Georgie Fame gave a special show at Ronnie Scotts with the Guy Barker Big Band
SOHO is changing. We all know that. It isn’t the same place it was even 10 years ago (thank you, Elizabeth line). But as re-development continues to threaten the area and the cultural heart of the city shifts east, pockets of old Soho remain, like the “erratic” boulders left by a retreating glacier. On one night recently I experienced jazz at two of them.
First up was Gerry’s in Dean Street, the late-night drinking den set up by Gerald Campion (for readers of a certain age, TV’s Billy Bunter) back in 1955. A friendlier version of the over-mythologised Colony Rooms, it became a haunt for the likes of Tom Baker, Tony Hancock, Stanley Baker and George Cole.
But Gerry’s too is changing, it has new owners (there has been a lick of paint) and it now opens at 5.30pm, which was unheard of in the old days. It is still, technically, a member’s club, although hang around the French up the street long enough and you’ll find someone on the way to the club who’ll be happy to whisk you in.
It is also putting on early evening jazz. It has form in this regard, not only as a favoured watering hole for musicians (hello, Ian Shaw and chums) but in 2019, to celebrate Ronnie Scott’s 60th, it was briefly transformed into the “Old Place”, the original club on Gerrard Street where Ronnie and Pete King first set up shop before moving to Frith Street.
As part of the Soho Live jazz week, I caught a few numbers by a quartet set up by pianist Alex Webb with Ineza, a Rwanda-born Belgian singer, performing songs associated with the women of jazz, including Cécile McLorin Salvant, Abbey Lincoln and Fran Landesman (a fantastic version of the classic Spring can Really Hang You Up the Most).
The material may be familiar, but Ineza brings a fresh, soulful approach to it and I was reluctant to drag myself away. But I had a pressing engagement with another Soho legend. No, not Ronnie Scott’s, although that was where the gig was, but Georgie Fame.
Georgie (aka Clive Powell) has been a fixture in Soho since the early Sixties, famous for his all-night residency at the Flamingo Club. I have seen him many times, but this was a special show because he was performing not with Blue Flames but with the Guy Barker Big Band, which somehow managed to cram onto Ronnie’s stage, augmented by another great jazz name, Jim Mullen on guitar, and with Georgie’s son James Powell ably filling the drum chair.
Georgie has had his health problems in the past couple of years and there might have been some concern when he was guided onto the stage, walking stick in hand (mainly due to balance issues). But as he said as he settled in, “everything from the neck up” is working fine. In fact, better than fine. We have all seen performers of his vintage (he is 79) take the easy way to conserve their energy and their voice. Not Georgie, as was clear when he launched into his career-making hit Yeh Yeh. He still has that consummate timing and phrasing, and he was unafraid to launch into high, extended notes, vocal cords be damned.
I recently bought a vinyl copy of Sound Venture, a 1965 album of his featuring Ronnie Scott, Tubby Hayes and Kenny Wheeler and much of the material he performed was on that, including a raucous (and at the time, controversial – was it jazz?) version of James Brown’s Papa’s Got a Brand New Bag, here done in exuberant style with another musical fixture of the Sixties, Zoot Money. Suffice it to say, Georgie sings other cuts off the record, such as Neal Hefti’s Lil’ Darlin’ and Jon Hendrick’s boozy take on Three Blind Mice (yes that one, but not like you’ve heard it before) like he was the fresh-faced nervous kid who walked into the studio back then.
The music was interspersed with well-rehearsed tales from his formative years in London, sleeping on a friend’s couch in Old Compton Street, buying records at Ray’s Jazz, watching his idol and mentor Jon Hendricks alongside later collaborator Van Morrison. These are as much a part of the show as say, Bonnie and Clyde, a song he doesn’t hold in particularly high esteem by the sound of it, but this version comes with a killer, swinging big band arrangement courtesy of the late Chico O’Farrell.
The Guy Barker Big band is filled with seasoned soloist, such as Graeme Blevins and Paul Booth on tenors, Alistair White and Barnaby Dickenson on trombones, Nathan Bray and Tom Rees-Robert on trumpets and all made sure their brief moment in the spotlight counted. Jim Mullen was, of course, the best Jim Mullen in town.
The whole band were certainly having a ball and, with the pressure off from playing his usual Hammond B3, Georgie was notably relaxed and happy to be surrounded by high calibre musicians. The audience too were attentive and appreciative – I was reminded that Gerry’s is a drinking club with jazz, whereas Ronnie’s is very much a jazz club with drinking.
I caught the fourth of Georgie’s run of 10 shows at Ronnie’s, all of them sold out long ago, but here’s hoping he’ll be back next year to do it all again. If he does, don’t miss it.
My evening finished with a return to Gerry’s to retrieve a lost umbrella, and I am pleased to report that going down those stairs after midnight into the noise and raucous laughter of that basement bar, the clock winds back decades and, if only for a few hours, Old Soho lives again.
• Alex Webb and Ineza will present their “Women’s Words, Sisters’ Stories” show at the Hampstead Jazz Club on October 1 (see https://hampsteadjazzclub.com/whats-on/)
• Guy Barker’s next London gig is on September 30 at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, where he presents his orchestral re-workings of Charles Mingus’ music, with the BBC Concert Orchestra and special guests including Lakecia Benjamin on alto sax and Allan Harris on narrative and vocal duties. Tickets: https://www.southbankcentre.co.uk/whats-on/classical-music/celebrating-mingus?eventId=898970
