The debut album from the L.A. jazz supergroup SML is a thrilling elegy for a dead nightclub. Over two packed nights last year, the quintet recorded raw, long-form improvisations at the Highland Park jazz club ETA, a cramped bar and restaurant with tough sight lines that fits around 100 people. It wasn’t a perfect room for jazz, yet incredible jazz kept happening there. “ETA was the kind of place where you really could experiment,” said SML’s bassist Anna Butterss.
He cited the pandemic-era Shuttered Venue Operators Grant program as a possible model for supporting small venues. 'That was a huge step towards a resurgence,' Lojero said. 'What London and São Paolo have is government and cultural institutional support for music in ways that we don't. But I still see L.A. at the forefront of it all. Jazz music's roots run super deep here, and one of the best things we can do is to give artists spaces.