Despite the controversy and and unanswered questions swirling around what is being dubbed ‘L.A.’s Fyre Fest’ the jazz show is going on at multiple festivals in Leimert Park, Compton, and Venice

Jason Sugars grew up in the back of a Venice antiques store run by his grandparents, back when Abbot Kinney was known as West Washington, two blocks from a jazz joint known as Azz Izz. “My grandfather did a lot of business that I could not be around, so I spent a lot of time at Azz Izz.”

The club predated the vibrant scene in Leimert Park, which is today undeniably the epicenter of jazz in Los Angeles. It was operated by saxophonist Billie Harris and his wife Cookie, and they raised their kids living at the club, which was an upgrade from the Helm’s truck the family was residing in on the beach. It was the westside’s only ad hoc Black arts movement jazz club, and Sugars remembers, “it was open day and night because a lot of the players lived in the house.” The family, and their musically talented tenants, would fish off the Pier and sell the day’s catch as fish sandwiches at the club, he said.

Billie Harris, tenor & soprano saxophones; Horace Tapscott, piano; David Bryant, bass; Daa’oud Woods, percussion; Everett Brown Jr, drums; at a recording session in Hollywood, 1980, in a photo by Mark Weber Credit: Mark Weber

“This jazz club is the Venice that I remember, and I wanted to honor it with what they stood for, non-corporate, grassroots rather than outsiders coming in her and building something on other people’s shoulders,” Sugars told Los Angeles.

So, five years ago, Sugars started the AZZ-IS VENICE REBEL.JAZZ.FEST a free independent festival that takes place on the Venice beachfront and runs primarily on donations from Venetians and other music lovers. This year the event will take place on Labor Day weekend. Focused on cutting-edge, emerging, and improvisational jazz, the festival features multiple live stages, a DJ roller disco, and local vendors.

Sugars’ festival is part of a buzz “can’t cancel jazz,” a movement to support musicians throughout Los Angeles that is countering the controversial canceling of what artists are calling “L.A.’s Fyre Festival,” which was organized by a former politician who was convicted on public corruption charges two decades ago. Martin Ludlow created Bridge Street Inc., an entertainment production company and lobbying firm, which was the parent company of the Los Angeles Jazz Festival, which was abruptly canceled earlier this month.

Other festivals, however, point out that there are existing jazz festivals that will continue to go on, like the Leimert Park Jazz Festival, organized initially as a block party by attorney Diane Robertson when she moved to the neighborhood in 2015. It has since exploded in popularity and is slated to take over the rooftop parking deck of the Baldwin Hills Crenshaw Plaza shopping center on August 29.

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The Leimert Park Jazz Festival, which started as a block party, is now in its seventh year Credit: Courtesy of Leimert Park Jazz Festival

The festival, Robertson told Los Angeles, is still her baby and she personally fundraises to keep it growing. “The festival is a very vital part of the artistic culture in South Los Angeles, but our impact is expanding beyond.”

Everything connected to the event is very intentional, including Sunday jazz events at the World Stage. This year’s the Leimert Park Jazz Festival hosted an event in July at the Ford that “brought together generations of musicians and audiences to celebrate the enduring legacy of Miles Davis and the next generation of jazz artists,” the organization said.

Robertson started her festival as a way to “know her neighbors.” She now is getting to know a city.