During a redecoration of Ronnie Scott’s, the legendary London Jazz club, a 39 ft. photo of its founder was placed outside its Frith Street facade. Under the picture, one of Scott’s famous one liners:
‘I love this place, it’s just like home, filthy and full of strangers’
Opened in 1959, it moved to its current address in 1965. You imagine the generations of audiences that have climbed down those steep basement steps before you. You seem to picture them, peering out through the smoky darkness to watch a roll-call of Jazz greats – Miles Davis, Nina Simone, Ella Fitzgerald…
Located in the heart of Soho, that ‘wrong side of the tracks’ district of London, Scott’s has become an Institution without losing any of its own seedy charm and unpredictability. Its firmament of lamp-light still twinkles over the dark tables in the now, smoke free, gloom.
This short video shows ‘A Day in the Life’ of the club. Jazz bands rehearse and take to the stage, as its new owner tries to find a candle that will recreate ‘a seedy, smoke smell.’ It’s reassuring to know that, after Scott’s death in 1996, his great venue is in safe hands.
