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Murder, drugs, royalty... and all that jazz
Diana and her lover, the Kray twins and countless stars the worse for wear – iconic jazz club Ronnie Scott’s has seen it all in its 60-year history
Behind the bar at Ronnie Scott’s, next to the bottles of Scotch, there is a mag nu m of Mumm Champagne, a 1964 vintage. It’s been there since shortly after the jazz club opened its doors, and is a constant reminder of the club’s links to a very different Soho than the one visitors now experience.
Ronnie Scott’s is possibly the most famous jazz club in the world, a place where everyone from Ella Fitzgerald, Jimi Hendrix and Nina Simone to Prince, Lou Reed and Lady Gaga have performed and where British royalty has rubbed shoulders with rock royalty for the past 60 years. Princess Diana, Elton John, the Rolling Stones and Kate Moss are just some of the regulars to have squashed onto the red velvet banquettes to watch a gig. Now it’s about to celebrate its 60th birthday with a gala concert at the Royal Albert Hall later this month with stars including Courtney Pine, Nigel Kennedy, Georgie
Fame and Van Morrison.
In its early days, however, the club was part of a Soho that was seedy and dangerous. The magnum of Champagne was given to the club’s original owners, Ronnie Scott and Peter King, by a gangster called Albert Dimes. ‘In those days, Soho gangsters were all about protection money,’ explains Simon Cooke, managing director of the club. ‘They’d say, “Give me £50 a week or your place will go up in flames.” This street was under Dimes’s control, but he took Ronnie and Peter under his wing and gave them the bot- tle of Champagne as a gift when they moved into these premises. It was a symbol no one would touch them.’ And why was Ronnie Scott’sScotts given this special treatment? ‘Ah, this is where it gets interesting – because Ronnie witnessed a murder near the
club. This story comes from Ronnie himself. A gangster was doing the deed and Ronnie happened to turn into the street where it was happening. He thought, “Bloody hell!”, but kept his head down and didn’t tell anyone. And because he didn’t squeal, he never had to pay protection money.’
The murderer was possibly an associate of the Kray twins, but the details are murky, admits Simon. He’s now been in charge for 11 years – ‘you get less for manslaughter,’ he deadpans – and helped rescue the club from near-collapse following a tricky period when it was taken over by new owners 14 years ago. They had a rocky start, jacking up prices, booking celebrities (Michael Bublé and Craig David) rather than great performers and annoying the regulars. The problems were exacerbated by ‘some managers who were insufficiently experienced,’ says Simon, who was brought in to steady the ship in 2008. ‘It was daunting, taking over, more so than I thought,’ he says.
Simon, 62, had run clubs before, and was also the ‘money man’ for Queen, organising their merchandise and accompanying them on tour. But Ronnie Scott’s was a bigger challenge. ‘It’s a national institution,’ he says. ‘If it were to suddenly shut down, people would be upset.’ The club’s reputation has been cemented by the roll call of names to have played on its tiny stage. Gwyneth Paltrow has sung Killing Me Softly, Kate
Moss has duetted with Chrissie Hynde of The Pretenders, and last year a guitar-wielding Johnny Depp accompanied Ronnie Wood and Jeff Beck for an evening of Chuck Berry songs. ‘Johnny’s really nice, but a bit of a loose cannon. He’d been trying to come here for months, and when we finally nailed down a date it coincided with an evening when Ronnie Wood was doing the main show.’ So they all agreed to jam together. Was Johnny any good? ‘ Yeah,’ says Simon, not very convincingly.
Another Hollywood legend was Jeff Goldblum,Goldblum the Jurassic Park actor,actor who released a jazz album last year and performed for a couple of nights at the club. ‘He’s so entertaining,’ says Simon. ‘Most acts do their soundcheck and then hide in the dressing room until 7.30pm. But Jeff stood in the lobby and said hello to everyone as they came in. It was hilarious.’
Eclipsing them all was Lady Gaga, back in 2015, who at the last minute had to cancel a performance at the Albert Hall because her co-star Tony Bennett, then aged 88, was ill. ‘So her trumpet player said, “Do you fancy playing at Ronnie’s? I know the piiano player there.” She turned up with hher entourage in a Rolls-Royce and aasked for nothing more than a bottle of whisky. She sang Cher’s Bang Bang ( My Baby Shot Me Down) draped over the piano, Luck Be A Lady and The Lady Is A Tramp. ‘It was a really good show. She knows her jazz,’ says Simon. Towards the end she did Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien, which she had to sing off a piece of paper, admitting that one too many whiskies had made her forget the words. She left at 3am, the worse for wear, but having given a performance anyone lucky enough to have seen will remember for a long time.
She was a pussycat compared to some of the singers who’ve trod Ronnie’s boards. Jazz legend Nina Simone would specify a bottle of Champagne and a meal every night and would electrify the room – when she bothered to show up. Chet Baker, ‘the James Dean of Jazz’, a brilliant trumpeter who was addicted to heroin, was often too high to even pick up his instrument. ‘But we risked it because he was such a great player,’ Peter King recalled.
Punters started to flock to the club, especially following its move to bigger premises on Frith Street in 1965. Its reputation in turn attracted a glitzy clientele, including Princess Margaret. ‘She conducted her affair with Peter Sellers in the club,’ says Simon. ‘It was a place they could meet without attracting scandal.’ She wasn’t the only royal guest. Prince Charles visited when jazz and marijuana were as common a pairing as gin and tonic. After touring backstage, he asked a perplexed Ronnie if he paid his musicians adequately. ‘I couldn’t help wondering why they were all sharing the same cigarette,’ the prince said. Princess Diana would come with her lover Hasnat Khan, the heart surgeon and jazz lover, in the 90s. She’d wear a wig as a disguise and in the gloomy atmosphere of the club ‘no one noticed her’, says Simon. It was never plain sailing for the management. A VAT bill of £40,000 nearly scuppered them in the early 80s, and Ronnie’s death in 1996 was a serious blow. He’d been suffering from toothache, but an operation to extract the tooth meant he couldn’t play saxophone, which exacerbated his depression. Too much brandy and painkillers was
‘Margaretand Peter Sellers conductedan affair there’
the immediate cause of death, which a coroner recorded as ‘misadventure’; some of his friends believe it was suicide. ‘It’s very murky,’ admits Simon.
Peter King sold the club in 2005 to theatre impresario Sally Greene, and despite a difficult start, it’s now back on track. Could it be here in another 60 years? ‘I hope so,’ says Simon. ‘A legend has built up about this place and we aspire to live up to people’s expectations. I often tell the staff, “There are people here for the first time tonight, don’t mess it up for them.”’