The Jazz Café
The Jazz Café is a music venue in Camden Town, London. It opened in 1990 on the former premises of a branch of Barclays Bank and has had several owners throughout its history as a music venue.
It was most recently acquired by The Columbo Group, in January 2016.History
The original Jazz Café was founded by Jon Dabner and Jean Marshall in the 1980s in Newington Green, Stoke Newington, and moved to Camden Town in 1990. Mean Fiddler took over bookings in 1992. In 2008 MAMA & Company acquired the Mean Fiddler Music Group and continued to operate the venue until it was purchased by The Columbo Group in January 2016. Throughout its various owners the club has continued to showcase performers from the genres of neo-soul, hip hop, electronica, blues, world, reggae, Latin and soul, as well as providing a venue for new and established jazz artists.
It has a capacity for 450 patrons and has a first-floor restaurant.Performers
The Jazz Café has played host to such jazz musicians as Sun Ra Arkestra, Pharoah Sanders, Don Cherry, Jimmy Smith, Abbey Lincoln, Ahmad Jamal, Archie Shepp, Eddie Harris, Cassandra Wilson, Mulatu Astatke, and many more too numerous to mention. It has hosted top-drawer funk, soul and disco artists such as Amy Winehouse, Ben E King, Leroy Burgess, Evelyn "Champagne" King, The Blackbyrds, Jocelyn Brown, Jean Carne and The Fatback Band, plus reggae artists including Lee Scratch Perry, Yellowman, The Skatalites, Max Romeo, Luciano, Horace Andy, Johnny Osbourne and Marcia Griffiths. The venue also showcases music from across Africa and Latin America.
