After a hard day of elephant hunting it was over to Ronnie Scott’s for a relaxing evening of jazz. Our session started quite late so Laney and I had a chance to go home for quick change of clothes (and a cheeky nap) between hunting and the jazz. It was eerily quiet on the streets when I was heading back into town because of the England game – made for a nice calm journey on the tube!

Ronnie Scott’s is popular as ever. Most people know to book ahead to make sure they get tickets for a show. The bouncer out the front wasn’t exactly friendly or helpful though so when everyone was lining up there was a bit of confusion as to who had pre-booked tickets (turns out most of us had) and who hadn’t. Seating is unreserved (except to the extent that you book a more expensive ticket for unrestricted view) and on a first come first serve but also at the host’s mercy. She/he will seat you wherever. We were lucky to be seated in the second row on the side so we had decent views.

Tonight’s warm up act were the James Pearson Trio who played for about 40 minutes. It felt like they played three really long tunes and all mainly with improvisation. It was very impressive and brings me back memories of when I used to play the alto sax in high school – though I was nowhere near as good as I hated to practise (mainly because I hated carrying my alto around!)

Gill Manly was the main act. I’m not all that familiar with the jazz scene so I didn’t really know who Gill was. She was presenting the Nina Simone songbook (complete with Nina Simone’s original drummer!) For a white lady Gill sure had an awesome voice! She was quite the character too and made for an entertaining evening. Her story of how she came to be singing for us tonight was touching and brought a real authenticity to the performance – you could tell she really loved and felt the music.