''Donte's'' was a

jazz club A jazz club is a venue where the primary entertainment is the performance of live jazz music, although some jazz clubs primarily focus on the study and/or promotion of jazz-music. Jazz clubs are usually a type of nightclub or bar, which is licens ...

and diner and cocktail bar at 4269

Lankershim Boulevard Lankershim Boulevard is a major north-south arterial road the runs for in the eastern San Fernando Valley in the Los Angeles, California. Geography Lankershim Boulevard's northern terminus is at San Fernando Road in Sun Valley, Los Angele ...

North Hollywood North Hollywood is a neighborhood and district in the San Fernando Valley of Los Angeles, California. The neighborhood contains the NoHo Arts District, El Portal Theater, several art galleries, and the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences. Th ...

Los Angeles Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, Financial District, Los Angeles, financial, and Culture of Los Angeles, ...

, to the north of

Universal Studios Universal Studios may refer to: * Universal Studios, Inc., an American media and entertainment conglomerate ** Universal Pictures, an American film studio ** Universal Studios Lot, a film and television studio complex * Various theme parks operat ...

. One of the West Coast's best known jazz clubs in the 1970s and 1980s, it opened in 1966 and closed in 1988.

History

Donte's was established in 1966. Early performers included

Woody Herman Woodrow Charles Herman (May 16, 1913 – October 29, 1987) was an American jazz Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Its roo ...

Dizzy Gillespie John Birks "Dizzy" Gillespie ( ; October 21, 1917 – January 6, 1993) was an American jazz trumpeter, bandleader, composer, educator and singer. He was a trumpet virtuoso and improvisation, improviser, building on the virtuosic style of Roy El ...

Mercer Ellington Mercer Kennedy Ellington (March 11, 1919 – February 8, 1996) was an American musician, composer, and arranger. His father was Duke Ellington, whose band Mercer led for 20 years after his father's death. Biography Early life and education Elli ...

and

Count Basie William James "Count" Basie (; August 21, 1904 – April 26, 1984) was an American jazz pianist, organist, bandleader, and composer. In 1935, he formed the Count Basie Orchestra, and in 1936 took them to Chicago for a long engagement and the ...

, and

Buddy Rich Bernard "Buddy" Rich (September 30, 1917 – April 2, 1987) was an American jazz drummer, songwriter, conductor, and bandleader. He is considered one of the most influential drummers of all time. Rich was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York, ...

Toshiko Akiyoshi is an American jazz pianist, composer, arranger, and bandleader. Akiyoshi received fourteen Grammy Award nominations and was the first woman to win Best Arranger and Composer awards in ''Down Beat'' magazine's annual Readers' Poll. In 1984, sh ...

Gerald Wilson Gerald Stanley Wilson (September 4, 1918 – September 8, 2014) was an American jazz trumpeter, big band bandleader, composer, arranger, and educator. Born in Mississippi, he was based in Los Angeles from the early 1940s. He arranged music for D ...

, Don Piestrup,

Don Menza Don Menza (born April 22, 1936) is an American jazz saxophonist. Career Menza was born in Buffalo, New York, Buffalo, where he attended Grover Cleveland High School (Buffalo, New York), Grover Cleveland High School. After serving in the U.S. ...

and Bill Holman all brought their bands to the club. Jazz guitarists

Joe Pass Joe Pass (born Joseph Anthony Jacobi Passalacqua; January 13, 1929 – May 23, 1994) was an American jazz guitarist. Although Pass recorded and performed live with pianist Oscar Peterson, composer Duke Ellington, and vocalist Ella Fitzgerald, he ...

and

Larry Carlton Larry Eugene Carlton (born March 2, 1948) is an American guitarist who built his career as a studio musician in the 1970s and 1980s for acts including Steely Dan and Joni Mitchell. One of the most sought after guitarists of his era, Carlton has ...

became regular performers. Pass would play on Monday evenings, which was "Guitar Night", organized by studio guitarist Jack Marshall.

Art Pepper Arthur Edward Pepper Jr. (September 1, 1925 – June 15, 1982) was an American jazz musician, most known as an alto saxophonist. He occasionally performed and recorded on tenor saxophone, clarinet (his first instrument) and bass clarinet. Active ...

would perform on New Year's Eve.

Clint Eastwood Clinton Eastwood Jr. (born May 31, 1930) is an American actor and film director. After achieving success in the Western (genre), Western TV series ''Rawhide (TV series), Rawhide'', Eastwood rose to international fame with his role as the "Ma ...

and

Frank Sinatra Francis Albert Sinatra (; December 12, 1915 – May 14, 1998) was an American singer and actor. Honorific nicknames in popular music, Nicknamed the "Chairman of the Board" and "Ol' Blue Eyes", he is regarded as one of the Time 100: The Most I ...

frequently visited the club. Guitarist

Lenny Breau Leonard Harold Breau (August 5, 1941 – August 12, 1984) was an American-Canadian guitarist. He blended many styles of music, including jazz, country, classical, and flamenco. Inspired by country guitarists like Chet Atkins, Breau used finge ...

was giving weekly seminars at the club before his death in 1984. In December 1987,

saxophonist The saxophone (often referred to colloquially as the sax) is a type of Single-reed instrument, single-reed woodwind instrument with a conical body, usually made of brass. As with all single-reed instruments, sound is produced when a reed (mouthpi ...

Warne Marsh Warne Marion Marsh (October 26, 1927 – December 18, 1987) was an American tenor saxophonist. Born in Los Angeles, his playing first came to prominence in the 1950s as a protégé of pianist Lennie Tristano and earned attention in the 1970s as ...

collapsed and died of a heart attack while performing the tune " Out of Nowhere" at the club. Donte's closed in April 1988. The site is now the Century West

BMW Bayerische Motoren Werke AG, trading as BMW Group (commonly abbreviated to BMW (), sometimes anglicised as Bavarian Motor Works), is a German multinational manufacturer of vehicles and motorcycles headquartered in Munich, Bavaria, Germany. Th ...

auto dealer.

Recordings

Numerous albums were recorded at the club, including

Jean-Luc Ponty Jean-Luc Ponty (born 29 September 1942) is a French jazz and jazz fusion violinist and composer. He is considered a pioneer of jazz-rock, particularly for his use of the electric violin starting in the 1970s. He rose to prominence for his colla ...

's '' Live at Donte's'' (recorded March 12–13 1969),

's '' Live at Donte's'' (recorded May 1969) and a second album recorded at Donte's ''LA Bootleg 1984'' (recorded shortly before his Death in 1984 and released in 2014) and

's '' Live at Donte's'' and ''

Resonance Resonance is a phenomenon that occurs when an object or system is subjected to an external force or vibration whose frequency matches a resonant frequency (or resonance frequency) of the system, defined as a frequency that generates a maximu ...

'' albums (recorded December 8–9, 1974).

References

Jazz clubs in Los Angeles 1966 establishments in California 1988 disestablishments in California North Hollywood, Los Angeles {{LosAngeles-struct-stub