Jazz, it’s minefield. Take a wrong step in your quest to see live jazz
in London and you could live to regret it. You’re as likely to find
yourself in a dingy back room watching some burnt out alcoholic play a
mournful trombone and recite bad poetry, as you are to be treated to
licks laid down by some of the world’s best jazz musicians.
Given this city’s size, and the amount of musicians who call it home,
it’s no surprise there’s a proliferation of places hosting occasional
jazz gigs. There are however only a handful of places where you are
pretty much guaranteed seeing quality artists on any given night of the
week.

The best place to trawl for jazz is Soho, home to two of London’s most
reputable – and therefore most expensive – jazz clubs: Ronnie Scott’s
and The Pizza Express Jazz Cafe.

Ronnie Scott’s, the city’s longest-running jazz club, recently
celebrated 45 years of serving up top quality jazz from across the
globe. The frosty reception at the door and the £15 and up you’ll have
to dish out to get inside are worth enduring to see the calibre of
artists who play at this legendary venue. A large sit-down joint with
red walls and tables topped with tiny red shaded lamps that give off
barely enough light to read the menu, Ronnie’s oozes atmosphere.
Watching over the proceedings are hundreds of black and white portraits
of the greats, past and present, who have preached jazz from Ronnie’s
stage.

The opening act gets on stage at 9:30, and the party comes to a
reluctant halt around 3am. Book a table in advance, it beats standing
at the tiny bar area, or worse, waiting in the queue outside for a
space to become available.

Two streets away is the Pizza Express Jazz club. This is no mere
pizzeria with a jazz act tucked away in the corner. The venue, nestled
in a suitably dark cellar beneath the restaurant, its existence
proclaimed by a neon a sax above the outside stairwell, is everything
one would expect from a jazz club in one of the world’s greatest
cities. Van Morrison and Nina Simone are amongst the multitude of
prolific names who have graced this venue. The atmosphere is more
formal and reserved than Ronnie Scott’s, and the artists tend to be on
the more commercial end of the scale. It’s the sort of place the
Baptist Women’s Auxiliary Bowling Club could safely book a table at to
celebrate a member’s birthday, if they had the money.

Still in Soho, but lighter on the pocket, and less likely to be booked
out by the Baptist Women’s Auxiliary Bowling Club, are Jazz After Dark
and Spice of Life.

Jazz After Dark is a tiny cornershop joint with black walls, mirrors,
mirrors, mirrors, and cheesy neon signs rescued from the eighties. The
bands are a bit hit and miss, and you’d be well advised to hang about
outside and listen for a while before handing over your fiver.

Spice of Life, in Moor Street, an airy, welcoming pub with friendly
staff, and good, if very standard pub grub, has been a home for live
music since the sixties. Wednesday and Thursday are jazz nights in
Spice’s cosy bare brick and dark wood Backstage Bar, located in the
obligatory cellar. The end of the evening on Wednesdays is open mic
session, so if you’ve ever fancied yourself as a jazz vocalist, here’s
your chance. If you have no plans to return to work after lunch on a
Friday, you may want to check out their afternoon jazz session, which
runs from 12:30 to 14:30.

Of course, no article on the city’s jazz scene would be complete
without mentioning Camden’s Jazz Café. Of all the city’s establishments
with jazz in their title, this one has the least emphasis on being
strictly a jazz venue. Acts run the gamut from hip-hop to soul, funk
and a whole lot in between. Whatever genre the acts are, they’re always
pretty well known, and are usually pretty damn good. The crowd is as
hip as you’d expect to see in a trendy Camden nightspot, and the
presence of a dance floor gives the club an up-for-it party vibe
lacking in many of the city’s other jazz venues.

The southern side of the city, as many will tell you, is not without its charms, and this is certainly true of the jazz scene.

First stop, Victoria, where a deep red facade and fleet of black cabs
on Eccleston Street announces that you have arrived at the home of
Boisdale. Boisdale’s restaurant has won its fair share of awards, and
the bar boasts a mind-boggling selection of whiskies and cigars. The
staff are incredibly friendly, and the jazz meets the same high
standards set by the rest of the establishment. There is no dress code,
but Boisdale is littered with city banker types, so you may want to try
looking smart.

Also on the upmarket end of the scale is Club 606 in Chelsea. Named
after its original home at 606 Kings Road, the club moved to Lots
Street about 15 years ago. Non-members (membership costs £95 per year)
can only be served alcohol with a meal from the affordable, impressive
and ever-changing menu, with the door charge added to the bill at the
end of the night. The club is known for hosting a lot of up-and-coming
names on the jazz circuit and is a favourite hang out for a lot of
musos.

Across the river, in the Deep South, are the Bulls Head in Barnes and La QuecumBar in Battersea.

A lot of respected names have played at the Bulls Head since it started
doing live music in the late fifties. Unfortunately, the venue today is
drab and lacking in the main prerequisite for a jazz venue, soul. The
front bar is tired and worn, and the back room, where the jazz is kept,
manages to recreate the atmosphere of watching a recital in the
function room of a cheap hotel. In its defence, the Bulls Head does
still book a lot of top-notch artists, and their Sunday afternoon
sessions remain very popular. Sadly, one gets the feeling the Bulls
Head established a reputation a long time ago, and has done little
since then but rest on its laurels.

La QuecumBar in Battersea on the other hand, the youngest of all the
clubs yet mentioned, is also slightly out of the way, but well worth
the trip. Ever-present owner Sylvia Rushbrooke has succeeded in
combining music, decor and atmosphere to transport you to 1930’s Paris.
It’s an experience you are guaranteed not to get anywhere else.
Sylvia’s remarkable establishment is the only venue in Europe, outside
of Paris, that specialises in gypsy swing, a fusion of traditional jazz
and gypsy folk music. If the music here doesn’t move you, nothing will.

So there you have it, a rough, and by no means definitive, guide to the
better jazz clubs in London. Be sure to take in a few of these before
venturing to lesser known, and riskier venues around the capital. You
can take the advice, or as I did, you can learn by trial and error.
Whatever you choose, good luck. And hey – let’s be careful out there.