On 30 October Ronnie Scott’s is fifty years old, a remarkable feat for a jazz club set deep in the heart of a great, throbbing, constantly changing, capital city. Since 1959 when the club opened its doors for the first time in a tiny basement in Gerrard Street, Chinatown before moving six years later to bigger premises in Soho, the world has come to Ronnie Scott’s and kept on coming back. While Ronnie himself died in 1996, Pete King, the constant presence by his side and heart and soul of the club faced up to the responsibility of running the club until his retirement, eventually handing over the torch to the current keeper of the flame, Sally Greene, who embarked on a new phase with a major refurbishment three years ago. To mark the milestone, Jack Massarik remembers the good, the bad and even the ugly times, on Gerrard Street and Frith Street, and celebrates an institution musicians and fans can call their very own.

To run a jazz club, indeed any stable enterprise, for half a century is something to marvel at. Governments topple by the dozen in that time. Countries change names and even populations. Certainly Britain has changed immensely in the last 50 years. Back in October 1959, when the Queen’s head was not yet on banknotes, London had no supermarkets or fast-food chains. Bombsites, used as car parks, still reminded people of the war that would keep Britain in debt for decades. But that year a £500 runabout, the Mini, was launched in Birmingham and Britain’s first short stretch of motorway opened. The Prime Minister, Harold Macmillan, told voters they’d never had it so good and they believed him. In October his Tory party was re-elected with an increased majority. That month Eamon de Valera also became the Irish president, singer Mario Lanza and film actor Erroll Flynn died and the Soviet spaceprobe Luna 3 sent back the first pictures of the far side of the moon. Bobby Darin, giving his Sinatra impression on ‘Mack the Knife’, was top of the pops. Sarah Ferguson, Duchess of York, TV pundit Simon Cowell, bluesman Kelly Joe Phelps, singers Kirsty MacColl, Youssou N’Dour and Marie Osmond all drew their first breath. Nottingham Forest held the FA Cup and Burnley (an omen?) were reigning league champions. A Chicago publisher named Hugh Hefner opened his first Playboy Club, and in a small basement in Soho’s Chinatown, two jobbing saxophonists, Ronnie Scott and Pete King opened a jazz club. They called it Ronnie Scott’s.

This is an extract from Jazzwise Issue #135 – to read the full article click here to subscribe and receive a FREE Blue Note CD