In the winter of 1965, Ronnie Scott moved his club from its birthplace, a tiny basement in Soho’s Chinatown, to its present, more salubrious address a few hundred yards away. In an act of casual generosity that would be unthinkable nowadays, he handed over the Old Place, as it became known, with an unexpired lease, to London’s young musicians as a performance venue. This was a turbulent time for jazz, in Britain as much as anywhere, with musical forms and conventions being gleefully overturned. The music emerging from beneath 39 Gerrard Street was lively and passionate, if occasionally, as one wit remarked, it sounded “like a fire in a pet shop”.
Mike Westbrook was able to take all this and mould it into a coherent sum of its wildly differing parts. The instrumental voices of trumpeter Dave Holdsworth, trombonist Paul Rutherford, saxophonist John Surman and the rest, 10 in all, not only emerged as distinct individuals but made a unique ensemble sound when playing together. This is what we hear in this remarkable live session, recently unearthed, recorded on 25 May 1968, the very last night of the Old Place.
