I have been in Ronnie Scott’s many, many times, but never on a Saturday afternoon and have certainly never had my heart broken there. Ronnie’s is all about elation, not regret. But then, on a recent Saturday, I was about to give something precious away. An instrument.

         (PHOTO: JONATHAN FUTRELL)

Some years ago, I was working on a novel [Trans Am] set in a trailer park in the US. I wanted the hero to be a trumpet player and, at some point, to have to sell his horn in order to fund a search for a young lad who had gone missing from the park. I tracked down top trumpet player Guy Barker, whom I had seen and heard at Ornette Coleman and Billy Cobham gigs and asked him if he would help with some technical details. Yes, he said. When we went to get taxis home, it turned out we lived in parallel roads in Muswell Hill (he’s in Chiswick now and I’m in Kentish Town). We became friends and have even collaborated on projects since then.

         I eventually bought myself a rather careworn trumpet and set about practicing not just the playing but the stripping down and cleaning rituals (prior to the hero hocking it). My wife Deborah even bought me lessons, from a young man called Henry Collins who went on to play in the Amy Winehouse Band. In fact, he still does – they are regulars at places like Koko in Camden and are currently touring what we used to call The Continent.

         When I finally delivered the book, my editor loved it. Apart from one thing. “Lose the trumpet player,” he said. “But I’ve just learned to play Love Theme from Spartacus,” I protested, to no avail. My protagonist became a guitarist. But I didn’t buy a guitar. I wasn’t going to make that mistake twice.

         During the course of my over-research into the trumpet, I had mentioned how much I loved the warmer, more melancholic sound of the slightly larger flugelhorn, as played by Kenny Wheeler, Art Farmer and Ian Carr. Me and my big mouth. I had a big birthday coming up and, unbeknownst to me, Deb plotted to buy me one.

         She went to a well-known brass instrument and explained what she wanted and was duly presented with a shiny Flugel on the counter top. “Hold on,” she said. “I’m not sure. Do you mind if I make a phone call?” The assistant shrugged. Deb called Guy, who was in Hong Kong. “Put the server on,” he said. Deb handed her phone over, saying “It’s Guy Barker.”

         The assistant went pale. After some spluttering, he said “No, Guy. Yes, Guy. You’re right, this isn’t the flugelhorn she’s looking for. I’ll sort it.”

         And he did. It’s a lovely instrument, but I simply don’t do it justice. I sort of played it at my daughter’s wedding recently, although luckily Guy stepped out from behind a curtain to perform Cole Porter’s I Love You as intended.

      Guy Barker  (PHOTO: JAMES CHRISTOS)

  It has mostly been back in its case since then, although I sometimes lift it out to give it a polish and oil the valves. The thing is, hanging around with Guy and people like Nathan Bray and Tom Rees-Roberts and listening to Mark Kavuma, Poppy Daniels or Sheila Maurice-Grey, I know I’ll never be in the same trumpet universe as them, even if I did have the wherewithal to put in the hard hours. And the other thing is, that flugel should be played. It demands to be played. I feel like those people who buy beautiful vintage cars, lock them in a garage  and never drive them.

         Which is how I ended up at Ronnie Scott’s on that recent Saturday afternoon. For the past ten years the club has run a non-profit charitable foundation which supports jazz and young jazz musicians. One of the initiatives is the Musical Instrument Amnesty, which happens every two years or so. You turn up at the club and hand over your unwanted, unloved, criminally underplayed saxophone, guitar, trumpet, violin..whatever. Ronnies then finds a home for it with a struggling musician. Where do they end up? Ada Ologbosere of the RS Foundation explains:

      “We distribute instruments through our extended networks, primarily by holding school workshops at the club and providing grants to youth music charities. For example, this year, we funded several organisations across the country, including Serious Trust, to host jazz-focused workshops during the EFG London Jazz Festival. We have also committed to ongoing funding for Kinetika Bloco, a youth music charity comprising young brass and woodwind players, drummers, steel pan, and dancers. 

Our outreach program, ‘Ronnie’s On The Road,’ allows us to partner with various schools and organisations across London. This initiative enables us to connect with young adults who, for various reasons, cannot or choose not to leave their borough.”

         It isn’t just the UK – Ronnie’s has sent instruments to Africa via Brass For Africa – https://www.brassforafrica.org/) and to  Europe (via Sistema Europe – https://www.sistemaeurope.org/). So, who knows where my flugel will end up? Well, I hope I will.

       I arrived quite late in the afternoon of donations and the room was pretty rammed with around a hundred instruments. The standard jazz joke would be to say they were all trombones, but there were guitars, keyboards, drum sets, violins, trumpets… and the odd trombone. Each instrument is assigned a number at check in and those that are particularly notable are given a star. My flugel got one of those, which means Ronnie’s will do its very best to keep track of where it ends up and who will play it. Ada kindly offered me the chance to go up onto that hallowed stage and give one last toot, but my mouth went dry at the very thought, especially as RS Orchestra’s estimable Pete Long was in the room checking out the instruments. So, I simply waved it off as it disappeared upstairs.

         And yes, I did ask Deborah’s permission before saying goodbye to her gift.

You can contact the Ronnie Scott’s Charitable Foundation on foundation@ronniescotts.co.uk to find out when the next amnesty will be, although it is also announced on social media – just follow the club on whatever platform (links on http://www.ronniescotts.co.uk). But if you have an instrument burning a hole in its case right now, North London’s Young Music Makers charity (which offers subsidised music lessons) will take it off your hands see: https://www.youngmusicmakers.co.uk/.

Soft Machine

Ronnie Scott’s 10^th April 2024

This review first appeared in the Camden New Journal

My wife suggested that a vanishingly small number of readers would appreciate the headline to this piece. So, here goes – it is a play on a track called Dedicated To You.. But You Weren’t Listening on Soft Machine Volume Two (also used for the title of an album by the Keith Tippet Group, which featured Softs men Elton Dean and Robert Wyatt). It came to mind because guitarist John Etheridge of this parish (you may see him crossing the Heath most days), and the de facto frontman of the current Softs line-up, dedicated the band’s performance on Wednesday night to long-term, masterly drummer John Marshall, who played his final gig at Ronnie’s last year with the band and died in September 2023. Marshall wasn’t actually on Volume Two or the Tippett album but the latter in particular is a masterpiece of the kind of jazz-rock that Marshall excelled at.

         The latest iteration of the Softs (above, pic by P Howitt) played the first show at Ronnie’s – 6.30-8pm -a slightly early slot for jazz. It was ”Just after nap time” as Etheridge, who joined the band in 1975, making him the elder statesmen, put it. Whether he had partaken of a snooze himself wasn’t clear, but something put fire in his belly, because he was on blistering form, whether trading licks with the versatile sax/flute/keys man Theo Travis, indulging in a McLaughlin/Cobham like interplay with drummer Asaf Sirkis or turning out fiery finger-shredding solos on former member (Sir) Karl Jenkins’ Tales of Taliesin from the ninth album Softs.

         With no original personnel left, there are those who think the group is like Trigger’s famous broom in Only Fools and Horses – if all the parts have been replaced, is it still the same brush? In this case, though, the better analogy would be something like the Porsche 911 that has evolved over time into a new, yet familiar, beast. Hardly any components remain from the original in the current 911 model, yet the DNA they share is obvious. Soft Machine began in 1966 but the 2024 version has a similar genetic connection to the original.

       Etheridge went to great lengths to explain how the new boys – drummer Sirkis with his five crash cymbals and bass player Fred Baker  – slot into the history of the band, although a hand-out of a Pete Frame-like family tree would certainly help beginners to the Canterbury scene. Baker, incidentally, may look like he’ll be off to sell shooms at Glastonbury, but he demonstrated that he and his fretless bass are worthy (farm) successors to Hugh Hopper and Roy Babbington. The latter retired recently with hand problems, but he can be heard guesting on the excellent new record Other Doors, which has all the knotty time signatures, ethereal soundscapes and earworm melodies that any long-term fan could desire.

         The set was a canny mix of old and new, going back to the sixties for Joy of a Toy – also revisited on Other Doors – and taking in the seminal Third with Facelift and ranging from the abstract and angular (Travis’s The Visitor at the Window) to the serenely beautiful (a flute-driven version of Hopper’s Kings & Queens from Fourth – the flute harks back to the days when the enigmatic Lyn Dobson was a short-lived addition to the “classic” Dean/Hopper/Ratledge/Wyatt line-up). Odd that the new single wasn’t featured. It’s a proper 7-inch 45 rpm number with Harry Becket’s lilting The Dew at Dawn backed with a reworking of that old Mike Ratledge-era favourite, Slightly All the Time. Still, it was for sale in the foyer for those who missed it being included.

         The evening finished with a medley that spanned decades, where the multi-talented Travis let rip a la Elton Dean, beginning with 10.30 Returns to the Bedroom, the final track on Soft Machine Volume Two, and climaxing with a furious Hazard Profile Part One from the Bundles album. The full house loved it and, as on the new album, the band demonstrated this music, rather than being an exercise in prog-rock nostalgia, still has a winning vitality and relevance. Ronnie’s is closing for a refurb over the summer – let’s hope they invite Soft Machine back to the spiffed-up club, perhaps this time in the later slot, not just after nap time.

Rob Ryan