CRENSHAW : Jazz Club Highlights Native U.S. Music

Leading a tour through his jazz club and restaurant, Gainesville, Roy Gaines practically bubbled over with the eagerness and unabashed pride of a new parent.

“You see these? All oak,” he said, gesturing toward the elegant parquet floors and paneled walls of the split-level main dining room, where whirring ceiling fans added to the distinctly Southern feel of the place.

He moved, as quickly as his words, to another room outfitted wall to wall with recording equipment. “State of the art,” he declared, running his hands over the console.

Eight years ago Gaines, 56, set about to create something different for the Crenshaw area and the black community: a top-of-the-line jazz and blues club. After much work, little financial assistance and a lot of uncertainty about the club’s future during its sporadic development, Gaines finally opened Gainesville three weeks ago.

The restaurant is also the only commercial venue in the Central City that regularly showcases gospel, during Sunday brunches. Now, said Gaines, his vision of showcasing indigenous American music is complete.

“I’m making a stand for this music,” said Gaines, a blues guitarist whose hearty manner and distinct drawl betray his Texas roots. “This is black people’s music. Somebody has to always keep it going, and it’s not going to be Coors or KFC making commercials with it. It has to be us.”

In addition to an extensive menu that ranges from $5 pizzas to pricier New Orleans-style seafood plates, Gainesville offers blues and jazz performances three nights a week by local legends and world-renowned artists.

Vocalist Oscar Brown Jr. played last week, and jazz pianist Joe Sample, flutist Hubert Laws and drummer Stix Hooper are scheduled to appear.

The high-tech recording system, which operates from two rooms and includes rows of strategically mounted speakers along the ceiling, will enable artists to cut album-quality live recordings that Gaines hopes to sell to radio stations and other outlets as a way of supporting his business.

It’ll also be a way to set high musical standards and boost Gainesville’s visibility among those who believe that jazz and blues clubs exist only in the Westside and outlying areas, Gaines said. “That’s why I wanted to do this--I was tired of playing blues myself at the Embassy Suites in West Covina every week,” he said.

After acquiring the property at 5716 Crenshaw Blvd. in 1986, Gaines spent the next eight years, and nearly $500,000 of his own money, building the restaurant. Friends and fellow musicians pitched in: Jazz saxophonist and producer Wayne Henderson provided Gaines with most of his audio and recording equipment and produced Gaines’ new album, “Blues Crossover ‘94,” at the restaurant’s studio.

Gaines, a recovering alcoholic, takes most pride in the fact that he saw the project through after deciding in 1988 that building Gainesville would replace alcohol as his primary passion. Gainesville serves a variety of coffees and nonalcoholic wines, but no liquor.

“Those chandeliers, those speakers, all the things you see here are my whiskey bottles now,” said Gaines. “I always did get a thrill out of doing things against the odds--taking something hopeless and turning it around. Well, I’m flat broke now, but I did it.”