1934

Fleeing the Nazis (who had branded his modernist compositions “degenerate”), Austrian composer Arnold Schoenberg arrives in the Hollywood Hills to teach music. Two years later, Schoenberg will be appointed a UCLA professor on a salary of $5,400 a year, which allows him to buy a home across the street from Shirley Temple. He becomes a tennis partner of George Gershwin.

1936

George Gershwin arrives in Hollywood to work on a Fred Astaire movie; Gershwin had written “Strike Up the Band” for the 1927 Broadway musical of the same title, and he and his brother Ira donate a revamped version of the song to UCLA. They are paid in swag and game tickets. Today, the UCLA band still plays a jaunty arrangement before football games.

1937

Jazz giant Edward Kennedy “Duke” Ellington is playing at Frank Sebastian’s Cotton Club in Culver City when two UCLA students make an audacious request: Would he play a campus concert for free? He agrees, and students pack Royce Hall; the band bus mistakenly heads for USC (the indignity!), turning up two hours late. The show — Ellington’s first concert performance in America — is later immortalized with a Robert Graham–sculpted maquette outside Schoenberg Hall.

The forerunner of the Center for the Art of Performance launches its first subscription season at Royce Hall in 1937, headlined by famed African American contralto Marian Anderson. Two years later, Anderson will become world famous after the Daughters of the American Revolution block her from singing at Constitution Hall. First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt resigns from the DAR in protest and helps organize a national broadcast of a concert by Anderson from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.

1945

Early UCLA fraternities begin a spirited tradition of serenading sorority sisters; William Ackerman ’24, tennis coach at UCLA, organizes a “sing-off” among 11 groups. Spring Sing is born.

 

1952

Spending his last years living above the Sunset Strip, reclusive Russian conductor Igor Stravinsky gives a rare performance at the Royce podium, leading the Los Angeles Chamber Symphony Orchestra in a program heavy on 18th-century masters such as Bach and Haydn.

1961

Ella Fitzgerald plays Royce in a performance packed with tunes by her favorite composers: Thelonious Monk, Benny Goodman and George Gershwin. A resident of Beverly Hills, the “Queen of Jazz” was a Royce season ticket holder.”

1964

The Thelonious Monk Quartet takes an autumnal evening off from recording its Live at the It Club album at the eponymous Washington Boulevard jazz venue to appear at Royce, where, Monk says, the sound is “sweet.” It’s later revealed he was talking about the fee.

As a seasonal gift, Bob Dylan pegs all ticket prices for his December 6 Royce gig at one dollar. He will return to UCLA for two nights in May 1998, this time to perform at Pauley Pavilion with Joni Mitchell and Van Morrison. Scalpers will ask $2,000 per ticket.

 

1967

The Student Culture Commission invites Nina Simone to open its fall jazz season at Royce; the program contains a warning to patrons that while the singer is known for her passionate pleas for racial justice, this should not be misunderstood as anger. Simone dies shortly before she is due to return to Royce in 2003.

Purists contend that the Los Angeles Jazz Festival at Pauley Pavilion May 12–14 is the apogee of the West Coast jazz scene: Ornette Coleman, John Handy and Carmen McRae all appear. But the clincher for the boast may be Miles Davis playing songs from Kind of Blue, routinely voted the best jazz album of all time.

1968

Jimi Hendrix plays the 1,200-seat Ackerman Union Grand Ballroom on February 13; author Michael Thomas reports that adulation runs so high that some men cry and try to kiss the guitarist’s boots.

1970

In August, an unknown Elton John plays his first U.S. gig at the Troubadour, in West Hollywood. By the time he finishes his tour with a December 6 gig at Royce, he is a rock ’n’ roll star. On this same night, Bernie Taupin completes the lyrics to “Tiny Dancer,” perfectly capturing the California spirit. John will return to Royce in 2003.

1971

Neil Young’s breakthrough album, Harvest, is enhanced by the first live version of “The Needle and the Damage Done,” an ode to lost friends, which the singer-songwriter records at Royce on January 30. In 2022, Young releases an album of the entire acoustic concert.

1972

Linda Ronstadt is a supporting act when the Eagles play Royce on December 2. Half the Eagles have previously been in Ronstadt’s backing band, so they join her on some songs — proving how intimate the Laurel Canyon scene really is.

 

1978

On Sunday, October 28, the Ramones play 32 songs in under 100 minutes at Royce, from “Blitzkrieg Bop” to “Judy Is a Punk.” Ticket price: $8.

1983

On May 8, Fleetwood Mac’s Stevie Nicks, accompanied by Christine McVie and Mick Fleetwood, drops the flag to start a 10K “rock and run” charity marathon out of UCLA’s Drake Stadium. Also on stage: Eddie Money, Jane Wiedlin of the Go-Go’s, Rick Nielsen of Cheap Trick and Bonnie Raitt, who later joins the Fleetwood Mac crew to sing “Rhiannon” and several other Mac classics.

1985

Louisiana-born country singer-songwriter Lucinda Williams is a regular performer at the Ackerman coffee shop: In 2016, laden with Grammys and other awards, she will return to perform at a sold-out Royce.

1986

Welsh rock band the Alarm makes history when its May gig from the base of Janss Steps is filmed by MTV and broadcast live to Europe via an experimental NASA satellite. Some 25,000 concertgoers attend in person, and countless more watch from across the world.

On Memorial Day 1986, student jazz enthusiast Ron Richards ’88, M.B.A. ’95, J.D. ’95 gathers his friends to put on a small musical gig at UCLA Sunset Canyon Recreation Center. It eventually blossoms into the JazzReggae Festival, the largest student-run music festival in the U.S. The annual gathering offers alternative jazz, jam and reggae days and attracts such marquee acts as Ziggy Marley, Erykah Badu, Snoop Dogg, the Roots and Jill Scott — what the Daily Bruin eventually labels a “quality hodgepodge.”

1994

Pauley Pavilion hosts film composer Henry Mancini’s 70th birthday party, during which the composer is awarded the UCLA Medal, the university’s highest honor; a star-studded celebrity roster attends. Luciano Pavarotti gives a 40-minute performance, and Andy Williams sings Mancini’s Oscar-winning “Moon River,” from Breakfast at Tiffany’s. There is cake.

 

2002

The first U.S. version of All Tomorrow’s Parties, the peripatetic music festival, is curated by Sonic Youth. Artists include Beck, Television, Cat Power and Stereolab, performing at Royce and Ackerman. Reviews focus on Detroit’s Destroy All Monsters, which rewrites a football anthem to be extremely rude about the Bruins.

2006

Playboy magazine asks British guitarist Richard Thompson to nominate the 10 greatest songs of the millennium. To the magazine’s surprise, he puts together a roster of jaunty tunes dating back to 1260 A.D., through the Renaissance, the Shakespearean canon, the Civil War and Britney Spears; he subsequently performs the set at a sold-out Royce. Variety labels it the most diverse show of the new millennium.

2008

McCabe’s Guitar Shop, the tiny Santa Monica venue famed for great shows and hard seats, holds a five-hour 50th anniversary party at Royce. The stars come out, but the night is dominated by the final appearance of the legendary Odetta, often called “the voice of the Civil Rights Movement.” The 77-year-old folk singer caps the night with a stirring performance of “House of the Rising Sun.”

2009

Rapper Jay-Z sells out the 13,800 seats of Pauley in minutes, even before the word has leaked that he will be joined on stage by Rihanna. He is backed by musician Pharrell Williams, who is on the cusp of world stardom with his own range of happy hip-hop and floppy hats.

2013

On May 3, the UCLA Bruin Marching Band opens for the Rolling Stones at the Staples Center, performing a brassy rendition of “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction” before 19,000 screaming fans. The band is no stranger to the entertainment industry, having appeared onscreen in movies ranging from 1960’s Elmer Gantry to 2009’s 500 Days of Summer.

2018

Tarzana-born rapper Doja Cat celebrates the release of her first album at Royce. She is backed by Kilo Kish, Sudan Archive and the UCLA Afro-Cuban Ensemble.


Read more from UCLA Magazine’s Fall 2024 issue.