The Southern California Hot Jazz Society, whose origin goes back to 1949, finally succumbed to the ravages of age in announcing that it would cease holding monthly meetings and would instead join with the South Bay New Orleans Jazz Society for their second Sunday of the month sessions in Redondo Beach, Calif.
Considered the second oldest jazz club in the United States, SCHJS came into being when Floyd Levin promoted the idea of forming a jazz society on his Jazz on Parade radio program. The group’s first public event was held in September 1950 to raise funds for a marker for Jelly Roll Morton’s grave at Calvary Cemetery in East Los Angeles. (Admission was 50 cents.) The late Jack Widmar (SCHJS president 1988-2015) called the club’s Sunday gatherings “the Church of Jazz.” According to K.O. Eckland’s Jazz West, the South Bay New Orleans Jazz Club was founded in 1962. Paul Goldman is its current president.
