Gene Perla: The Jazz Haus

Overview

Remembering Elvin Jones: Live at the Lighthouse. Revisit powerful music from the iconic 1972 Live at the Lighthouse gig with one of the group’s founding members, bassist Gene Perla. When the Elvin Jones group, which included David Liebman, Steve Grossman, and Gene Perla, played this famous gig at the Lighthouse Café in Hermosa Beach, California (Los Angeles), it was recorded and released, and it instantly became a seminal recording in jazz!

Gene Perla has been important to jazz not only as a bassist but also as the owner of two record labels. Perla studied as a pianist at the Berklee College of Music and the Boston Conservatory of Music. He eventually switched to bass and picked up notable experience with Woody Herman’s Orchestra (1969-70), the Thad Jones-Mel Lewis Orchestra, Sarah Vaughan, Elvin Jones (1971-73) and Sonny Rollins.

In the mid-1970s Perla formed the PM (Perla Music) label and a little later also ran Plug; among the musicians that he recorded were Dave Liebman, Elvin Jones, Steve Grossman, Pat LaBarbera and (for Plug) Jerry Bergonzi among others. Perla formed the group Stone Alliance (which also included Grossman and percussionist Don Alias) in 1975 and has remained quite active as both a bassist and as a jazz educator up to the present time. - Scott Yanow