of that gig, Glasper says the \u201coutpouring\u201d of people calling him about Blue Note LA has been \u201camazing. People are itching for a cool place to play in L.A. because so many of those places have closed down. This will give the L.A. music scene a facelift; it\u2019s a breath of fresh air plus another place to be creative. I have so many ideas for the club because L.A. is full of crazy talent.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tOne of those ideas is personified by the club\u2019s diverse artist lineup over the coming months. \u201cI feel like for a long time, jazz has been in a corner over by itself, like nobody wants to play with the jazz kids,\u201d says Glasper. \u201cBut now, little by little, I think people are coming over and playing with them. It\u2019s becoming one big family, and that\u2019s awesome. <\/strong>Jazz is a spirit and a vibe. So any genre of music can encompass jazz. It\u2019s about the spirit of improvisation and the spirit of being in the moment. That\u2019s the heartbeat of jazz.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Robert<\/p><\/div><\/div>

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\t\t\t\t\tRobert Glasper<\/span><\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tTodd Cooper<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

\n\tThat sentiment is in keeping with the storied legacy of the first Blue Note Jazz Club. Holding court in New York\u2019s West Village for the last 44 years, the club has become a beloved cultural institution thanks to the myriad icons and contemporary artists who\u2019ve performed. From there, one of Blue Note\u2019s earlier spinoffs is the New York Jazz Festival, which marked its 14th<\/sup> year this summer (May 27-July 2). Staged at multiple city venues including Blue\u00a0Note,\u00a0Town Hall,\u00a0Central Park SummerStage,\u00a0Celebrate Brooklyn\u00a0at Prospect Park and Sony Hall, this year\u2019s slate boasted Grace Jones<\/a> and Janelle Mon\u00e1e<\/a>, Branford Marsalis<\/a>, Kenny Garrett<\/strong> and Tank & the Bangas<\/a>. Among the headliners at Blue Note\u2019s inaugural jazz festival at the Hollywood Bowl (June 14-15) were Jones, The Isley Brothers<\/a>, WILLOW<\/a>, Stanley Clarke<\/a>, Dee Dee Bridgewater<\/a> and De La Soul<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n\tOverseeing the talent bookings and programs for the clubs as well as the New York and Napa festivals is Blue Note Entertainment Group\u2019s director of programming Alex Kurland<\/strong> (Note: Blue Note has naming rights for the Hollywood Bowl Jazz Festival. The LA Phil handles the majority of the bookings with collaboration from Blue Note).<\/p>\n

\n\tKurland says the L.A. club has been in the works for years between searching for the right venue location \u00a0and other logistics. \u201cBlue Note is very artist-led, and it felt like there was an opening and a need in L.A. for the kind of thing that we do in New York and through Blue Note conceptually and programming-wise,\u201d explains Kurland. \u201cSo this felt like good timing now for a lot of different reasons. The desire for these intimate experiences \u2014 both impactful and meaningful \u2014 is so important now. It\u2019s a very holistic connection between what\u2019s also happening in New York, what\u2019s happening with the Napa festival and now L.A. with the influence of all the music that\u2019s coming from there.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Grace<\/p><\/div><\/div>

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\t\t\t\t\tGrace Jones with Janelle Monae at the Blue Note Jazz Festival June 2025.<\/span><\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tTimothy Norris<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

\n\tKurland also notes that in booking talent, the Blue Note philosophy goes beyond genre or style categories. \u201cWhat grabs me first, regardless of genre, is the artists\u2019 voice in their [musical] story. It\u2019s about feeling the voice, the story and tone. There are so many talented artists that transcend categorization by style or genre. When you think about great artists period, regardless of age or era, it\u2019s about the voice within the music that speaks and what it\u2019s saying; something that\u2019s representative of who they are and their storytelling. That\u2019s what moves me.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tMoving forward, Kurland says Blue Note is eyeing other club locale possibilities including Paris, Boston and Detroit. But right now, he\u2019s leaning into the excitement the L.A. club is already sparking. \u201cThe approach is less about just filling in dates on the calendar and being very intentional about programming that\u2019s meaningful and has purpose. If that\u2019s not the priority and objective, then nothing else matters. That\u2019s the mantra.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cSometimes when older and younger artists come in, they have a sentimental connection to how jazz inspired them,\u201d Kurland continues. \u201cOr a memory that stems back to hearing a family member play someone like a Dizzy Gillespie. Flash forward 30 years later and that artist is playing at the Blue Note where Dizzy stood. Those kinds of sentimental and emotional experiences are the goal too \u2014 being able to feel something deeper than the transaction of just playing a gig.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n

\u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.billboard.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At a time when many music industry sectors are undergoing consolidation, Blue Note is expanding its footprint domestically and globally. In June, the brand partnered for the first time with the LA Phil to present the Blue Note Jazz Festival at the Hollywood Bowl (formerly known as the Hollywood Bowl Jazz Festival and, before that, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1960754,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25179],"tags":[345215,345216,345217,24982,22693],"class_list":["post-1960753","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-music","tag-billboard-green","tag-blue-note","tag-genre-jazz","tag-jazz","tag-los-angeles"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/Blue-Note-Opens-New-Club-in-Los-Angeles.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1960753","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1960753"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1960753\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1960754"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1960753"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1960753"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1960753"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}