We sat there, taking turns sipping our drinks and sharing our favorite YouTube Video music gems. She told me she DJ’d hip-hop nights at some nearby bar. She suggested a game. On the count of three, we’d say the song from Earth, Wind, and Fire we loved most. On that three-count, we each said Can’t Hide Love. That was at a little bar called ETA.
I don’t think I’d been on a date where we were so in tune (no pun intended) on music preferences. We finished our drinks and oysters and waited for the musician Jeff Parker, a staple of ETA, at the bar, where we enjoyed our date. While our date didn’t lead to a lasting romance, the bar served as a tried and true Wingman, as it had for so many over its seven years in operation.
I came to ETA on the occasional date. Still, mostly, I’d come here to listen to good music, mostly jazz, and a couple of times, some sort of sonic exploration beyond my ability to comprehend but within my grasp to appreciate. After the Blue Whale shuttered, the options for appreciating live jazz became fewer and fewer.
On December 30, 2023, ETA, the small but well-loved little bar located on Highland Park’s buzzy and hip Figueroa corridor, had its last night of service. The line to get in strung around the corner on Avenue 57.
Los Angeles is a large and sprawling metropolis, and it’s hard to find a community here. Whether it intended to or not, ETA served as that friend, the connector, who effortlessly helped people find each other within its space to come out of their shells.
The drinks were as well made as the keys pressed on the piano, strings plucked on the guitar, or the notes blowing from the varied brass were true.
The thing about ETA that I’ll miss is that a person could come here and find a small community of passionate music lovers who appreciate the craft. In a city full of strangers, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with people sharing the same experience was nice. My conversations were too few and too short to be memorable, but they did a lot for someone who, too often, feels like a wallflower in life’s various spaces. Everyone has a story to tell, and so does ETA. ETA spent its time as a place for people to relax and enjoy life’s simple and good things with others (or by themselves).
Thank you for seven great years, ETA. I miss you already.