Ronnie Scott gets a gong
It was bucketing down; more like an Asian monsoon than gentle British rain. Appropriate, I suppose, as there were a hundred of us gathered in Chinatown getting soaked. Suddenly a saxophonist stuck his head out of an upstairs window and started to play.
English Heritage were honouring the old jazzer, Ronnie Scott, with a blue plaque at the location of his original club on Gerrard Street. The weather was not playing along.
On the plaque Ronnie is cited as jazz musician and raconteur. His gags were legendary: ‘I love this club, it’s just like home: filthy and full of strangers.’ Or how about: ‘You don’t seem very impressed. Why don’t you all hold hands and see if you can contact the living?……It’s the first time I’ve seen dead people smoke.
The club was located on Gerrard Street from 1959 until 1965 and was an attempt to emulate the smoky jazz clubs of New York. They presented many famous musicians there: Zoot Sims, Roland Kirk, Dexter Gordon, Sonny Stitt, Stan Getz and Ben Webster.
Of course, these names will mean nothing to many people so how about Jimi Hendrix, Nina Simone, Jeff Beck, Van Morrison and Prince who’ve all appeared at the club where it now resides on Frith Street.
Simon Cooke, the MD at the club, who’s a mate of mine said: “Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Club has led the way in British Jazz for 60 years through its innovative programming and championing of the music and musicians. An English Heritage Blue Plaque is a fine acknowledgement of the contribution that Ronnie Scott himself made to the British Jazz scene.” He also said a lot of stuff that was entirely unprintable.
I should declare an interest here and that interest is I love jazz and have been going to the club since the late 70’s. In fact, I was there last night to see the mighty Mingus Big Band.
Coincidently I was also there the night Ronnie died on 23rd December 1996. George Melly was appearing as he did for years over the Christmas period and rather bizarrely, said nothing about Ronnie’s passing.
But back to happier matters, as the rain beat down the saxophonist (Alex Garnett, part of the club’s house band) played Ronnie Scott’s own saxophone to wild and wet applause as Ronnie’s widow Mary looked on.
Ronnie’s is a London treasure; a fantastic venue presenting wonderful musicians and for a jazz club even the food is pretty good. Make sure you get along there sometime soon.
A Little London Life 