‘Younger audiences are less afraid of it’: Why London’s jazz clubs are expanding and thriving against the odds | jazz

ASmall concert venues across the country are looking anxiously to their future amid rising utility prices and the cost of living crisis, and one corner of the live music scene appears to be thriving: London’s jazz clubs.

The Jazz Café is expanding its Camden venue and opening an east London location, Ronnie Scott is being renovated, and New York’s iconic Blue Note club, which has already expanded to Japan, Brazil, Italy and China, will open its first London venue next year. While financial pressures remain, a host of other, smaller venues are attracting vibrant new audiences.

“I’ll be doing this for 50 next year and, to be honest, I’ve seen quite a few ‘comebacks,'” says Steve Robbie, owner of the 606 Club in Chelsea. But he adds that there is something really different today. “Younger audiences are less afraid of jazz. It’s just music to them.”

This openness and freedom has been the driver of London’s world-famous jazz scene over the past decade, as young musicians who have been learning their craft at Tomorrow’s Warriors and the city’s music schools have also taken up clubs, from late-night jazz gigs at Ronnie Scott’s to impromptu jazz gigs at Steam Down events – all attracting an equally global audience.

Among those artists was the Ezra Group, which won the Mercury Prize and played Wembley Arena, and that kind of success is rooted in jazz clubs, “the pulse of the jazz scene,” according to Aisling Doherty, program coordinator at the EFG London Jazz Festival, which returns for its 33rd year this week. A line-up of concerts at the festival to celebrate club jazz seeks to “honour the day-to-day venues” of London’s thriving scene, Doherty says.

At Ronnie Scott’s, the most famous of these venues in London, live jazz in the afternoon may attract more traditional listeners than listeners in their 20s and 30s who will come for a late show featuring live remixes and broken beats. But at Kennington’s Toulouse-Lautrec, classics of the genre are finding new fans. “Young people are keen to learn more about the history of music,” says director Nolan Regent, who points to the popularity of their Music series, which explores the works of prominent figures from jazz history. “I love that they listen to old jazz styles.”

As the jazz audience grows, so do the city’s clubs. The Jazz Café extends into an adjacent building, and in May it was granted planning permission to turn an art deco theater in Stratford into a new outpost. Ronnie Scott has completely renovated the upstairs space into a new boutique venue, which will open in February; Its green room will double as a members’ bar, where performers and audiences can mingle after the gig, with a piano for impromptu playing.

The Blue Note will come to Covent Garden in 2026, overcoming concerns from police and local residents that its 1am closing time could lead to a “spike in crime” in the area – committed against jazz fans, not by them. But a late license was granted in May, and the space in the basement of the St Martin’s Lane Hotel is now being renovated to accommodate two performance spaces and a kitchen.

While these high-profile clubs arrive or expand, popular music venues in the UK face a “crisis of rising costs and closures”, according to the government’s cross-party Culture, Media and Sport Committee. Research by the Music Venue Trust (MVT) found that almost half of popular venues were operating at a loss last year.

Many are still struggling to recover from the Covid lockdown, and London’s jazz clubs are no exception. Vortex in Dalston turned to crowdfunding in 2020 to stay afloat and, like many places, relies on volunteers. Kansas Smitty’s on Broadway Market closed during the pandemic and never reopened. The small basement space was a dynamic setting for the house band’s lively swing — and the complete opposite of social distancing. But for clarinetist and saxophonist Giacomo Smith, who co-founded the venue in 2015, the decision not to reopen was not purely financial. “You only have one career, and for me, I want to play,” he says. “I don’t think musicians should start jazz clubs, just like I don’t think chefs should start restaurants. Because they care too much. At the end of the day, the business has to be successful.”

The cross-party committee has proposed a ticket tax on live music events at arena level – whether voluntary, run by an organization like the MVT, or government-run, as has existed in France since the 1980s – to return money to grassroots venues that are vital to musicians’ artistic development and their ability to make a living, and where “there is electricity… between musicians and audience,” Smith says. In small venues, Robbie adds, “being an audience member is just as important as being a band member. It’s a shared project.”

In a time of polarization, there’s renewed value to the intimate, dimly lit rooms where veteran jazz students congregate with young, diverse new fans in the name of the music they love. So what can people do to support local clubs? “Visit them regularly!” says Robbie, adding that it’s also helpful to show support for places on social media. Regent says he sees a lot of people coming to parties alone. “Bring a friend,” he suggests. “Music should bring people together.”