Prompt #7: Camilla George & Friends at Ronnie Scott's

I nearly gate-crashed the most famous jazz club in the world. The rest of my group disappeared and, thinking nothing of it, I "followed" them past the bouncers, throwing a perfunctory "I'm with the group" in their direction as I passed. I casually strode through the doors and into the dimly lit, red-carpeted hallway. Over my shoulder came a "Wait, Miss! What group??" Yikes! Busted! See below for a couple of blurry pictures, taken after I finally gained (legal) admittance into Ronnie Scott's.

    

    Ronnie Scott’s jazz club was a pioneer venue in what is now an £86.77 million industry, with 45,000 jazz performances per year in the UK. Read more about the economics of the UK’s contemporary jazz industry here. Tenor saxophonist Ronnie Scott founded the club in 1959 in Soho, which was then a nearly century-old, but still bustling, entertainment district. Jazz was still a relatively new genre, and Scott was responsible for bringing the sound of modern jazz saxophone to the UK. In the 1950s, the British Musicians’ Union had orchestrated heavy restrictions on foreign music, both live and recorded, so jazz (an American genre) was uncommon in the UK. Scott joined the dance band on the cruise ship Queen Mary, which made frequent transatlantic trips to New York City, where he immersed himself in bebop, the newest iteration of jazz. Read more about Ronnie Scott’s biograph here. Ronnie Scott and business partner Pete King borrowed money from a relative and opened the first iteration of the club. Through negotiations with the British Musicians’ Union, they secured permission to bring the first American jazz musicians to a club in the UK and thereafter quickly outgrew their initial location. They relocated to the famous Frith Street club, which I visited, in 1966. I love this image of Ronnie Scott with Ella Fitzgerald in 1963 (Getty Images)!

Jazz has been avant-garde since its inception. Its inherently progressive bent has catapulted the genre into a renaissance among younger audiences and musicians. Camilla George and Friends are part of a new generation of jazz artists with multicultural and multigenerational appeal. George’s band makes music with many of the traditional elements of jazz. All of the musicians had sheet music on their stands, presumably charts of the form of each song. These charts were clearly more of a suggestion than a blueprint of the sonic landscape for the evening. Each song had a distinct feel and melody, but in practice consisted of a series of solos. Musicians passed the melody around, varying it dramatically as they improvised over the chords played by the other instruments. All of the musicians played sensitively, shining a metaphorical spotlight on each soloist in turn by modifying their playing to “sit back”. On several occasions, the drummer, bassist, and electric guitarist created polyphonic, polyrhythmic sounds that was absolutely brilliant. Camilla George blended these traditional elements of jazz with African rhythms to create a unique, Afro-futuristic sound.

The atmosphere was perfect for sweet progressive jazz (see image below from The Gentleman’s Journal). I ordered a whiskey sour and a ribeye with a red wine jus, shallot salad, and new potatoes. Predictably, I was still hungry after my notably large meal, so I polished off someone else’s fries and a fried gherkin! I can’t wait to come back to Ronnie Scott’s with my fiancé, Nathan; a trip back to London can’t come soon enough!