Every Sunday evening from 6 to 8:30 pm, a small wood-paneled room inside a 12-story downtown Los Angeles building fills with a few dozen leather chairs, a handful of tables, and musicians who have played behind Ray Charles, Ella Fitzgerald, Duke Ellington, and Marvin Gaye. The cover charge to get in is $10, paid at the door.
The Jazz Salon, as it's known, is a weekly near-private jazz concert held at the Los Angeles Athletic Club at 646 S. Olive St., according to LAist. The series was founded in 2014 by Dave Ross, a 76-year-old bassist who persuaded the historic club to host the concerts and who still plays double bass in the ensemble each week, per the same report. Ross also acts as master of ceremonies and administers the Jazz Salon website, and he described his own musical role as keeping the beat and helping the other musicians understand the chord and harmony.
Ross began playing double bass at age 58, according to a YouTube interview with Cathy Segal-Garcia. He's also the grandson of silent film icon Harold Lloyd and the son of early Los Angeles television producer Bart Ross, according to that same interview — a family history that runs straight through the entertainment industry Ross now curates a corner of on Sunday nights.
A Rotating Cast of Jazz Royalty
The Jazz Salon draws from a repertory group of about 15 artists, LAist reports, and the show does not rehearse its performances before going on. Among the regulars is Betty Bryant, a 96-year-old pianist and vocalist whose career began in Kansas City under the mentorship of Jay McShann before she relocated to Los Angeles in 1955, according to Keys & Chords. Bryant released her 15th album, “Nothin' Better To Do,” in January, extending a recording career that spans more than seven decades.
Also part of the rotation is trumpeter Nolan Shaheed, who previously served as music director for Marvin Gaye and lead trumpet for Count Basie, according to La Sierra University. Shaheed is also a world record-holding master's athlete in middle-distance running, holding age-group world records in the 800-meter, 1,500-meter, and one-mile events, the university notes. Saxophonist Rickey Woodard, another Jazz Salon fixture, played saxophone for Ray Charles, Ella Fitzgerald, and Sarah Vaughan, while Shaheed separately played trumpet for Duke Ellington and Marvin Gaye, per LAist's reporting. The lineup of singers also includes Betty Bryant, Val Monroe, and John Proulx, a Grammy-winning songwriter, and vocalist Karrin Allyson, a five-time Grammy nominee, has been joined onstage by Ross and the Jazz Salon's musicians.
The group's reputation extends beyond the club's walls. In August 2020, ensemble members performed as the “Los Angeles Jazz Salon All Stars” at the Blue Jay Jazz Festival in Lake Arrowhead, featuring Ross, Shaheed, Woodard, and vocalist Niki Haris, according to the Blue Jay Jazz Foundation.
From Tip Jar to Ticket Price
The $10 cover wasn't always the model. Donations and tip-jar proceeds collected during Sunday evenings had been insufficient to cover costs, which led Ross to introduce the current charge, per LAist's account. Once a month, the Jazz Salon also joins touring artists for a formal ticketed event held in the Los Angeles Athletic Club's 250-seat ballroom — a step up from the wood-paneled, few-dozen-chair room used for the weekly Sunday shows. Those monthly formal events have sold out twice this year, including tributes to Bill Evans and to Dave Brubeck and Paul Desmond, and reservations for the weekly artist schedule are available through jazzsalon.org. Ross has said he's determined the series will continue.
A Building With Its Own Hidden History
The venue itself carries weight beyond the music. The Los Angeles Athletic Club was founded on September 8, 1880, making it the city's first private social and athletic club, and its Beaux-Arts building at Seventh and Olive streets was designated Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument No. 69 in September 1970, according to the Historical Marker Database. When the clubhouse opened in 1912, its sixth-floor, 166,000-gallon pool was the first upper-floor swimming pool built in Southern California, per Big Orange Landmarks.
During a later multi-million-dollar renovation, workers uncovered a hidden Prohibition-era staircase between the third and fourth floors, which was eventually built into a trick bookcase in the third-floor bar leading to the club's Blue Room lounge, according to Timothy Oulton Studio. The club has long attracted Hollywood's elite; it served as a long-term residence for Charlie Chaplin and counted Mary Pickford, Rudolph Valentino, Douglas Fairbanks Jr., Walt Disney, and Clark Gable among its members and guests, per the Los Angeles Athletic Club. Beyond social programming, the club has also served as the official host of college basketball's John R. Wooden Award since it was established in 1977.
A Bargain in a Booming Jazz Market
The Jazz Salon's modest price tag stands out against a live jazz market that has grown considerably in Los Angeles. In August 2025, a 200-seat flagship Blue Note Jazz Club opened on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood, curated by pianist Robert Glasper, according to Forbes. That expansion mirrors broader momentum around jazz venues in the region, including proposals for a dedicated jazz club within the Walt Disney Concert Hall complex that Hoodline reported on in Gehry's downtown vision plan. Against that backdrop, a $10 Sunday evening inside a room with a hidden speakeasy staircase and musicians who once backed Marvin Gaye and Count Basie looks less like a footnote and more like one of downtown's quieter cultural bargains.
