Before embarking on a house move (which is the reason this monthly playlist post is so late by the way) I indulged a musical itch I have been dying to scratch for many years attending a Friday night show at Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Club in London. As a jazz lover whose appreciation and journey into the music form now feels perpetual, this has long felt like the ultimate place to sit back and soak up an evening of the ever-progressing journey that arguably remains Americas greatest contribution to world and musical culture. Ronnie Scott’s has of course been mythologized thanks to its impressive, decades long, cast of legendary jazz names that have walked those modest boards and the kudos that is picked up over the years with documentaries and the sense of jazz establishment permanence it exudes. I have seen those old pieces of footage too, tantalizing images of thespians and faces from the art world sitting amongst the crowd in a smoky, dimly lit, sixties / seventies ambience. And best of all, with inevitable concessions to some appropriate, tasteful maintenance and gentle refurbishing over the years, the place still resonates with the same hazy mid-century orange, underground after-hours club vibe.

I went to see John Scofield, a real deal in terms of catching an artist whose legendary jazz credentials stand up to scrutiny and this could genuinely be described as a rare club appearance. His electric guitar playing was indeed mesmerizing likewise the interplay between Scofield’s lead and the bass and drum support from his trio ensemble. Better still, the seats me and my partner were shown to at the side of stage left felt like they placed us in the heart of the action as we bore witness to John seemingly picking the set list out of thin air, calling out the tunes to the band as he played. And to top the experience off, there were even one or two famous faces in attendance, most notably the actor Simon Callow propping up the bar in relaxed off-duty actor splendor as he delighted in the jazz fireworks sparkling from John Scofield’s guitar. Overall, this Friday night at Ronnie Scott’s gave me the jazz experience I had long craved but nevertheless, I do still have a gripe.

After the main set of the evening there was due to be another late-night set which, as ticket holders, we were entitled to remain in the club for. The itinerary sees a DJ play for at least an hour while a substantial proportion of the Scofield crowd leaves the club and a new crowd are slowly admitted. Nothing wrong with any of this obviously, I can even accept the need for the over officiousness shown to us by the waiters when we thought we’d take a little wander up to the bar before being pounced on and informed that if we abandoned our seats we might lose them altogether. OK, club rules observed. The problem was the music pumping from the DJ booth. If you have ever had a gig going experience tarnished by the house PA playing wholly unconnected music the second the final notes of the onstage musician have faded you might relate to my annoyance. If you have just got lost in a deep live experience, in the moments after it has ended one surely needs to allow the after-impressions to spin and settle inside your head for a time? The sudden invasion of unrelated, generic background music has the effect of a disinfectant being wiped across your audio senses and instantly kills any lasting sensations.

That exact same thing had happened the night before actually (yes I had been on a little musical road trip) at the conclusion of a dissonant John Cale set at the De La Warr Pavilion at Bexhill-On-Sea. He had encored with a free-flowing run through of the Velvet Underground classic ‘I’m Waiting For The Man,’ a brilliant fusion of improvised character-acting lyrics and foundation shaking piano stabs that concluded an evening in the company of an art-rock titan on a real high. So, what piped through the in house PA the second the lights went up? Bob Marley, not someone I feel the need to critique negatively but in no way connected to what the audience had just witnessed, it felt like whoever made the choice did a quick internet search on John Cale, decided he was a 1970s act before consulting a streaming service for popular seventies music. Totally irrelevant to the evenings program that had just preceded. I felt the exact same irritation with the DJ that followed John Scofield. His bland, 4/4 repetitive beat loving sound instantly robbed Ronnie Scott’s of its identity transforming the joint into just another central London Friday night club and not a particularly good one at that. No doubt the DJ in question would argue that his set was a jazz centric feast, but I was not convinced, the odd suggestion of saxophone or trumpet did not save this from the middle-ground-mass pandering tedium I felt assaulted by.

So, by the evenings end, some time in the drunken early hours of the Saturday morning, my partner and I had riffed extensively on the horror that is predictable, uninspired electronic dance music invading and mostly ruining too many public situations nowadays. My point is its such a lazy choice, it is a cowardly option too made either by people fearful of unpopularity or just too narrow an awareness of all that music has to offer. There is, as I have said many times, over a hundred years of recorded music to select from now, there really is no excuse for opting to play anything crap. By the end of the night, we had formed a new collective called CLUBBED and were hatching plans to assault social media looking to swell our numbers, you never know we might even be a silent majority. CLUBBED is the Collective Lacerating Ubiquitous Bland Boring Electronic Dance. As the later morning arrived and sobriety fought its way back to the table, we realized the name is possibly a bit wordy. Then it dawned on us the whole idea was a bit rubbish really. Enjoy the playlist…