Cevin Clark is the owner of Harvelle’s. The venerated club has a long history on the Promenade in Santa Monica and, about a year ago, he opened a second location on the Long Beach Promenade, in the basement beneath Congregation Ale House.
To be honest, I’d never been to either place until, about a month ago, Mike Wylie asked me to meet him there. I was immediately entranced. It was like stepping into another world, an impeccably conceived retro fantasy with modern appointments.
In the late 80s, Clark started working security, part time, at the Harvelle’s in Santa Monica. His role slowly evolved until he was managing the place and, in 2001, purchased it.
“When I arrived in ’89,” Clark said, “Harvelle’s had already been doing blues for about a year and a half before I got there. It was the oldest blues club, at the time, next to Babe & Ricky’s in Leimert Park. The club has been there since 1931. The history of it, as it’s told, is that Harvelle was a blues/jazz singer during prohibition, and she met up with a man by the name of Jack Dragna, who was a crime boss at the time. He fancied her, and bought her Harvelle’s. It was a ‘dry’ jazz super club. At that time it was a bigger place. The place that’s next to Harvelle’s is now called West 4th & Jane. Harvelle’s was the full size, and it had an upstairs, as well. Then after prohibition, at some point, Harvelle’s got a legal liquor license.”
At some point, the building was divided, and Harvelle’s gave up its restaurant business entirely.
“We have a great working relationship with the restaurant next door. People order food and it’s delivered, like it is here.”
Clark saw value in the architecture, and the sense of history, in Long Beach.
“Since Harvelle’s has a long history, I can’t just put it in any kind of strip mall. It has to be in a substantial building. And in fact, this building was built in 1928, the same year that the building in Santa Monica was built. An interesting coincidence. Also, there’s a lot of diversity in Long Beach, and Harvelle’s is about that kind of diversity. Music is so universal so, out of all of the beach cities, it’s Santa Monica and Long Beach. Everything else along the coast seems to be Orange County, with the exception of Venice, of course. Venice has a lot of diversity, as well.
“I became aware of this particular basement sometime in early 2000 when a friend of mine, Vince Jordan who was the founder of the Blue Café, invited Joe Erwin, who was the owner of The Cellar, which was here prior to Harvelle’s, to Harvelle’s in Santa Monica. I met him and came here and saw what he was doing, so I was aware of the building then. When the opportunity came I called him up and was able to acquire the space in October, 2011.
“I think of Harvelle’s as being the soul of American music and show. We built that in Santa Monica, and over here we’re trying to build the same thing, and it’s working. It’s more than just a band at the end of a bar set up on the floor. There’s a real show aspect to Harvelle’s. From one night to the other it’s going to be real quality, but there’s a soul to it.”
Every Sunday through Thursday Harvelle’s hosts a diverse and eclectic set of weekly artistic residencies.
“Our Thursday residency here is going really strong with the Toledo Show, which is a film noir/femme fatale cabaret. Beyond that, I can’t describe it. It really needs to be experienced.
“On Tuesdays, we’re doing a prohibition swing/jazz cabaret with tap dancing and belly dancing. It brings you back to a 20s and 30s kind of vibe. It’s really cool, and quite a show.
“On Wednesday we have our local blues act, White Boy James and the Blues Express. He’s a very well known entity here in Long Beach.
“We have a show called Bongo Fury, which is Afro/Cuban jazz and burlesque. It’s really cool, because there’s a DJ in the band who adds samples. So, the band can be going furiously, as Afro/Cuban jazz can go, and the dancers are dancing to it—top quality, very classy, dancers, too—and then all of a sudden there’s a stop, and you’ll hear a sample of Ricky Ricardo telling Lucy off in Spanish, or part of a Fidel Castro speech, or the theme to Hawaii Five-O, or the Addams Family. That helps people get really involved. The band is really phenomenal. We used to do this band years ago, it was one of Harvelle’s originals in Santa Monica on Tuesdays there, and it was quite esoteric because not everybody related to it. But now with those elements involved, people are really relating to that show.
“We have a show called Harlow Gold, which is strictly a cabaret show. And it’s the finest cabaret show I’ve seen. It’s a very high energy show, with dancers all over the room. I’ve seen a lot of Vegas shows and this one is superior to all of them. I don’t think any show in Vegas right now measures up to it. It’s really great.
“Tracy Phillips, who created Harlow Gold, is an amazing choreographer. I saw her Royal Jelly show over at Forty Deuce in Hollywood before they closed. It was so phenomenal that I wanted to bring my room to the level of production that was necessary to have that show there. In Santa Monica, that show is every Thursday, and it’s fantastic there. We have them on the first two Fridays of the month, here. That show, that’s all Tracy. I’m just the production for it: sound, lights, and I build things.
“And then we have American Monster, a blues and burlesque show. The music is a little more on the rockier side, with a Blacks Keys, and really hip R. L. Burnside, Fat Possum kind of sound. And the dancers are of that ilk. It’s got its own edginess to it, which is really cool. That show has been doing really well, and that show is one of our own productions, as well.
“On Mondays we’ve got the funk jam with Delta Nove, a band that’s very well-known here in Long Beach, and actually, they do a lot of national touring as well. They’re a quality band. The leader of that band, Bobby Easton, is the same guy that does the Long Beach Funk Fest. This year, we hosted the official after-party for the Funk Fest. Bobby brought some amazing artists here. Usually, I do all the booking here but, that day, I had to let Bobby do it and he did a great job. After that, we decided that we should do a Monday funk jam, and it’s going well. It’s something new and it’s picking up.”
Clark has also teamed up with Long Beach Cinematheque for this year’s Long Beach Zombie Walk Music & Art Festival.
“We were the exclusive provider of alcohol for the Zombie Fest. It was over at Marine Green Park, and it was a really great turn-out. That was actually my first event like that, and I was really pleased. Logan Crow did a really great job, and it was fun to watch all those people out there in their costumes getting into that whole Halloween tradition.
“Since Logan was so cool in involving me, and I had to learn more of the process with the city, and the location, and the Health Department, ABC, all of it, I plan on throwing some music events. Long Beach used to have the Blues Festival, but it’s not happening anymore. I think that needs to be revived. I think Harvelle’s might put a little twist on it. We’d call it, ‘Harvelle’s Presents the Soul of American Music Festival,’ or something like that.”
Clark is targeting September of 2013 for his first festival.
“I need to get busy already. I’ve got to start thinking now about the acts that I want. I need to start working on that right away. I’m pretty good at being able to put together investors and sponsors for things like that. So 2013, I’ve got my fingers crossed.”
On my first visit to Harvelle’s, I had the good fortune to see the Jennifer Keith Quintet perform. Aside from her amazing voice and stage presence, one of the things that really jumped out at me was the quality of the sound. I’ve been to a lot of clubs, and I was astonished at how good the music was sounding. It was just perfect.
“I have to plug Bill Jenkins. He built all of our speakers at both clubs: monitors and mains and subs and what have you. The quality of separation, and clarity in his speakers, is really amazing. Also, we have acoustic treatment throughout the room. You can see the back wall is a tufted material. And it’s tufted underneath the bar and front door. It’s tufted all over the place. But on the stage itself, the material is more sound absorbent. You can see above, there’s acoustical foam throughout there.
“I’m not somebody who’s an expert at this, but I have people that are: David Ormesher, who’s in charge of all the sound. He’s my right hand man, and somebody who I vested into the company five years ago or so. His main purpose is to make this room sound as good as it can. And he’s made Santa Monica sound amazing, too. We’ve received great compliments over there, too. It takes a while to tweak a room. It doesn’t happen overnight. Sound is a particularly difficult, complex process. But you start with really good quality equipment, and then you talk to a lot of bands.”
This attention and commitment to detail, to creating a unique and quality experience, has created a steadily growing base of fans for the club.
“There’s a real buzz going on about Harvelle’s, but there’s still new people discovering us all the time, so I expect it to grow. And it is growing every day. The nights are being better-attended each time. We have a lot of acts that are residencies, so we get to measure it that way. A lot of clubs, it’s all about a particular act more so than it is here. Here, it’s a combination of the act and the room. When people get familiar with the room, the quality of the music, then Harvelle’s becomes the reason why they’re coming. And sometimes it’s because of the act. Sometimes it a combination of both.
“We have some of the most amazing performers on our stage, who perform on the road with Rod Stewart, Bob Dylan, The Eurythmics, or Etta James. Paul Warren did the original licks for ‘Papa was a Rolling Stone.’ And then there was Jimmy Z who did the song ‘Missionary Man’ with The Eurythmics. That’s him on harp. But he also performed with Etta James and Bob Dylan and Jeff Beck. The performers that perform here are really great performers that are servicing their soul by performing their music. So you’re getting a really high quality performance at a very affordable cost.”
—
Harvelle’s is located at 201 E. Broadway.
For more information about Harvelle’s, including performance schedules, visit Harvelles.com.
{FG_GEOMAP [33.7693567,-118.19101269999999] FG_GEOMAP}