Barely dressed in a ripped fishnet body stocking, Lady Gaga chugs from a bottle of whiskey as she prepares to perform a surprise gig at Ronnie Scott’s.
Meanwhile, the legendary London venue’s managing director is desperately trying to stop her getting on stage. It’s not that Simon Cooke has anything against a scantily-clad global pop superstar playing at his sophisticated Soho jazz club.
No, it’s because his kids will never forgive him if they miss a single note of the impromptu show.
On this evening in June 2015, Gaga has just found out her concert with crooner Tony Bennett at the Royal Albert Hall has been cancelled due to his ill health.
All dressed up and ready to rock, she decides the show must go on. Calls are hurriedly made to find an alternative venue, and Ronnie Scott’s happily offers to accommodate the star.
A few hours later, club MD Simon is enjoying dinner with friends nearby – blissfully unaware of the commotion back at work.
‘Suddenly my phone was going bonkers and staff were telling me to come back to the club,’ he recalls. ‘I was like, “Lady Gaga? Really?” and was assured that, yes, it was absolutely real.
'So I call my two daughters Georgia and Phoebe, who are both big Gaga fans, and say, “You want to get your backsides down here…” ‘So they have to change out of their pyjamas and hail a cab.
'Meanwhile, Gaga is with her entourage preparing to go on stage, so I’m frantically telling our sound engineer, “My kids haven’t arrived yet, go and invent a problem on stage, disconnect some cables and delay her going up there”.
‘Thankfully, my daughters arrived and I’d reserved a table for them just yards away from the stage while Gaga gave a fantastic performance. She’s absolutely the real deal as an artist and played with a fully rehearsed jazz quintet.’
It’s a great anecdote – but the surreal events of that night are far from unusual at Ronnie Scott’s.
The live music hotspot is celebrating its 60th anniversary and has hosted all the icons of jazz, plus many landmark gigs from pop and rock greats too.
Simon fondly recalls the time Prince booked a show during a run of hastily arranged ‘guerrilla gigs’ in the capital in 2014.
‘We had just three days to organise this peculiar, chaotic and slightly madcap caper,’ he reveals. ‘But when Prince eventually trotted through the door, the whole building was absolutely buzzing with anticipation.
‘The problem was, his management didn’t want us to have a guest list, but I had 73 people coming down! We had to smuggle in celebrities like Kate Moss, Adele, Stephen Fry, Noel Gallagher and Cara Delevingne undercover, carrying boxes of beer and stuff.
‘They were guided up to the offices upstairs, where we had a huge party with bottles of champagne everywhere. Then I had to gradually filter them down into the main music room in small groups, so Prince’s management didn’t rumble us.
'It was kind of sneaky and pathetic, but it was an amazing evening – if more than a little stressful for me!’
The club dates back to October 30, 1959, when saxophonists Ronnie Scott and Pete King opened a rather scruffy basement music venue in the Chinatown area of London’s West End.
It wasn’t long before word spread, and Ronnie Scott’s was soon hosting giants of the jazz world such as Zoot Sims, Count Basie, Sarah Vaughan and Stan Getz.
During the Swinging Sixties, The Beatles, Peter O’Toole, Spike Milligan and even Princess Margaret could be spotted checking out the scene there, rubbing shoulders with hippies, hipsters, It Girls and finger-poppin’ daddios.
Though Ronnie Scott’s moved to bigger premises in Soho in 1966, the original site has just been honoured with an English Heritage blue plaque for its contribution to live music in London.
It was there that Ronnie – who died in 1996 aged 69 – met the love of his life, and fellow jazz obsessive, Mary.
‘It’s affectionately known as The Old Place and holds many wonderful, amazing and hilarious memories,’ says Mary.
‘I met Ronnie on the first night I went to the club and we had an instant connection. He was so charismatic and I firmly believe I was destined to meet him.’
As their whirlwind romance progressed, Ronnie succeeded in persuading Mary to give up her nursing career to work at his club as a personal hostess to superstar performers.
‘It was the most privileged time to be alive,’ Mary reveals.
‘Our life together was beyond wonderful. We bathed and marvelled in the wonder of witnessing so many extraordinary musicians at the very top of their game.
‘Over the years I met all the jazz legends and still call many of them friends today.’
Ronnie was well known within the industry for having the clout and reputation to book marquee jazz musicians from the States for residencies at the club – with huge names often playing every night for weeks at a time.
At a time when many black American jazz musicians faced appalling racial prejudice in their own country, Ronnie always treated artists with the utmost respect and reverence.
‘It was beyond disgusting how much pain black musicians were subjected to back in those days,’ explains Mary.
‘Artists like Miles Davis, Nina Simone and Ella Fitzgerald were deeply scarred by their experiences of suffering racism.
‘The tenor saxophonist Ben Webster told Ronnie that he had to flee for his life during a show in the States after three Ku Klux Klan members chased him.
'Even when playing shows for us in London, he still slept with a gun under his pillow.’
Over the six decades Ronnie Scott’s has been open, the club has broken down many boundaries – booking not only pure jazz artists, but also stars from the worlds of rock, pop, blues, soul and classical.
‘That was part of Ronnie’s genius,’ beams Mary. ‘He couldn’t stomach snobbery and if he heard a good musician, no matter what the genre, he wanted to bring them into the club.
'I know if Ronnie was still here, he would have been tickled pink by being honoured with a blue plaque for his lifetime contribution to jazz.
'The influence of the club has been absolutely huge and that legacy has tentacles spreading across the world.’
The venue has celebrated its 60th birthday by producing a special limited edition whisky, hosting a summer street party outside its doors in Frith Street, plus organising a concert at the Royal Albert Hall, with a line-up including Van Morrison, Courtney Pine and Kurt Elling.
And while musical trends come and go, MD Simon is convinced Ronnie Scott’s appeal is timeless.
He feels crowds are never likely to grow bored of sitting on plush red velvet seats and quaffing fancy cocktails under dim lighting, while watching virtuoso musicians perform at close quarters.
‘Ronnie Scott’s has a reputation and heritage dating back to before I was born,’ Simon confides. ‘People have high expectations of us and we must live up to that.
‘We do things our way. It’s classy and very memorable.
'Maybe people grow into jazz as they mature, and certainly we all get to an age where we like to sit comfortably while watching a live concert!’
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