Holy mother load. The Dumb Angel Magazine blog has an extensive post on LA's long passed 1960's soul scene and the buildings, or vacant lots, where it once reigned supreme. From the opening paragraph:
"The Cenral Avenue Jazz and R&B scene from the ’20s through the early ’50s is well documented by the book and companion CD box set Central Avenue Sounds. That fantastic series ends as the Central Avenue scene disperses with the integration of L.A. jazz musicians into the clubs and movie soundtrack work to come in Hollywood. After that, a neighborhood Northwest of the core Central Avenue area would flourish as a new African-American nightlife center. Beginning near the corner of Pico and Western Avenues, then heading South to Santa Barbara Boulevard (now Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard), with a right turn (West) to Crenshaw on MLK, a myriad of new clubs would open up and host some of the most brilliant R&B from the period." The post goes on to provide bits of detail to an era and place of LA that unfortunately too few have heard about - from Wilt Chamberlin's Basin Street West to John Daniel's Mavericks Flat at 4225 Crenshaw Boulevard, which still stands today. We looked it up on Yelp, but none of the Yelp posters have made it there yet to review it. Neither has CitySearch, or LA.com, or AOL CityGuide. Seriously, someone should go check it out.
· South Central Los Angeles R&B Venues of the ’50s and ’60s [Dumb Angel]