Blue Note Comes to London

It's taken a while for the storied Blue Note jazz club chain to come to London. It seems they were keen to be in the city for some time but had to wait until the ideal location became available. That location is on St Martin's Lane just up from the central Trafalgar Square. It's in the heart of theatreland and close to the tourist hotspots of Soho and Covent Garden. As bandleader Gary Crosby says, you can take a pleasant 15-minute stroll in an arc through the center of town from the PizzaExpress Jazz Club Soho to the Blue Note London. That's fifteen minutes if you don't get pulled in by the sounds emanating from the clubs. He hopes the new venue will increase and share audiences and not divide them. There does seem to be quite an appetite for jazz in the UK at the moment.

The club announces its presence on the marquee of the former arthouse Lumiere Cinema, which sadly closed in 1997 and later carried the signage for Gymbox and now welcomes visitors to the latest jazz venue in London. It lies deep in a basement (the former gym) under the St Martins Hotel and is a typical low-lit, intimate venue for listening, drinking and dining if you want to. Two small caveats: there are lots of stairs and the elevator is well hidden; tables for six can comfortably seat four so when it's full it will be a bit of a crush. The layout has a two-level floor area with tables and a higher bar space with some seats and more standing room and there are higher-level balconies that give an interesting bird's-eye view of the stage. The overall feel is classy and the staff is very welcoming. One shock for London audiences is the standard gratuity set at 15%—a sign of the club's United States origins. However, you can be a mean Brit and downscale it under a "Custom" button. As well as the 350-seat main room, there is a smaller B-side where more experimental work will be featured. Programming is in the hands of Nick Lewis, who spent fifteen years at Ronnie Scott's, and the first couple of weeks have included some big names—Robert Glasper, Jamie Cullum, Nik West. With Nubya Garcia, Shabaka Hutchings, and Laura Mvula still to come, it looks like they can attract serious talent.

Another featured band in the opening phase was Gary Crosby's Tomorrow's Warriors—a fitting signing as Crosby and Janine Irons have done more than anyone to foster the proliferation of young jazz talent in the UK. The jazz mentorship and education programs with the Warriors over the last three and a half decades have started the careers of stadium-filling and chart-topping performers as well as a host of musicians who give pleasure in local clubs and pubs all over the country. There was a similar explosion of jazz in Britain in the late '60s and early '70s when Ronnie Scott's eponymous club attracted big-name American stars to London and their influence encouraged a whole lot of British musicians.

The Blue Note format is of two nightly shows at 7 p.m. and 9:30 p.m. and performers get a chance to sound check and rehearse in the venue beforehand. Band room facilities are good and musicians report favorably on their reception by staff and support technicians. The show on October 7, 2026, opened with a trio of Tomorrow's Warriors alumnae. In a Coltrane-influenced set, Maddy Coombs led on saxophones and flute ably supported by Zoe Pascal, very inventive on drums, and Genevieve Namazzi, whose bass playing moved as required between fast and furious and lyrical and funky. The combination of flute and tenor on John Coltrane's "Central Park West" with sensitive accompaniment was a fine conclusion to this opening set. Seeing three young musicians, all in their early 20s, playing in a big venue with such confidence and command is a tribute to the work of the conservatories and especially the influence of Tomorrow's Warriors. There is also a shout-out to Blue Note London for providing space in the early weeks of its opening schedule for the musicians of tomorrow as well as more established figures.

With its trademark blue stage backing—here there are huge blue swag curtains—the room is bathed in dim lighting and encourages the respectful low hum of chat that is found in jazz venues worldwide. The missing component for the last several years has been cigarette smoke so Blue Note London has a theatrical smoke machine that puffed occasional blasts of white clouds up behind the band on stage. It didn't impair our view of the stage.

The main attraction was Gary Crosby's quartet with one of the earliest Warriors alumni Denys Baptiste on tenor sax, a slightly more recent graduate Andrew McCormack at the piano and the ever-swinging American—born but London-based Rod Youngs at the drum kit—on one occasion clicking on the hi-hat stand to indicate Gary on the bass had soloed long enough! As well as playing, Rod also acts as a workshop leader with Tomorrow's Warriors so this is a band that knows each other well. And it showed in a couple of standards before they were joined by another alumna Cherise Adams-Burnett . A polished vocalist of real talent, she is another Warriors graduate who had also studied at Betty Carter's Jazz Ahead program at the Kennedy Center in New York. Now Betty "The Kid" Carter could sing and was especially revered for her scat chops—improvised singing of tunes using sounds not words—which this young follower had clearly enjoyed. Cherise's vocal range was exceptional, her scatting fantastic and her command of the stage and interaction with the band were extraordinary. British radio station Jazz FM named her vocalist of the year in 2019 and she has grown in so many ways since then. Her repertoire at this gig included "Night and Day" with an extended scat sequence, a soulful "Every Time We Say Goodbye" and a version of "My Favorite Things" that was like no version heard before and certainly not like Julie Andrews. She is a real talent who gelled superbly with the more experienced band. And it appears that they had a set list a week ahead. A rehearsal was shortened, then canceled, and the sound check was done on the same day—that's professionalism!

So the newest addition to London's jazz venues got off to a flying start. Several shows were sold out well in advance and every show has seen good numbers through the doors. The mix of emerging and established talent sits well with the appetites of the concert-going public whose definition of jazz is broad. The smaller venue B-Side plans to open in November and a new Speakeasy Bar will be added in 2027. So Blue Note is mounting a serious operation in London. Blue Note London's Director of Music Nick Lewis says: "We'll be welcoming some of the greatest jazz artists worldwide whilst shining a light on our exceptional emerging homegrown UK jazz scene which has been on fire in recent years! Audiences will experience the very best of jazz and adjacent genres, nightly in the heart of London. We look forward to making a significant and meaningful contribution to the UK live music scene."