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The Ambassador Hotel was opened in 1921, designed to provide then-booming Los Angeles with a truly world-class hotel, and it remained an LA landmark (even after its closure in 1989) until its demolition in 2005. Soon after opening, its ballroom was converted into an opulent nightclub named the Cocoanut Grove, intended to attract the glitterati of nearby Hollywood. The Grove quickly became the place in LA to see and be seen, and hosted the Academy Awards six times before 1943.

The Cocoanut Grove nightclub

In late 1962, when this album was recorded, the nightclub was still a sight to behold, placing you in the midst of an Arabian oasis with faux palms trees and a roof with twinkling stars. Everyone who was anyone had performed there, and it was a fitting location for Reprise Records to record its first live album, which would become its first double LP set. For Sammy, this was his second live record, following Sammy Davis, Jr. At Town Hall in 1958.

The LP finds Sammy Davis, Jr. at the zenith of his powers as an entertainer – he is in good voice, he is in total command of the audience, and he exhibits his full range of talents: singing, impressions, comedy, dancing, and finishing with a jam session in which he plays both drums and vibraphone. It gives you an excellent sense of what made him such a dynamic live performer – who else could provide this variety to a nightclub audience? For a good sense of Sammy Davis, Jr.’s talents as a singer, however, this wouldn’t be the first place to go looking: of the 70 minutes, Sammy spends only about 30 actually singing.

The rest of the runtime is spent delighting his audience on a range of fronts. He does a virtual stand-up routine on old movies for five minutes, does a Sinatra impression on “River Stay ’Way From My Door”, his full range of impressions on “Rock-a-bye Your Baby With A Dixie Melody”, breaks out some soft-shoe as well (although no tapping) and jives to “Hound Dog” and “What’d I Say”.

Over the course of the record, Sammy makes special note to spotlight the supporting musicians who form part of his travelling entourage – in particular he does two medleys, one with the sole accompaniment of Michael Silva on drums, and the other with Johnny Mendoza on bongos. Also featured is Terry Rosen on guitar and Reunald Jones on trumpet; Sammy’s musical director George Rhodes conducts the Cocoanut Grove house band, the Dick Stabile Orchestra, which provides Sammy with excellent support.

The Cocoanut Grove nightclub had an interesting relationship with Sammy Davis, Jr. He performed at it several times throughout his career, and following his close friend Robert F. Kennedy’s assassination there (in the kitchen of the Ambassador Hotel in 1968), Sammy invested heavily in the club and remodelled it, re-opening it in 1970 as the ‘Now Grove’. The relaunch was a commercial failure (hardly the only venture of Sammy’s to end in such a way during the 1970s).

The album Sammy Davis, Jr. At The Cocoanut Grove is anything but a failure, however; it gives you a ringside seat for a performance by the world’s greatest entertainer at the peak of his popularity.