The buildings doubled as hangouts for the homeless, and created a dark, dreary atmosphere that betrayed the city’s lively nature.
Cal State Long Beach alumni Evan Kelly and Alex Sadnik have partnered to create art exhibits and jazz concerts from empty commercial spaces in downtown Long Beach.
Kelly’s Vayden Roi art gallery restoration program joined with Sadnik’s Break the Mold concert series to create an ever-growing community awareness, appreciation and involvement.
“We need[ed] community venues — spaces to activate the community to develop and build our neighborhoods,” Kelly said.
The first location Kelly rented was an out-of-business hookah bar. Inch-thick layers of soot covered every surface, including the broken furniture and cracked floors.
Kelly said he and his business partner Liza Mitchell went to work, cleaning six hours a day for two months.
The finished product became Exhibit [A], a functioning gallery and community space. Kelly negotiated for free rent in exchange for cleaning and repairing the buildings.
Once functional, the space became a public art gallery for neighborhood associations, musicians and artists, although still available for lease.
Kelly doesn’t charge artists to show their work at Exhibit [A], and there are no fees to hold an event. Up to 15 events are hosted every month.
Sadnik said he wanted to develop a live music scene. After graduation, he moved to San Francisco, but returned to Long Beach after a year.
“When I came back, I realized — after talking with my friends who were still living in the area — that the live music and live jazz scene, in particular, here were still kind of struggling,” he said.
So Sadnik and two other CSULB music graduates, Doug Carter and James Yoshizawa, decided to find a place where local musicians could play concerts — that place was Exhibit [A].
Sadnik approached Kelly with the proposal and received an enthusiastic go-ahead. Break the Mold, an independent concert series that is currently funded solely through donations, was then developed.
The audience is encouraged to donate $10 each. A fraction of the money grossed goes to the gallery for time slots and upkeep, but the majority of the earnings go to the musicians.
“There are a lot of places you can play at in Long Beach where if you want to put a little something together [for no compensation], it’s fine,” Sadnik said. “But since we’re all professional musicians, we’ve been wanting to find a place where we can be treated like professional musicians, where we can be paid.”
So far, the concerts have been a mix of their own bands — the James Yoshizawa Sextet, the Doug Carter Sextet and the Alex Sadnik Quartet — along with the Los Angeles Jazz Collective and some local talent who have learned about Break the Mold by word-of-mouth.
“[But] we’ve also been trying to give more nights to Cal State Long Beach students,” Sadnik said.
Break the Mold was aptly named after young jazz musicians who are hoping to develop their reputation and break into the live music scene.
The concert series schedule is available at facebook.com/breakthemoldlongbeach.
The next event is scheduled for 8 p.m. on Oct. 21, and will feature Anthony Shadduck’s double quartet, who, with a live painting performance by Norton Wisdom, will present an homage to legendary 1960s jazz musician Ornette Coleman.
Exhibit [A] is located at 555 Pine Ave.
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