Just a note to visitors to my mymymyspace..for a good few years now, I've been playing regularly at these INDEPENDENTLY run clubs....The Vortex and The 606 Club, Chelsea. Sure, go check Ronnie Scott's..it's a jazz institution, a seemingly immortal shrine.I played five shows there before Xmas. The staff were a dream, the audiences a pleasure to sing to. Dean Street, Pizza Express is another wonderful club. I was delighted to be invited to curate a week there in March. Balls were nightly had.The staff are angels, the sound engineers perfect.

    How-bleedin-ever...The Vortex is a unique and self-generated labour of love. Headed buy the passionate David Mossman, a Neil Diamond fanatic, now resident (along with Christine Tobin and Phil Robson, diamonds themselves) in marvlus Margate, this club boasts a team of glorious, music loving freaksters; Oli (Babel) Weindling and Will Gresford being the well-oiled wheels, the growling belly of the operation. Alongside the crackdens and piano bars of Amsterdam, I cut my milk teeth here in the eighties. That the new (Dalston Square) site works beautifully, is a given. That the writer, Chris Parker understands all that is vital to the club's programme is apparent on their website. That the audiences are varied and constant is a joy to the London scene..all this makes for an important piece of this city's jazz-related live music hub.May the god of dotted rhythms forever bless your portals. May there forever be Smirnoff at my gig.

                                 THE 606 CUB, 90, LOTS ROAD, SW3.

     Steve Rubie is a musician.He is also foolish enough to be the owner of THE MOST IMPORTANT JAZZ CLUB IN THE WORLD. His dogged determination to present forty bands a month is a staggering tribute to why we do what we do. Forgive my personal micro-journal, but...this is where I met Mark Murphy, had dinner with Pat Metheny, fell in (and out of ) love, realised that if you don't have the truth and internal connection of Liane Carroll, you must work in Biscuits, met the Stacey Brothers, heard Gary Husband play piano, fell asleep in James's mini, did "Jazz At The 606" for BBC2, countless photo-sessions, TV interviews, sat in (or on!) on endless pal's gigs, heard the incredible pianist, Tim Lapthorn, showed Polly Gibbons one of her future homes,met Bernard Purdie, dentists, actors, dancers, lawyers, doctors, thieves, queens, prime-ministers, healers, runners, priests, Bobby Wellins, Liza Tarbuck, Sooty...

   The club is cherished by all, yet strangely, occasionally sidestepped by critics; that unfathomable, elite shower (some great, some egocentric and well, ungreat) that lend a valid printed propulsion to our humble artforms. What more do you need from a jazz club? I tell you..zilch. Steve's club has the fucking lot; a proper kitchen, great beers and wines, artless and important employees, a great sound system, a committed manager; but above and beyond all other clubs, a programming policy that serves all tastes, supports great European and Latin musics...and doesn't in any way stumble into any notion of corporate, greedy, tired old tricks. (Would that I could ponders Rubie!!) Stay put mate.There would be no UK jazz without you. Thanks Steve.