There was a light mist over the Santa Monicas when I drove down from Topanga Canyon to catch the final appearance of the John Hammond jazz quintet in the Back Room at Henri's.
Earlier that day, a heavier fog had rolled in from the ocean and over the mountaintops but had thinned as it reached the Valley, lying like a bridal veil over Canoga Park. A slight chill in the air was nature's reminder that winter wasn't over.
Henri's is a coffee shop, more or less, with a back room that began hosting Hammond about three years ago. He's a jazz legend and I'm a jazz nut, and to be able to drive to a club about half an hour away to hear great music was a gift from heaven.
He was there every Friday and Saturday night with either a trio or a quintet, and occasional visits by other jazz greats who dropped by to blow stars into the night.
But that's all gone now. Economics has ended jazz in the Back Room the way it is ending Dutton's bookstore in Brentwood. Little pieces of quality are spinning out of L.A. like leaves caught up in a gale.
Oddly, Henri's was the perfect venue. Most jazz clubs don't exist in coffee shops, especially on streets that die after dark. Everything around Henri's seemed to close when the sun went down. There was a feeling of loneliness to the location, which was OK in its way. Jazz is meant to be a little melancholy.
I was in a low mood, I guess, when I walked through the restaurant and into the Back Room to hear the style of music born in New Orleans more than a century ago. Word had gotten around that this was to be Hammond's last night, and it was jammed with more than 100 jazz aficionados. They were there to say goodbye.
The quintet, with Hammond at the piano, opened with a riff on "It Could Happen to You," a ballad polished into a new blues form, described once by Billie Holiday as walking in the rain. She was seeing jazz not as a love song but as a mood. The last piece was a whimsical tune Hammond had written called "Big Butt Blues." Then it was over.
Clearly, Henri's owner, Mike Puetz, had regrets about ending the jazz sessions. His father opened the restaurant in 1972, and it has become the place to go for breakfast in the Valley. Jazz was added when Puetz discovered Hammond, who was winding up a two-year stint at the Hilton in Woodland Hills.
