Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Farrago is a compilation of features from Jazz at Ronnie Scott’s

Jazz At Ronnie Scott’s magazine

Jazz at Ronnie Scott’s was the house magazine of Ronnie Scott's Club in London's Soho, England. Available as a freesheet, it was published from 1979-2006 and was distributed throughout London to record shops and other locations....

magazine, the house magazine of the famous London jazz venue Ronnie Scott’s Club in Soho which is still in operation after nearly fifty years.

Background

The magazine was published for over twenty-five years from 1979–2006 producing a total of 159 issues under editorship of its founder editor, Jim Godbolt

Jim Godbolt

Jim Godbolt is a British jazz writer and historian.During a varied career in the music business, Godbolt has worked as concert-promoter, manager to British jazz musicians, film consultant, broadcaster and compiler of album liner notes...

, acknowledged jazz historian. (Godbolt’s other books include two volumes of History of Jazz in Britain, 1919–1950 and 1950–1970, The World of Jazz and a very entertaining autobiography All This and Many a Dog, which had one journalist describe Godbolt as the P.G. Wodehouse of jazz journalism.)

Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Farrago draws from the vast material in those issues and collates profiles of the Club’s principals and the assortment of memorable characters who were associated with Ronnie Scott’s; facts of jazz history; humorous writing; gossip columns and interviews with famous personalities like John Dankworth

John Dankworth

Sir John Phillip William Dankworth, CBE , known in his early career as Johnny Dankworth, was an English jazz composer, saxophonist and clarinetist...

, Kenneth Clarke

Kenneth Clarke

Kenneth Harry "Ken" Clarke, QC, MP is a British Conservative politician, currently Member of Parliament for Rushcliffe, Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice. He was first elected to Parliament in 1970; and appointed a minister in Edward Heath's government, in 1972, and is one of...

, then the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Spike Milligan

Spike Milligan

Terence Alan Patrick Seán "Spike" Milligan Hon. KBE was a comedian, writer, musician, poet, playwright, soldier and actor. His early life was spent in India, where he was born, but the majority of his working life was spent in the United Kingdom. He became an Irish citizen in 1962 after the...

, Charlie Watts

Charlie Watts

Charles Robert "Charlie" Watts is an English drummer, best known as a member of The Rolling Stones. He is also the leader of a jazz band, a record producer, commercial artist, and horse breeder.-Early life:...

, Barbara Windsor

Barbara Windsor

Barbara Ann Windsor, MBE , better known by her stage name Barbara Windsor, is an English actress. Her best known roles are in the Carry On films and as Peggy Mitchell in the BBC soap opera EastEnders....

 and Michael Parkinson

Michael Parkinson

Sir Michael Parkinson, CBE is an English broadcaster, journalist and author. He presented his interview programme, Parkinson, from 1971 to 1982 and from 1998 to 2007.- Early life :...

 and, of course, Ronnie Scott

Ronnie Scott

Ronnie Scott was an English jazz tenor saxophonist and jazz club owner.-Life and career:Ronnie Scott was born in Aldgate, east London, into a family of Russian Jewish descent on his father's side, and Portuguese antecedents on his mother's. Scott began playing in small jazz clubs at the age of...

 himself.
Humour has played a vital role in the magazine, following in the tradition established by Ronnie Scott at the microphone in his own club and is much in evidence in this selection, giving it a unique flavour, very much a part of the jazz ambience. In fact, the articles are a unique record of a club that is a London landmark, internationally known.

In addition to contributions by acknowledged experts on jazz music, the book’s pages are graced by the poems of Ron Rubin and drawings by such brilliant artists as Wally Fawkes

Wally Fawkes

Wally Fawkes Wally Fawkes Wally Fawkes (born 1924 in Vancouver, Canada (left in 1931 for England) is a British-Canadian jazz clarinetist and, until recently, a satirical cartoonist...

 (Trog), Nemethy, Picton

Picton

-People:* Cesar Picton , from slave to successful businessman in England* Thomas Picton , Welsh soldier* Robert Pickton , Canadian serial killer-Animal:...

, Pennington

Pennington

-Places:United States*Pennington, Alabama*Pennington, New Jersey*Pennington, Texas*Pennington, Wisconsin**home to The Pennington School*The Pennington Biomedical Research Center in Baton Rouge, Louisiana*Pennington County, Minnesota...

 and Monty Sunshine

Monty Sunshine

Monty Sunshine was an English jazz clarinetist, whose main claim to fame was his clarinet solo on the track "Petite Fleur", a million seller for the Chris Barber Jazz Band in 1959...

 and photographs by David Redfern

David Redfern

David Redfern is an English photographer specialising in music photography. He has been a photographer for 45 years and has over 10,000 pictures in his collection. His collection includes many famous photos of the Beatles and Jimi Hendrix. In 1999 he published a book about his life call The...

 and David Sinclair

David Sinclair

David Sinclair may refer to:* David Sinclair , British actor* David Sinclair , former Scottish football player* David Sinclair , Scottish football player* David Sinclair...

. George Melly

George Melly

Alan George Heywood Melly was an English jazz and blues singer, critic, writer and lecturer. From 1965 to 1973 he was a film and television critic for The Observer and lectured on art history, with an emphasis on surrealism.-Early life and career:He was born in Liverpool and was educated at Stowe...

wrote the two-page foreword.

ISBN 978-0-9557628-0-2

External links

more about the book's contents http://ronniesjazzfarrago.co.uk/index.html

the Ronnie Scott's Club website http://www.ronniescotts.co.uk/