5 Clubs Celebrate Jazz in Los Angeles.

The Los Angeles jazz festival circuit is in full swing in Los Angeles. Along with familiar gatherings like the Hollywood Bowl’s Blue Note Jazz Festival in June and Angel City Jazz, which is rebranding itself as Jazz Refractions, in October, there’s a newcomer in town: the L.A. Jazz Festival.

The 17-day festival is Los Angeles’s first attempt at a citywide musical takeover à la New Orleans and will bring together a multi-faceted roster of performers as diverse as Pete Escovedo, Ezra Collective and Janelle Monáe. Kicking off on Aug. 7 in Leimert Park, the festival will treat audiences to a packed calendar of free concerts in city parks, a Caribbean street fair, pop-up shows in neighborhood bars and cafes, and a headliner event on Dockweiler Beach.

The ambitious program — 13 years in the making — will give visitors an excuse to explore Los Angeles’s kaleidoscopic landscape while enjoying one-of-a-kind outdoor performances.

If your visit doesn’t coincide with the festival, consider a pilgrimage anyway. Jazz roots run deep in Los Angeles, going back to venues like the Dunbar Hotel, where musicians like Duke Ellington and Count Basie converged in the 1930s. Some of the 20th century’s greatest jazz players — Charles Mingus, Buddy Collette, Dexter Gordon — called Los Angeles home, and contributed to the lore of Central Avenue spots like Club Alabam and Lincoln Theater (known as the Apollo of the West.)

Those clubs have long since come and gone, but their legacy is palpable. “Before, you needed to go to New York to make your mark,” said Kamasi Washington, who grew up attending concerts at the World Stage in Leimert Park. “Now, you can make your mark in Los Angeles.”

Here are five classic and new jazz clubs worth the trip.

The Baked Potato

The Baked Potato ranks as Los Angeles’s most idiosyncratic — and longest-running — jazz club. This unassuming dive across from Universal Studios has remained virtually unchanged since 1970, when it opened as a late-night hangout for session players looking to kick back after a long day in the studio.

“We’ve made so much more history than we ever thought,” Justin Randi, the club’s owner, said.

That’s putting it mildly: Over the years, musicians like Prince and Stevie Wonder have made the pilgrimage to see a show here. In 1973, when Joni Mitchell was looking for accompanists to play on her album “Court and Spark,” she walked in during a set by the L.A. Express fusion ensemble and hired it on the spot.

That spontaneous, mix-and-mingle feel holds true today. At least half of the bands on the monthly calendar are the result of impromptu encounters on the club’s back patio. The camaraderie extends to the shows as well: Crowded around the compact stage, audiences enjoy an unusual level of intimacy with performers, who have recently included Ronnie Foster and the saxophonist Devin Daniels.

“You’re right there with the band,” Mr. Randi said. “At the break, they don’t run to the dressing room. They stay out here and talk to you.”

Adding to the bar’s homey appeal is the menu, which lists baked potatoes with various toppings — the 18-ounce spuds are comically large, so come hungry.

World Stage

Perhaps more than any other live music venue in Los Angeles, the World Stage is devoted to empowering the local community while providing a home base for progressive jazz. The space, which seats 100, is part of a commercial block in downtown Leimert Park, a rich center of Black culture, and it attracts audiences hungry for performances on the more experimental end of the jazz spectrum.

“People come in, and it’s not about cocktails or conversation,” said Dwight Trible, the club’s executive director, who also performs as a vocalist and has been involved with the World Stage since its founding in 1989. “The way we have things set up, when the lights go down and music starts, people respect it. Music is No. 1.”

The packed weekly schedule includes jam sessions, poetry readings (there’s even a World Stage literary press) and workshops, but the Friday and Saturday night slots typically go to jazz instrumentalists. Twice a year, the space hosts the Pan Afrikan Peoples Arkestra, an all-Black ensemble founded in 1961 by the pianist Horace Tapscott, a central figure in West Coast jazz.

A patio out front, where patrons can linger over beer and wine, serves as an informal gathering spot before and after shows. Admission is a reasonable $20, making this one of the best values for live music in town.

On a typical night at Catalina Jazz Club, crowds start lining up around 6:30 p.m. When doors open a half-hour later, Manny Santiago, the restaurant’s genial manager, is at the host stand, shaking hands and guiding regulars to their preferred tables.

“It’s a meet-and-greet place,” said Mr. Santiago, who started working at the club in 1987. “We have customers that have been coming here for 35 years.”

That relaxed, living-room feel makes the restaurant a popular choice for families and large groups, who have room to spread out (children are welcome). And while the lineup skews eclectic — Broadway, Motown and Armenian lounge standards all have a place here — jazz is in the restaurant’s DNA. Over the years, Catalina has hosted the likes of Buddy Collette, Dizzy Gillespie and Ron Carter; Chick Corea had a standing annual date up until his death in 2021. (Tickets range between $35 and $65.)

Like the Los Angeles dining institutions Musso & Frank and Canter’s Deli, Catalina leans into nostalgia, conjuring a mid-1980s banquet hall atmosphere. Instead of artisanal sourdough or arancini, you’ll get hearty New York steaks ($43) and short-rib fettuccine ($33); the martinis ($20) are also a favorite.

Last August, Blue Note Los Angeles opened on Sunset Boulevard, right between Cinerama Dome and the former Amoeba Music record store, two behemoths of Hollywood’s prestreaming era. Judging from the reception so far — shows regularly sell out — the club is proof that not all entertainment can be replaced with a hand-held device.

This Blue Note shares similarities with its New York sibling — two sets a night and a $20 food-and-beverage minimum per guest. The room is grand, with a generous stage accented in lush blue velvet. A-list cameos have become a routine occurrence both on and offstage. Tyler, the Creator popped in at a recent Keyon Harrold show, and in December, the Free Nationals brought out Thundercat and Questlove.

“Almost nightly, we have these remarkable moments,” said Alex Kurland, the director of programming and booking for both the New York and Los Angeles clubs.

Beyond the thrill of celebrity sightings, Blue Note remains a reliable stop for those who want to celebrate jazz in an immersive, high-octane setting. During a recent show honoring Miles Davis’s 100th birthday, the trumpeter Theo Croker took the room on a whirlwind tour through beloved tunes like “Blue in Green” and “Autumn Leaves.” By the end, audience members were jumping out of their seats and hollering out requests, as if Davis himself were right there onstage.

Sam First

Sam First delighted jazz purists when it opened in 2017 with its commitment to talent like Gerald Clayton and Billy Childs. The location can take some getting used to — it sits on a busy corridor near the international airport — but the choice to open on the west side was intentional, said David Robaire, the bar’s artistic director.

“Most of the clubs that existed at that time were either really far east or in central L.A.,” he said, noting the closure in 2009 of the Jazz Bakery in Culver City. “There was this gap that needed to be filled.”

In contrast with the club’s hectic surroundings, the interior is snug and inviting. And then there’s the physical sound — acoustics are optimized by the irregular walls and foam-padded ceilings, which absorb low-frequency sounds. The lack of a proper stage (bands set up next to the bar) only enhances the interactive feel, as if you’re sitting in a recording studio.

And in fact, you are. Since 2021, the bar has operated a boutique record label, also named Sam First, that issues in-house recordings by artists like Larry Goldings and Joe La Barbera, who was once a drummer in Bill Evans’s trio. The live sessions are pressed on 180-gram vinyl LPs, which have become collectors’ items. The label is selective about who it signs and typically schedules only two recordings per year. (The next session is set for Aug. 7 and 8, with the saxophonist Nicole McCabe.)

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